Our Lady of the Ice

CHAPTER ONE

DIEGO

The old clock tower in the center of the city rang out eight times, and that meant the last ship to the mainland was leaving for the winter. Diego lit a cigarette to commemorate the occasion.

Out on the balcony, Eliana leaned over the railing and screamed out the hours with a mad sort of desperation. So did everyone else in the smokestack district, their voices drowning out the clock ­tower’s distant gongs. When the crowd roared eight and the clock tower fell silent, fires erupted out of the metal barrels lining the curb, the band struck their first note, and people poured out of the tenement housing onto the narrow, winding streets.

Last Night had begun.

Eliana dropped away from the railing, picked up her beer bottle, spun in place in a lazy cumbia. Her wavy dark hair skimmed across the top of her shoulders. Diego dragged on his cigarette and watched her, the light from the fires catching on the sparkles in her dress.

You didn’t count, Eliana said, shuffling up to him. The desperation was gone; now sadness tinged the edge of her voice, nothing more.

I never count. Diego swigged from his beer bottle. Don’t see the point.

She stopped dancing. Her skin was already dewed with sweat—they always turned the heat up on Last Night, one final indulgence before the winter. Diego wanted to lick that sweat away. He’d spend the whole night on this balcony with just her if he thought he could convince her to stay, no parties or parades or any of that bullshit. But Eliana had always wanted to see the mainland. It was one of the first things he’d learned about her. And he knew she was exactly the sort of person Last Night was for. It wasn’t a celebration; it was a wake. Another year gone by, and she was still stuck in the domes, still stuck in the ice.

You want to go down to the street? Eliana asked.

No, thought Diego, but he knew that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. Sure. He grinned. They’ve got the fires going, and I want to get you out of those clothes sooner rather than later.

I’m hardly wearing anything right now!

Exactly.

Eliana laughed, covering up her sadness. Diego grabbed her by the hand and pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. She pressed her cheek against his chest, and for a moment they swayed together, out of time to the music floating up from the street.

You want to follow the parade this year? he asked into her hair, already knowing the answer.

I told Maria and Essie I’d meet them at Julio’s.

Oh, hell. He’d forgotten about those two. Figures she’d make plans without him.

Eliana smacked him on the arm. I didn’t know if you were going to show up tonight or not.

I wouldn’t miss Last Night, baby. He kissed her, slow and lingering, trying to forget that he hadn’t seen her for three weeks. Besides, I figured you’d changed your mind about seeing me, you being a cop and all.

I told you, I’m not a cop.

Hey, you’re the one with the license.

That license doesn’t make me a cop.

He kissed her again. They left her balcony, Eliana dragging him through her shabby little apartment and down the stairwell and out onto the street. It was brighter there, from the fires, and hotter, too. Women had peeled off their sweaters and coats to reveal bare skin spangled with glitter.

Diego threw his arm over Eliana’s shoulder as they stumbled along the street, dodging dancers and sparks from the handheld fireworks. The fireworks had been banned for years, but you could still buy them a few days before Last Night. Tradition.

Julio’s, that tiny hole-in-the-wall bar Eliana liked, was only three streets over, but the walk took a long time in the crush of bodies. Diego slipped his hand under Eliana’s thin dress, along the bare damp skin of her back, and pressed his mouth against her neck while she wound through the streets, giggling and leaning into him. Glitter showered down from the tenement balconies, sticking to his bare arms and alighting in Eliana’s hair. This shit-hole neighbor­hood was transformed during Last Night into someplace where you might actually want to live. The whole city was. They might call it Last Night, but it was as bright as day. Light was everywhere. From the fires, from the glitter, from the floodlamps affixed to the underside of the dome, that one glass shield between Hope City and the winds of Antarctica. The city never turned the floodlamps off during Last Night, and so the day never ended.

You didn’t get true sunlight in Hope City.

Julio’s was crowded, people spilling out into the street, holding their glasses aloft. Not exactly Diego’s scene, but he let Eliana push their way inside, shedding glitter and kissing and laughing. It was quieter inside than out, and darker, although just as warm.

Eliana! Over here!

Diego recognized Maria’s voice immediately. Hard to miss something that shrill. Still, Eliana had pulled away from him and was spinning in place, scanning for Maria in the shadows. She let out a shout when she found her friend, then grabbed Diego’s hand and pulled him over to the table where Maria was sitting. She was dressed for the parade: tight dress, hair teased high in that stupid way the girls were doing, too much color around her eyes.

Diego wished to hell he’d called Eliana sooner.

My God, I didn’t think you were going to make it. Maria leaned over the table and pushed out a pair of wobbling chairs. I bought you an El Pato. She slid it across the table.

So where’s Essie? Eliana asked, sliding into her seat. Diego sat down beside her.

She decided to go out with that stupid artist friend of hers, down in the warehouse district. Maria rolled her eyes.

Which artist friend?

The Independence-minded one.

That’s all of her artist friends. Eliana sipped her drink.

Maria laughed. True enough. This is the one I think is a terrorist.

Oh. Him.

Diego managed to suppress a laugh at the thought of any of Eliana’s friends hanging around the AFF.

She tried to convince me to go with her, Maria went on. She gave me all the usual lines about how we shouldn’t even be thinking about the mainland and such. But I told her I was meeting you. Maria glanced at Diego. Sorry I didn’t get you anything, Diego. Didn’t know you were going to show.

Everyone keeps saying that. Diego grinned, trying to scare her. It’s almost like you don’t trust me.

Beneath the bright mask of her makeup Maria gave him a dark look that suggested that was exactly what she thought.

Share mine, Eliana said, handing Diego her El Pato and then leaning over to kiss him on the mouth. It reminded him why he put up with her idiot friends.

You two are awful, Maria said.

Not any more awful than what’s going on out there. Diego took a sip. He hadn’t had one of these in a long time, even though Sebastian always drank them when they were down at the Florencia.

Maria patted her hair coquettishly. I wouldn’t know. I’ve been waiting in here for the last forty-five minutes. They showed the departure. She nodded at the television set sitting on the edge of the bar. It cast an arc of blue light across the floor. Black-and-white footage of the party at the docks flashed across the screen.

How was it? Eliana asked.

Same as last year. Maria tossed back the last of her drink. I’m ready for the parade.

You’re always ready for the parade, Diego said. He couldn’t help himself.

Maria scowled at him. He laughed, took another drink. Then Eliana leaned across the table and started giggling with Maria over something or other, and Diego turned to the television. He’d gone down to the docks on Last Night a couple years back with a girl who’d since found a way to the mainland. He remembered handing her his coat as the dock gate groaned open and the ship slid away from Hope City, billowing steam and cold late-autumn air. It was an old cruise ship left over from when Hope City was an amusement park, and it had all the stupid ornamentation of anything associated with the park, the brass detailing and the word Welcome! carved into the side in looping, old-fashioned script.

Funny how nobody in Hope City ever welcomed that ship home.

Hey, we’re going out to the parade. Eliana brushed her fingers over Diego’s shoulder. He looked up at her, and with the glitter and the television light she seemed to glow.

Ready if you are, Diego said.

The three of them stepped out into the street.

The fires had climbed higher out of the barrels, licking at the brilliant, steaming night. The parade flowed past. Bodies danced and undulated in the waterfall of glitter.

Maria pulled a package of fireworks out of her purse. Managed to get some this year, she said.

Don’t tell Eliana, Diego said. She’ll rat you out.

I told you, I’m not a cop!

Diego laughed. Maria handed them each a bundle of fireworks. For most people, anything larger than the handheld kind was impossible to get, although Diego could probably scrounge some up if he wanted. Working for Mr. Cabrera, being taken under his wing the way Diego had, it definitely had its perks.

The city kept some fireworks tucked away, though, since they usually shot them off from the bow of the ship during its departure. That was part of the festival, the display erupting over the open ocean, color and light blossoming against the black of the night sky.

Inside a domed city, fireworks were just explosives. It didn’t matter how much they lit up the night. The handheld ones couldn’t do any damage unless you got too many too close to one of the fires, and even then the fireworks really only sparked and flared and maybe burned your hand. But that hint of danger was still there, which was why people like Maria went looking for them as Last Night approached.

Maria struck a match, and her fireworks flared all at once in a dazzling burst of light. She held them aloft, sparks trailing along the ground, and sang along to the music pouring out of the speakers fixed to the telephone poles. The city had switched over to British bands now, the Rolling Stones and the Animals and the Beatles. By the time Maria’s fireworks had burned away, she’d been swept into the crush of the parade. Thank God.

We’re not seeing her again, Diego said. Not until sometime tomorrow, anyway.

Eliana laughed. She’ll be fine. You should be nicer to her, though. She’s had a hard year.

I’ll be nicer to her when she’s nicer to me.

Eliana looped her arm in his. She doesn’t approve of you.

Tough shit. Diego kissed the top of Eliana’s head. Come on. Let’s go find a place to light these. Diego grabbed Eliana’s hand and pulled her up close to the buildings, a safe distance from the parade coursing through the streets. They skittered along the dirty sidewalk, dodging bystanders and drunks and amorous couples, their hands always linked. Diego felt a creep of Last Night giddiness, as much as he didn’t want to admit it. When he glanced back at Eliana, his body lurched with desire. Her skin was sheened with sweat in the balmy heat, her hair curled into wild ringlets.

This was how he used to imagine the mainland, this heat.

They spilled into one of the narrow gaps between two tenement buildings. Someone had stretched strings of electric bulbs between the windows, and they dotted overhead like stars, which Diego had only seen a handful of times in real life, during rare autumn trips out on the shipping boats for Mr. Cabrera. He wondered if Eliana had seen the stars at all. Maybe someday he’d show them to her. It might be nice, taking her out on a spring boat in the early morning. Romantic, you know. A chance at a normal life.

Diego pulled out his lighter and touched the flame to the end of their fireworks. A flare of sulfur, a flash of white light, a trail of sparks. He lunged at Eliana, and she leapt back, shrieking. He handed her a pair of her own fireworks, and they chased each other up and down the alley like children until the light sputtered out, and then they were back on the street, swept up in the tide of the parade. Diego didn’t try to crawl out this time. The heat and the light and Eliana had gone to his head.

The parade didn’t follow a specific path, only flowed through the smokestack district, picking up momentum as the night wore on. People threw paper flowers and scraps of brightly colored cloth from the balconies—and glitter, of course, that constant cascade of glitter. The parade twisted and curved at random intervals until it came to the edge of the amusement park, the old center of the city, where it turned sharply, veering off in the direction of the docks. The clock tower bonged twelve times, the sound vibrating deep in Diego’s bones. He grabbed hold of Eliana’s hand, their palms both slippery with sweat. She nuzzled against him. She smelled of vermouth and unwashed skin and the mingled scents of a hundred different perfumes, and Diego wanted to fall into her and forget about the city and about Mr. Cabrera and about his stupid fucking job.

And then the floodlights went out.

It was instantaneous, not the gradual darkening that fell across the city at around seven thirty every night except tonight, Last Night, when the lights were never turned off. The parade halted and became a group of people, drunk and confused. Voices rose up in an unintelligible murmur.

What’s going on? Eliana said. Her voice was nearby. Diego thought he heard a tinge of fear. He drew her in close, pressing his arm across her chest.

I don’t know, he answered, scanning the crowd. He realized he was looking for spots of danger: a glint of a knife, a flare of fire, the dull flat metal of an illegal gun. A word bounced around inside his head, an old word, one he’d heard mentioned when he was a kid but had only understood theoretically—blackout.

Every single electric light in the city was out. Not just the dome lights. The streetlamps, too, and the lights in the windows. The fires were still burning, though. Long, liquid shadows moved across the crowd. Firelight caught in the windows of the nearby buildings.

Holy shit, he said. The power’s out.

What? Eliana turned toward him, a faint silhouette in the murky light. That’s impossible. Aren’t the generators supposed to kick in? Or the atomic power plants—the city was supposed to set them up as backup, right? Remember? They got permission from the mainland.

It’s not impossible. Diego pulled her closer. It just happened.

The murmuring from the crowd was louder, more panicked. People were starting to realize what Diego and Eliana just had—a blackout had happened. An old fragment of a nightmare from their youths. It was real.

We have to get away from this crowd, Eliana said.

That right there, that was why Diego loved Eliana so much. She wasn’t an idiot.

He gripped her hand tight, squeezing her fingers together. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his knife. He never brought his gun when he came to see Eliana, but the knife was better than nothing. He pulled her toward the edge of the crowd. Get the fuck out of the way! he shouted. Someone shouted back. The crowd ­jostled, surged, and a violent ripple cascaded down from the direction of the smokestack district.

Eliana screamed. Her hand slipped away.

For the span of a heartbeat Diego was paralyzed with fear. But you couldn’t let that happen in his line of work, and so he dove into the crowd in the direction where she’d been pulled. He caught the flash of her dress, orange in the firelight, and grabbed her upper arm.

Got you, he said, pressing his mouth against her ear. His heart was pounding. You’re right, we’ve got to get out of here. Come on.

They pushed on. The knife was enough to get people to move out of the way. Most of them were terrified, their panic poisoning the darkness. Another surge of the crowd. Eliana slipped, but she grabbed on to Diego and stopped herself just in time. Smart girl.

And then they were out.

Eliana pressed close to him, and her frantic breath warmed a spot on his neck. They slammed against a wall of cold hard brick. Bodies flowed past them, but they were, for the moment, in an untouchable bubble. Diego let out a long sigh of relief.

In his arms, Eliana shivered. It was a tiny movement, but it reminded him of their precarious position here in the dark.

A blackout meant no electricity.

No electricity meant no heat.

No heat meant the city would ice over in—Diego had no idea how long. This had never happened before, not in his lifetime.

Hours?

Minutes?

No. He forced himself to focus. He glanced at Eliana, and she was staring at the surging crowd, her body almost entirely subsumed by shadows, the only visible part of her the left side of her face. It looked carved out of molten stone in the orange firelight.

This is bad, Eliana said.

No shit. He pressed his back flat against the wall, squeezed Eliana’s hand. They needed to get inside, away from people. People turned to monsters in situations like this. Diego had seen it.

Maria! Eliana shouted suddenly, turning toward him. We have to find Maria!

Damn it. Sorry, babe. That ain’t happening. We need to get inside.

He pulled her again, skittering up against the wall. He could feel the start of a riot crackling around him, the air tightening like a wire.

Something’s going to happen to her! she shouted.

"Something’s going to happen to you, Diego snarled. Come the fuck on."

Eliana seemed to shrink in on herself, and Diego felt a twist of guilt that he pushed aside. Time for that later.

The building’s door was only a few meters away. If it was locked, he could pick it. If it was barricaded—

He’d figure something out.

Somewhere to the left a fire flared.

A woman screamed.

Eliana muttered a string of frightened profanity.

And then the lights came back on.

They were at full power, daytime power, noon power. Diego’s eyes burned at the sudden brightness, little dots of darkness spotting his vision. Eliana threw her arm over her face. Diego stopped dragging her. The crowd had frozen in place, a garish cacophony of color.

A fire licked at one of the tenement buildings. Eliana dropped her arm away, and she stared at the fire like she’d never seen one before.

Diego’s adrenaline was still pumping through his body. He kept anticipating violence, but the tension of the riot was gone, and he shook his head, trying to clear out his brain. Eliana leaned against him and kissed his chest. She was shaking. Not from the cold. It hadn’t been long enough to get cold.

Distantly, an alarm rang out. Water poured down from the dome, falling across the crowd, across the burning tenement building. Diego looked up, squinting past the glare of the floodlights. A dark shape moved across the underside of the dome. A robot, a maintenance drone, tending to the fire.

Everything’s back to normal, Eliana said, although she didn’t sound like she believed it.

Diego certainly didn’t.

After all, he’d lived in Hope City for twenty-nine years—his entire life.

His entire life, and not once had the power ever gone out.

Not once.

CHAPTER TWO

ELIANA

Eliana woke up to Diego’s arm slung across her chest, their bodies tangled up in the bedsheets. She blinked up at the ceiling. Gray light filtered in through the window.

And then her alarm went off, screeching like a mechanical bird. Diego moaned and pulled the pillow over his head. When she reached over to turn it off, she knocked it to the floor instead. It let out a loud sprang and fell silent.

What the hell, Eliana? Why’d you set the alarm?

Gotta go back into the office today. She didn’t move to get out of bed, though, only snuggled closer to Diego. He was naked, his skin warm to the touch. Three days had passed since Last Night, and he hadn’t disappeared into the city for work once; Eliana thought this might have been the longest he’d gone, not leaving her. She liked it and didn’t like it at the same time. She liked waking up to find him sprawled under her blankets, but she didn’t like the break in her routine.

Your office? Diego rolled over onto his back. Eliana lay her head against his chest and listened to his heart beating. Hell, that big PI office gives ’em a whole week after Last Night.

Yeah, but if you work for them, you get paid vacation. I don’t.

Nobody’s gonna come in today. He played with her hair, a lazy, distracted gesture. They’re still sleeping off their hangovers.

They’re afraid the power’s gonna go out again, Eliana said softly, not wanting to think about the almost-riot on Last Night. People were already saying it hadn’t been an accident, that it had been either mainland interference or AFF terrorism, depending on whether or not they favored Independence. Eliana wasn’t a big Independence supporter. The atomic power plants here were the first of their kind in the world, and the Independents, whether AFF or not, had big ideas about turning this place into some kind of modern marvel. But Eliana knew people had used the word marvel when the city had been an amusement park back in the 1890s, and you just had to look outside to see where that had gotten them.

Still, she also didn’t think the Antarctican Freedom Fighters would want to break down the system that let Hope City exist in the first place. They usually took their violence to the mainland, or went after big-time city politicians.

At least Maria’d turned up the next day, hungover but otherwise fine. And someone might come in. Besides, I have filing to do.

Filing? Jesus, you really are a cop.

You want to come in with me?

Diego laughed.

It’s just me. It’s not like anybody knows who you are.

That so? Diego dropped his head to the side to look at her, black hair falling across his eyes. In the dim early-morning light he looked like some classical statue, too handsome to be real. The problem isn’t with your clients, Eliana. It’s with Mr. Cabrera.

Eliana sighed.

"Word gets out I’m hanging around an investigator’s office—"

You didn’t call me a cop. An improvement.

Eh, you’re licensed. Just as bad.

Eliana laughed, tossed her pillow at him. He caught it, threw it aside, grabbed her wrists, and pulled her close. She could smell the soap from his shower the night before, and the scent of sleep. He kissed her, and for a moment she forgot about her office.

You can go in late, he mumbled into her neck, and his hands were already tracing over her hips, finding the places he knew too well.

*  *  *  *

Two hours later, Eliana walked the familiar path to her office. Alone. It was cold as hell this morning, especially now that she was away from her radiator and the heat of Diego’s touch. But those weren’t the only reasons—it was always colder in the days following Last Night, the trade-off for turning up the heat during the celebration.

Eliana pulled her coat more tightly around her waist and ­readjusted the scarf she’d wrapped around her hair. Nobody was out, just like Diego’d said. But there hadn’t been many clients lately, and she didn’t want to run the risk of missing somebody. She had left Diego in her apartment, flipping through the newspaper like he cared. He probably wouldn’t be there when she went home; as she’d walked through the door, he’d called out, Guess I should see if the old man needs me for anything.

A private investigator stepping out with a gangster. That was a story. Almost as good a story as there being a lady PI in the first place.

It took Eliana the usual fifteen minutes to make it to her office, which was on the second floor of a brick building right at the edge of the smokestack district. Last year it had belonged to an old PI named Marco Vasquez. Eliana’d been his secretary. When he’d retired, he’d given her the building and his gun and told her to get her firearm license.

They aren’t gonna give me one of those, she’d said.

They will once you get your PI license, he’d said, and for two straight days she’d thought he’d lost his mind. But it was true she’d been just as much assistant as secretary, and although the proctors laughed when she went down to take the test, she passed, and they didn’t have much choice but to make everything official. It was sad, though, that her mother had died before Eliana had started working for Mr. Vasquez. She would have been proud. It was a big deal, for the daughter of an old amusement park dancer to get a job like this one. It was the sort of thing Eliana’s parents had immigrated to Hope City for in the first place, back when it had still been an amusement park. The park had promised endless opportunities, before wars and revolutions and poverty on the mainland had left people unable to believe in its magic anymore. It had shut down back in the 1940s, leaving Eliana’s parents, along with half the city, unemployed. Things got better with the atomic power plants—more jobs, more people moving back in. But her parents had been long gone by then. Eliana had stood in the city’s freezing mausoleum on two separate occasions and watched her parents’ ashes fly out of the dome.

Work had been steady over the last eight months. At first people had been looking for Marco, and Eliana’d gotten used to the disappointment in their voices as they’d said, It’s just you? Gotten used to their excuses, to the way they fumbled out of the office without giving her a case whenever she explained, patiently and calmly, that Marco Vasquez had left Hope City for the mainland. But enough time had gone by that now people showed up looking for her speci­fically, and that was a good feeling.

The mainland. Mr. Vasquez was lucky. Not many people got out of Hope City. Eliana’s parents certainly never did—they’d lived and died here. She didn’t want to do the same, and she hoped this job would generate enough money for her to purchase a visa out of Antarctica. Someday.

Eliana’s footsteps echoed in the stairwell as she clomped up to the office. The name on the door still read VASQUEZ because she didn’t want to waste money getting the glass replaced.

She pulled out her key, let herself in. The bell clanged against the doorframe.

The office was freezing, the air cold enough that she could see her breath. Eliana switched on the radiator and set a pot of coffee to percolate on the hotplate. The air had that still, untouched quality it got when you leave a place alone for too long. Too long—just three days. Still, Eliana had missed the office, with its cracked floorboards and its thick, wavy windows and its worn-out school­teacher’s desk from which she conducted her business.

Eliana switched on the radio to break up the stillness. Usually she kept it on the mainland station, but this morning she spun through the dial until she came to a news program. The newsman was talking about the blackout in his lisping mainland accent, claiming that there was no evidence of the AFF’s involvement, that it had been the fault of a defective robot from the power plant. The city commissioner planned on publicly dismantling the robot tonight.

Diego hadn’t wanted to hear about it, these last three days. Kept shutting off the radio anytime she tried to listen.

The coffee finished up, letting off clouds of steam. Eliana poured herself a cup and sprinkled in the last of the sugar. She still had some at home, but once it was gone, she wouldn’t see any more sugar until winter was over.

The radio played on quietly in the background, a dull murmur, and the radiator was rattling. Good. It’d be warm enough soon for her to take off her coat.

Eliana turned to the stack of files sitting at the corner of her desk. Left over from the last case she’d worked, one of those adultery jobs where she’d had to tail a housewife all over the city, looking to see if the woman was faithful or not. As it had turned out, this particular housewife had just gotten a job.

The bell clattered against the door.

Eliana immediately sat up, shoving the files into the desk drawer where she kept her pens. She felt a momentary surge of smugness—looked like coming in so soon was about to pay off.

The door swung open, and a woman stepped inside.

Eliana had seen her before. She was certain of it, although she couldn’t place her. The woman looked like a film star, tall and shapely, her hair that peculiar European blond. She glided into the room like she was made of light.

Eliana Gomez? the woman said.

That’s me. Eliana stood up and walked around to the front of her desk. The woman stood by the door, staring at her.

The radio hummed in the background. The radiator clanged against the wall.

Can I get you a cup of coffee? Eliana said.

No, thank you. The woman glanced around the office. Her face was as flawless and as expressionless as a mask, and she wore a gray fur draped around her shoulders. Only the wealthy wore fur in Hope City.

I received your name from a former client of yours, the woman said. Annetta Marchel. I hope this isn’t too—forward.

Annetta Marchel. One of the first who’d asked for Eliana by name. She had specifically wanted a lady detective, someone she could trust with information about a sensitive medical procedure.

Forward? Eliana smiled. Not if you’ve got a job for me.

I do. The woman slipped her fur off her shoulders, revealing a pale silk blouse, a glittering necklace. I’m afraid it requires a certain amount of discretion.

Then it’s a good thing you came to me and not those PI firms downtown. I specialize in discretion. Eliana gestured at the chairs set up in front of her desk. Why don’t you have a seat and tell me about it?

The woman gave a thin, elegant smile, frustratingly familiar. She floated across the room and draped herself in one of the chairs. Eliana felt clumsy and graceless by comparison as she took her own seat.

My name’s Marianella Luna, the woman said, and some important documents of mine have gone missing.

Marianella Luna. Immediately Eliana remembered where she’d seen the woman before—on television. She was that Argentinian aristocrat, the one all the Independents loved, the one in those advertisements with the city councilman Alejo Ortiz, raising money for his Hope City agricultural domes. We have the strength to run our own city. Atomic power should be ours! End Antarctican dependence on Argentina! As if that was ever going to happen.

Marianella Luna stared at Eliana, her pale eyes framed in thick dark lashes.

Eliana found her voice. Well, that’s certainly a shame, Lady Luna.

Lady Luna sat with perfect posture, her hands folded in her lap. More than you could know, I’m afraid. Will you be able to help me?

I’ll certainly try. Eliana pulled a notepad and a pen out of her desk. So. These documents. When did you notice they’d disappeared?

This morning. I woke up and found someone had broken into the safe in my library. It was—distressing.

You didn’t call the police?

Eliana kept her voice neutral, but she watched Lady Luna closely, looking for clues. Always start an investigation with the client—one of the few pieces of advice Mr. Vasquez had given her.

Lady Luna took a deep breath and toyed with her necklace.

The contents of these documents, she said, are sensitive.

Sensitive.

Yes, Miss Gomez. I don’t wish to give the impression that I don’t have faith in the city’s police department, and I’m sure they would never betray me intentionally, but if some newly minted detective were to glance at these documents, it would be— She dropped her necklace. Disastrous. If I hired you, it would be as much for your discretion as for your investigative skills. I do hope you understand, Miss Gomez.

When she said Eliana’s name, her voice softened, her eyes took on a soft aristocratic glow.

That’s why people come to me, Eliana said, floundering a little. Discretion and investigation. She felt stupid saying this, but she didn’t want to risk Lady Luna taking her business downtown. And people did come to Eliana for discretion. It wasn’t a lie.

Eliana leaned back in her chair, trying to smooth out her awkwardness, and sipped at her coffee. I won’t even charge you extra. Ten bucks a day, just like all my clients.

Another light smile. I’ve every intention of paying you handsomely for your work. Speed is another issue we’ll need to discuss, of course, and another reason I didn’t contact the police. They can be dreadfully slow with these things, as I learned when my late husband’s office was robbed. She sighed. Eliana tried to remember who her husband was, but she’d never followed gossip about the aristocracy. She’d have to ask Maria later.

I’ll get them back as fast as I can, Eliana said.

It’s important that you do so, yes. As I said, I can’t have the contents of these documents released to the public.

Of course not. Eliana wondered what the documents were for. Immigration? Something tying Lady Luna to the mainland? She was palling around with Alejo Ortiz, after all, with his hypocritical mainland suits and his speeches about Hope City growing her own food. If Lady Luna wanted to hold on to the Independents’ good graces, it wouldn’t serve her well for word to get out that she still owned property back in Argentina proper.

I’ll need you to tell me everything you know about the robbery, Eliana said, pen poised over her notebook. Lady Luna watched her without moving. When I say ‘everything,’ I mean everything. Even if it doesn’t seem important to you, it may damn well be important to me, so I want to hear about it.

Yes, of course. Lady Luna glanced past Eliana’s shoulder, toward the narrow, grimy window that looked down onto the street below. Her eyes narrowed. I didn’t hear anything last night. The house has a security system, as well as a mechanical butler. An android, I mean, left over from the amusement park.

Eliana paused in her note-taking, surprised. She glanced up at Lady Luna, who smiled back.

You told me to tell you everything. I do hope you won’t judge me too harshly. I know they’ve fallen out of fashion.

I won’t judge you at all. Go on. Eliana wrote andie on the notepad. She’d never seen one before, although she remembered her father talking about them—complaining about them, really, calling them unnatural. As far as Eliana knew, most of them had been dismantled since the park’s closing, and the ones left behind weren’t supposed to leave the old center of the city. She supposed if you had the sort of money the Lunas did, exceptions were made.

I only mention it because he’s better equipped than you or I to notice intruders. And he heard and saw nothing last night.

Didn’t get shut off, did he?

Lady Luna gave her a strange look, hard and glittering like Antarctic ice. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to shut off an android, Miss Gomez?

Eliana’s cheeks burned. Look, I’m just covering my bases here. I’ve never seen one before, so I have no idea how they work.

Lady Luna shook her head. He wasn’t shut off. I’m certain of it. I found the safe myself this morning, around eight o’clock. It was after I had dressed and eaten breakfast. I take care of my corres­pondence in the library every morning, and when I came in, I found the safe hanging open, empty. Her voice died away, and she sat trembling in the worn-out leather chair. She possessed a fragile sort of loveliness that intensified with her anxiety. Eliana imagined this routine worked wonders on men.

Do you have any idea who might have taken the documents? Eliana asked.

Lady Luna hesitated.

If you don’t answer me truthfully, I won’t be able to help you.

The air in the room was silent and cold and unmoving. Lady Luna studied Eliana for a moment, then reached into her glossy little handbag and pulled out a stack of bills. She laid them on the desk. Eliana didn’t have to count them to know they added up to payment for far more days than she’d actually need to solve the case. And it was all up front.

A visa to the mainland, acquired legally, cost nearly three thousand dollars. An illegal one cost even more, and neither would get you a ticket for the reinforced ships sailing back and forth across stormy Drake Passage, which could cost as much as a thousand, depending on the time of year. She’d been saving idly for a visa and a ticket ever since her parents had died, but with this kind of money she might actually start to make headway.

I realize that you’re professionally obligated to report criminal activity, Lady Luna said softly. But I hope your discretion can extend a bit further than you’re used to.

Eliana shoved the notepad aside. Now the case was getting interesting. What is it? You in trouble, Lady Luna?

Her eyes were luminous. It’s not me, she said. "It was my husband. But I don’t want word to get out, you understand. He passed away six months ago, and I would hate for all this to come out now—"

I won’t go to the cops. But if you want your documents back, you’ve got to tell me.

Lady Luna drew herself up, her spine as straight as a doll’s. As an andie’s. He occasionally did business with Ignacio Cabrera.

The words rang out against the cold of the room. But Eliana had been seeing Diego for the last year. She wasn’t exactly shocked by people’s involvement with Cabrera.

A bit more scandalous than owning a mechanical butler, Lady Luna said. "I hope this won’t sully our arrangement, Miss Gomez. I never had dealings with the man myself, barely even spoke to him, but I knew about my husband’s arrangement, and I—" She looked off to the corner of the room.

Eliana’s chest twinged. She realized she actually felt sorry for Lady Luna, even if the woman was rich and beautiful and could get out of this city in a heartbeat if she wanted to. Lady Luna took a deep breath, her shoulders rising and falling, and Eliana knew it was time to remind Lady Luna that she wasn’t hiring just any private investigator.

Eliana stood up, walked around the desk, and sat down in the empty chair beside Lady Luna. She rested her hand on top of Lady Luna’s, the glove soft and velvety against her fingers. Lady Luna looked at their hands, unmoving.

I’m not going to take you to the cops, Eliana said. "I