Chapter 1
You robbed her of it, she’d thought, that dignity.
(The vessels in her eyes had burst. He’d ripped out chunks of her hair.)
She’d reached up, long broken fingers, broken nails—stared up through watery blood, they’d fit that tube down her throat, bite mark on her jaw—her long little hand. Rhaenyra had taken it.
I love you, she’d offered. Mysaria oft went to sleep when she said sorry. Didn’t want to hear it anymore. I love you, I love you, sweetling.
That was enough of what she’d wanted from the world, apparently.
(Her neck was black-purple. Rhaenyra brought the covers up to it.)
The sun had shone brightly; a last and final quiet.
She’d walked headlong into the rain; felt it falling down her body.
Haunt me, she’d told her.
Going blah blah, in central London, something something, whisky—borrow your gun.
With pleasure, Uncle said.
She’d turned it over on its side in his smoky back room and traced slow that silver etching before the serial scratched out.
(The silencer.)
Dark Sister.
It’s illegal, said Uncle. So no telling.
(And she’d purely, in that sole and free and out-of-body moment, laughed.)
Red lip. Red dress. Long hair, silver, curling at the edges—black shoes. Shades. Black lace. Fur coat. Neck. Little black duffel.
The fifty-fifth floor. I have an appointment.
The concierge had grinned and panted all the way to the lift—
Yes ma’am, like a dog, head up right here.
Mad, she’d thought, mad how easy.
(She’d knocked on the door and he’d plodded to it like a toddler and swung it open wide—
Mad, mad how easy—)
One pistol whip to the side of the temple and she could practically watch his skull vibrate like a bell—stepped in and shut the door, locked, latched it—dropped the duffel by the counter, one step then two—him stumbling, broken glasses, greying hair, big man—he’d held a hand out, she’d shot off a finger. He’d scrambled and screamed like an animal and blood-soaked his glass coffee table trying to find purchase on its edge—
Another whip again and then he started moving strangely. Strokey. Or short-circuiting.
Shed her coat while she watched. He was still scrambling weird, limbs out of concert. Mouth moving going barbarbar or whatever. Like the Romans had heard from the Goths.
Turned to paw through the duffle, once it grew boring. Too easy.
Campolin butterfly to the groin. Campolin butterfly to the thigh.
Bar! He’d cried, bar bar bar—!
She’d sat with her knees on his chest. They say it’s not about sex. Flicked the switchblade stiletto. He stared at it in terror, like a little cartoon. It’s about power.
She’d dug her fingers round his throat.
(I wonder if I could choke you, she’d thought, for six whole minutes—)
Your whole life in my hand. Latching to your mother and boyhood. The way you feel as you fall asleep. The day you turned eighteen.
(Her mother had said it once. They don’t pray to the stranger, actually.)
And he’d looked up in that moment, that beautiful, petrified, utter dependence, soul-shaken reverence, that adherent’s devotion, that fear of gods—
“The Romans struck off marble noses,” she’d crooned, and chose her angle on his face. “To strip the dignity of the soul.”
She’d hacked it away after.
(Watched long silver locks gather and tangle; watched them fall, circle the drain—)
I’d been good at this at uni, once.
Measured the pieces by her eyes. One cut. Put the little gloves on after that.
Dyed it black.
(Blue, in a certain light.)
It’s been five years, Uncle says, eventually.
He pours Laphroaig. She brushes back black waves.
(It’s silent, in his library; silent and smoky and dark, always.)
Meets his eyes. I’m not giving up the gun.
Or the ghost, he murmurs.
There’s a speck of blood on her wrist. His eyes drift away.
She looks down at the file on his desk; back up at Beesbury.
Thumbs the edge of her sweater. “I don’t understand.”
He raises a brow. “No?”
“My serial killer.” She stares open at him. He stares right back. “Has just been serial killed.”
He leans back. Folds his hands. “It seems you understand quite perfectly.”
“Thames House is certain.”
“Thames House is gravely unconcerned.” His eyes flicker to the newspapers, again—slotted for shredding under those long thin windows. You don’t have to work in the basement, she’d once told him. There’s a whole house. He’d demurred. The young need the sunlight, you know. “He matches our testimonial descriptions. Eyewitness statements, the DNA evidence—well, all but one—but then, the expiry date on the—”
“I’ve read the report.”
“Then I suppose the pertinent question is whether you’re certain.” Raises his brows behind his glasses; open, unjudging as ever. “Detective Inspector. You’ve got more experience with Nine than anyone.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know.” Stares down at it, again; that primary-school green. “I still didn’t believe he was wealthy.”
His eyes crinkle. “A win for Agent Strong?”
She ignores that. “There’s no evidence this was a serial killing.”
“No? Clean, impersonal, process-oriented, gratuitous, staged, gratifying—nearly forty minutes, they think, between the blunt trauma to the skull and the—”
“And I’m not convinced it’s impersonal. It’s brutal, and if he really is Nine, he’d killed four women and attacked—”
“Prostitutes.”
“Sex workers.”
“Ah, your generation—you know, synonyms don’t denote a difference, by definition—yes, sex workers.”
“So maybe it’s revenge.”
“Highly unlikely.”
“Messy for a serial process.”
He raises a brow. “The nose was removed,” he drawls. “Again.”
“Only two in five years.”
“Dahmer began with two in eleven.”
“Rich, powerful men are the last victims of serial murder.”
He hums, hands open. “Then I suppose I’m only curious your theory.” Fixes her with that steady gaze. “We both know this isn’t organised crime.”
“No. Harwin would have found it.” She sighs. Purses her lips. “But—” Fuck. “I suppose they did know enough. Enough to not leave DNA.”
Beesbury leans back. “Yes, well—there was DNA, as you saw. Women’s DNA. Multiple women—littered across him, the condo. Still processing matches.”
“But not another man. The killer.”
“Apparently not.” He tilts his head. “Unless you imagine a female.”
“Nine-to-one odds against for any killing. Worse odds for serial killing.”
“Indeed.”
“And she’d be uncommonly strong.” Eyes flicker down to the file, again. “The blunt trauma.”
“But not impossibly.”
“And any of this isn’t cause for a deep—” She waves a hand. “Perhaps sort of alarmist concern.”
“That’s for CID to decide. In any case.” Gestures to the other file. It’s black, this time. His eyes are watery, in the lamplight. “Six.”
He looks back up at her. She only stares.
He raises a brow in the silence. “I’d have thought you’d be happy.”
She takes the file, then—quick, like she thinks he might snatch it back. “I should have stayed on Six from the beginning.”
He looks long back at her. He doesn’t have to say it.
You had a breakdown in Old Bailey—
“I’ll get to it.”
The wood stairs still creak, when she climbs them.
His voice echoes up the hall. “And something else missing.”
She pauses.
“A paperweight, as you’d have it,” he calls. “From the flat where they’ve found Nine. Quite special apparently. Gold.” Hears his papers shuffling, then. “Shaped like a waterwheel.”
“You know, I don’t appreciate this caricature,” Harwin says, leaning tired on her passenger side, “As some big, dumb slob.”
Her eyes are glued to the pavement across the street. “No, Agent Strong.” Drums her fingers along the wheel. “Big slob only.”
“I’m a stellar intelligence partner, in fact.”
“You’ve gotten cheese dust all over my seating.”
She hears the Walker’s packet crinkle shut; shove back into his bag.
“I’m no stranger to drudgery,” he drawls, “But I think I’m still failing to see the purpose. If you want her statement—”
“We’ve got her statement.”
“Right, and so I admit I’m curious why we’re in Abbots Manor stalking your victim—”
“She’s not a victim.” Watches, watches the foot traffic, when the lights change. “She’s a survivor.”
“Yes, I understand—”
“His only survivor.”
Harwin’s quiet, then, for a moment.
“She’s still here,” he reminds, soft. “In the same flat. Works at the same shop. Goes to the same pub. Same club. She hasn’t changed, Alicent.”
“Precisely.”
“Precisely?”
“Precisely. She’s not changed a thing.” Watching, still watching—draws her curls up to a bun again. “She’s creature of habit.” And then they’re silent, again. “I think that’s how he found her.”
“Then—” And she can hear the gentleness in his voice, then, hates it—“I understand, after what happened, why you might be embarrassed—”
“I’ve told Beesbury I’ll never been embarrassed about—”
“I’m not saying you should be.” Brown eyes, calm. “Only that I’d understand.”
“I’m not.”
“And you were pulled from the case—”
“Do I need you to tell me about me?” She swivels, then, hand on the wheel; eyes hard. “Do you think I’ve forgotten?”
Infuriatingly gentle eyes. “No I don’t.”
Then.
A flash of blonde among the crowd; that white tote, white shoes—red jacket—
(Harwin shuts up. She titters around prams and walkers; students—hurries to the left. The blue door. Keys in. They watch it close.)
Dyana Waters.
She sighs.
“You could ask her again,” he murmurs. “If there’s anything new.”
“There’s nothing to ask. It wasn’t about her.” Starts the engine, then. “It wasn’t personal.”
A little mist on the car. She wonders if it’s going to rain.
“I know you want justice for her.”
(Somewhere, someone else—at the back of the courtroom, fluorescence, when that gavel came down, out-of-body, and their prosecutor hung is head, and outside of her own volition how she’d stood up off that bench—
She’s lost an eye!)
He watches her still, moments longer. “Are you trying to see what he saw?”
She doesn’t look back. “Something like that.”
He’s quiet.
“You’re not a killer, Alicent.”
She quirks a brow. “Thanks.”
“But if it’s opportunistic—” He frowns. “What if he never stalked? It’d be rare, but what if were even more simple—you’re saying it could have been anyone, what if it really, truly could have been anyone.” Folds his hands. “I know you’ve considered it. But—"
And then Alicent frowns. Looks back at him.
(With that glimmer.)
Leans back against the headrest, closes his eyes as the engine roars. “Oh, gods, Alicent, where the fuck to now—"
She’s not exactly sure how she feels about pushing her breasts up into Harwin Strong’s face.
“What do you think?” Pushes them higher in the dress, leans further. “Good?”
He stares blank back at her. A dead man. “I fear for my job that I really shouldn’t answer.”
She turns back in her mirror—watches him sink further into her sofa.
“You really do keep the messiest flat, Detective.”
She rolls her eyes; pulls the hem up higher. “Sure yours is spotless.”
“It is, actually. I take great comfort in cleaning.” He cocks his head. “So what’s the idea, then? You’ll flash thigh, his heart will stop, we solve the case, promotion?”
“You’ve got it exactly.” Meets his eyes in the reflection, then, once she’s got the heels on. “How do I look.”
“Good.”
“No—” Huffs. “Harwin—what do I look like.”
He raises a brow. “Not sure I should say.”
“This is an operation, not my wedding.”
Scoffing—“Well, quite frankly, like a—”
He seems to grasp, for a moment. She raises a brow.
“Like a slag.”
“Well—” His lips press to a line. “Yeah.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“The profile.” Smudges a bit of the eyeliner, then. “Working-class girls in posh clubs. Quite visibly someone no one around would know and no one around would believe.” Traces her lipliner a hair too wide. “I want to see who interacts with me. And who doesn’t.”
“Still cross about the witness summons, I see.”
She shoots him a look.
“And what if he is there,” Harwin says, then. “What if we’re actually lucky and it’s him. And there you are. What then.”
“He’ll take me out the back—the freight entrance. Bring Arryk. Wait there.”
“I’d rather you wore a bug.”
“You won’t hear anything anyway. Track my cell.”
“Or came inside.”
“Unless you’ve got a Rolex and two thousand pounds in cash I doubt we’ll make that happen.”
“This really does feel like an extremely stupid idea.”
She drops her phone and keys into a clutch.
He’s quiet, for a moment, then. “Has Beesbury approved it?”
Alicent doesn’t look at him.
Readies herself, reaches for her coat. “It’s the right thing to do.”
(He only sighs.)
She still remembers how to dance.
It was only a phase at uni, maybe. Waits for the barman to put a quarter lime in empty soda water—slinks to the floor, all reds and blues and silver—fast bass rhythm and tight spaces and bodies. I just needed to get it out.
(Her father’s voice, still—
What have you done—)
Reverberating hot and cool through her—just a bit at the edges, gratuitous—running her hands up the sides of her hips—her body—higher—
Someone’s behind her. He’s tentative.
(And gentle.)
That’s not you.
She moves away—smooth like a snake—
A hand around her wrist.
That’s more like it.
She looks up, then—she knows she does—
It’s blank, somehow, blank as paper.
The bass starts to slow. Her arms loosen by her sides.
(She knows before she knows—Father going what have you done?—knows before his hand’s around her nape, like meat.
I’m dead.)
A story in six flashes:
The red of the rope by the front door; stumbling out the front door; flashing of headlights and high heels lined up—hands on her body.
Something wet on her ankle in a side alley—old rainwater, maybe—brick and stone, when her head’s pressed against it—pushing her hands against a beast, pushing away, opening her mouth Harwin, nothing emerging—she falls hard on the pavement, black-and-grey-and-red blur, streetlights reflected in the water—yanked back up—
A scream, adrenaline igniting, somewhere in the blur—a black head. Or blue head. A knife, and then another—scuffle between lights on the ground, flashes of silver—
Footsteps fast away. Splash splash splash. Hands on her waist.
(A blue face. A clean face. Woman’s face.)
Come with me, she says.
Somewhere again, Harwin’s voice. Extremely stupid idea.
Hands on her waist—a glass of water in her hand, blanket round her shoulders—flashes of deep blue. Sit down. Something soft. Go on.
She comes to beneath a chandelier. Crystalline.
It hangs from a high ceiling; unlit. Lamplight from the corner. Floor-to-ceiling window, at the end; London sparkling beneath it.
Wood floors, modern sofa. Painting of the hunt—seventeenth-century, maybe.
(It’s beautiful; beautifully empty.)
Her head’s soaring, groggy and muddled, underwater.
Someone’s put a jumper over her dress. University of Oxford.
And her leg’s, evidently, in their lap.
“Hold still.” Blue-black curtain bangs; falling in textured waves before her eyes—tucked behind her ears. Unnatural in the light. Dye. “You’re alright. It’ll be quick, I promise.”
And then she looks down—her eyes spin to focus—
Her knee—an absolute mess of blood and dirt and rot and she can see the purpling at the edges, the matting and her mouth opens and air won’t come and she jerks, panicked, sluggish—
A hand comes down on her calf—pinned. “Relax, love.”
Her breath’s shallow. There’s a first aid kit open by her side. Lithe fingers tear at a cleaning swab.
Laborious, swimming—“Where—”
“A condo tower in Knightsbridge.”
She presses it down, to the blood; wipes in gentle circles. It stings. Her eyes are blue in the light. “I want to go.”
“You shouldn’t.” She doesn’t even look up. “He’s got your clutch. He’ll know where you live.” She discards it, bloody; tears open another. “And what you do.”
She swallows. “I’m a shop girl.”
“You’re a cop.”
A butterfly closure comes over a cut. It’s long. And deep. Her eyes swim. “No.”
“Yes.” A glimmer, then. Something like a smile. “Not that it doesn’t come as a surprise.”
And then—
(And then her eyes focus in the light, and that split-second of three-quarters clarity—)
“Rhaenyra?”
Rhaenyra raises her brows; that devilish who me grin. “What?” Applies another butterfly closure; looks back up at her. “Forgot the best date of your life, did you?”
Alicent only stares.
(That ten-year-old ghost.
Before everything, before—)
“Or at least that’s what you told me.”
She peels a sticky gauze pad from its packaging. Alicent watches. “I was nineteen.”
“And so much younger, at heart.” She picks up her knee, just gentle; repositions it on her lap, presses the gauze down, slow. “Gentler.”
Alicen watches. “You didn’t know me.”
“Only the way the septas meant it.”
Rhaenyra starts wiping the blood from her shin, her ankle. Alicent scowls. “It was uni.”
“Oh, I well remember.” Then she looks up. “Right. You’ll be okay. It’s GHB in your system, I think—”
“No, I knew—I watched—”
Rhaenyra only gives her a sideways look; something like you’re drugged. “Facta non verba, remember.” And then chuckles at her own joke. “Probably sleep it off in a few hours. If you forget where you are, or who I am—” And she stands—sets her leg down back on the upholstery (colder)—“Recall that thing with my tongue.”
She wants to say you’re obnoxious and unsettling, but it won’t quite come—
“You.”
Rhaenyra seems to take her meaning. Fits a pillow behind her head—blanket over her legs, tucked up under her chin. “Hm.” Heads off then, toward the dark. “Suppose some people never change.”
(It was when Rhaenyra had said let’s try something, and she’d spanked her from behind; and Alicent had closed her eyes, arched her back, and—)
It’s dark.
She rises, slow. Her knee burns; her side, too—bruised. Ribs, probably.
(And her head, still, in some liminal fog, there and half-there, and catching the light seconds delayed and focusing like an anchor on pieces of the floor—)
There’s an ambient glow; lights of the city playing off the white walls, marble surfaces. Semi-cavernous.
Rhaenyra Targaryen was always rich.
That much isn’t new.
(Rhaenyra Targaryen did not, however, wield knives, send killers turning tail and run—)
A bookshelf, nearly empty, along a corridor—she traces her hand along the wall, the opposite way Rhaenyra’d gone.
Loose knobs on empty guest rooms; a library, maybe once—virtually empty.
(One sad title, red-covered, alone by a window locked shut.)
And then—
A knob with a lock.
It’s undone. Pulls open slowly.
She can see it then, through the lowlight; perhaps all of Rhaenyra’s things ensconced amid wood walls—spirited away in this one little space, layered rugs and mismatched art, tight-made queen bed, and a desk, and shelves on shelves—
Books she remembers from uni. History of the Near East, fourth edition. Contemporary Art. A long ornate blade on a gold display. Roman Civilisation.
Free weights in the corner; worn handles, half-strewn.
She closes the door behind her, slow; reaches, fumbles for a lamp in the corner—a dying bulb, soft brown glow—
Newspaper clippings amid the desk; stacks and piles of other things, other papers—can’t read it with the lines swimming but then she’s flipping it over again and—
Glossy paper, blue and corporate in the glow.
And an image.
Nine.
(She leans heavy on the desk, unsteady.)
Her eyes whip back to the knife. Blade crystal-clean.
(It’s on the hilt, that speck of red.)
A black box beneath it—moves it over, steady steady, hands shaking—flips open the latch and bile rises and she banishes it, and the panic, too—four Campolin knives—
Above it. Something catching the light.
Shining gold, heavy, rock-solid.
(She shuts her eyes, tight; waits as dark spots clear.)
A waterwheel.
She closes it, fast—puts it back and shuts off the lamp and turns away, with her head swimming, and traces back down the hallway—past the library, and through the kitchen, pristine white marble, and then—
“Looking for something?”
She freezes.
Rhaenyra, by the hob; arms crossed, leaning on her hip, expressionless.
She grasps for the edge, when her knee shakes. “No.”
“Really.”
“No.”
“Evidence, maybe.”
“No, I was—” She takes a breath. Deep, shaky. “I was looking for you.”
Rhaenyra’s brows draw, as if to say pitiful choice, as if to say oh no, pathetic. “Down the opposite corridor?”
“I’m leaving.”
“No you’re not. You’re groggy.” Her eyes flicker down. “And bleeding through your dressings.”
“You have to let me go,” she tries, “If I’m a cop.”
(And she sees it before she sees it, before she can steady that step back—)
“No I don’t.”
Rhaenyra marches right up upon her, fast—intentioned and confident and emotionless and she puts her hands up to push and connects with Rhaenyra’s shoulders as the adrenaline bursts and bites her lip and and and—
And Rhaenyra picks her right up; just like that, by the waist. Lifts her clean onto the countertop and sets her there. Like a child. Moves toward a cupboard.
Strong.
(Alicent sways, a little—grasps for the edge.)
Rhaenyra’s fiddling with the medical kit again. Pulling up the old gauze where the blood’s soaked through.
“It’s still on your knife,” she whispers.
Rhaenyra’s face doesn’t move. “Really.”
“Yes.” Stares down at her—stares and stares. “The paperweight.”
Rhaenyra runs an alcohol pad between the butterfly closures, just easy; tosses it bloodstained to a growing little rubbish pile beside. “It weights paper.”
She sways again—braces her hands against Rhaenyra’s shoulders, as her vision swims; Rhaenyra doesn’t even react. “You’re under arrest.”
She plucks a wrist right off her shoulder; steadies her at the waist, swabs at a scrape on her palm. “Am I.”
“On suspicion of violent crime.”
“Ooh, shivering.” She releases her hand, then; lets Alicent clutch for balance, and then leans forward, slow—“Go on. Let go.”
She steadies her on the counter, for a moment; moves off—the refrigerator opens, a spoon in a glass, mixing, by the sink—
She returns. It’s half-clear. “Drink this. To clear the drug.”
“You must think I’m a fool.”
Rhaenyra holds her gaze over the rim, daring; drinks long—a theatrical gulp.
Alicent purses her lips. “You could have already taken an antidote.”
“You watch a lot of films, for a cop.”
Still, Rhaenyra goes, eyes rolling, to toss it down the sink—turns her back to her, then—
Black spots in her vision. Bad timing. It’s still the only shot.
She launches off the counter with whatever’s left—locks her elbow around Rhaenyra’s neck with her muscles shaking and manages to get the other behind her head and—
Rhaenyra whirls—yanks her wrist right off and turns and bats her off easy as anything as Alicent tries to scramble it back around her throat—grabs one wrist and then the other in the tangle and pushes her back—pinned to the opposite wall. Hard.
Her wrists are locked by her head. Blue eyes, inches away.
(Purple, maybe.)
“I give you a lot of credit for trying that while drugged,” Rhaenyra whispers. It’s gloating. It’s nearly expressionless, too. “Plan to put me to sleep, is it? Call 999 while I’m out?”
Alicent only stares; chest heaving between them. University of Oxford.
“Alicent.” She murmurs, then, softer. Her face is open. Blemishless. “You’re not going to beat me. And I don’t want to hurt you. I’m not a threat to innocents. Or any of your little cop friends. So leave it be. Stay here until morning, sleep it off, go to your station first thing. Or I’ll take you to hospital and tell them you’re on a psychotropic and I don’t know you and leave you there.” Raises her brows. “Hm?”
(Still, she can see it behind her eyes, clear as day. The waterwheel.)
Her eyes lock with Rhaenyra’s; black spots bloom. Her head lulls forward. Rhaenyra raises a brow.
“I don’t like hospitals,” she whispers.
“Fine.” Her wrists are released. Rhaenyra nods to the sofa. “Go on.”
“Not there.” Sets her jaw, much as she can feel her balance failing. “Lockable door.”
Rhaenyra raises a brow; gives her a once-over. “You tried to choke me, remember.”
She focuses on breathing, even as the frustration mounts—“Then go back to your—lunatic knife cave.”
Rhaenyra snorts. Her face doesn’t move. “First door to the left.”
She shoves off, once Rhaenyra moves back—stomps away and finds the door down the corridor and slams it.
Rhaenyra’s voice. “Immature.”
(Thuds onto the bed, for good measure.)
Rhaenyra goes back to her lunatic knife cave.
And awakens to find Alicent straddling her—with her favourite pressed against her throat.
Rhaenyra smiles wide. “Good morning.”
“That was him. Last night.” It digs in closer. “My suspect.”
“Yes it was.”
“I can’t remember his face.” Brown eyes hard, focused. Guess she’s awake now. “But you do.”
Dimples her chin. “Yes.”
“I want your statement.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No.” Rhaenyra raises her brows; tilts her head. “Said no.”
“I’m—” And she falters, for a moment; only presses it in deeper. “I’m holding the knife.”
“True.”
“So—”
“What about a deal?” She folds her arms behind her head, then; ignores that her knee’s in the perfect position to toss Alicent off entirely. “You can have mine. I want yours.”
Her eyes flash. Ooh, indignant, are we. “My statement?”
“Your statement. Or whatever you’d call the reason you decided to skulk around drunk and alone where you don’t belong.”
“I wasn’t—” And something flashes across her face. Something like fuck.
Rhaenyra raises a brow. “Partner launching a manhunt for you, do you think?”
“Not my partner—”
“Sorry, boyfriend—”
“You’re exhausting, Rhaenyra.” She leans up, eyes swimming elsewhere; knife, still—with curved edge Alicent definitely doesn’t know what to do with—digging almost polite into her neck.
(And still straddling her.)
Positive associations are important, someone’d once said, positive memories—
“Fine.” She leans in, again; curls falling round her face. “You first. What were you doing at that nightclub.”
“I own that nightclub.”
“You dropped out of Oxford to run a fucking—”
“No I don’t run the nightclub—Detective—I own it, it’s mine, I don’t manage the books—”
“What does that mean.”
“Well, when a profitable business and a private fund love each other very much—”
And her face screws up again, like she’s just said I’ve bought Mars, “You bought a nightclub—”
“They’re doing quite well in London these days. Especially that one.”
“Oh, it’s the degeneration of society, is it.”
“It’s the clientele.”
And then Alicent pauses.
“Move that knife from my neck, please, love?”
“No.”
Rhaenyra tuts. “Right, then.” She pats her thighs, then—Alicent starts. “What were you doing at the Devil’s Sacrament?”
Alicent blinks. “You’ve never read theatre—”
“That’s what it’s called. The club is The Devil’s Sacrament.”
“Really—”
“No, I’m fucking with you. I was there because I was looking for someone. That’s the reason you got in. You’re welcome.” Raises her brows. “Now would move the knife—”
“No. You let me in?” She scoffs. “And supposedly you knew I was a cop?”
“I knew you were a cop because I recognised you and there was no conceivable living world in which you’d be caught dead there in that and I could tell you were looking for someone and doing that class routine from uni where you pretend to be drinking.” She tilts her head; grimaces. “Also I googled you.”
She only stares down; a half-sneer. Rhaenyra wonders if she’s gotten prettier. Maybe it’s just the knife. “Who were you looking for?”
“Same person as you, I expect.”
“Why.”
“He has unfinished business with me.”
“And Nine?” Her eyes are hard. She’s serious now. “Him too?”
Rhaenyra raises her brows; face unreadable. “Nine?”
Alicent inhales, slow; one, then two. “The waterwheel.”
“Oh—yes.” The edge of her mouth quirks. Almost a grin. “Him too.”
(Alicent only stares. Rhaenyra stares right back.)
“This one’s called Six,” Alicent murmurs. It’s clearer, then; clearer and calmer. “And I need to be the one.”
“For what. Bigger desk?”
And her mouth moves weird, a little. Something at the chin; something like a pout. Longer and warmer and sadder still. “For justice.”
The silence hangs, thick, like fog.
Brown eyes, deep as anything.
(And something like afraid, maybe.)
“It’s not for pleasure, is it?” Alicent whispers.
A bird outside the window. It’s morning.
“Revenge,” she says.
Alicent only looks down at her—quite sadly, in fact.
(The berating only begins after she’s been picked up and twirled around by Harwin Strong—hoisted six feet in the air with holy gods holy fucking gods I called every car in I thought you were dead and wondering if they’re going to come through the floor and onto Lyman and kill him before he even has the chance to sack her—
And, of course, after she goes I have another idea; and he looks at her like he might toss himself off a bridge.)
“So.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. His shirt’s crumpled. And his feet are on her desk (she’s excusing it, for now). “You’ve found—” He sighs. It’s long. “Tell me again.”
“I think he’s wealthy.” She lays them out again—the scene photos from Nine. “He’s a wealthy man. Like him. The penthouse condo, the bottle service clubs. A rich psychopath—who do you kill.”
Harwin shakes his head. “I’ve—I can pull the intelligence—”
“No, just—” Gods I fucking hate MI5. “Harwin. Just think about it.”
He looks back up at her, then. “Your—” Dimples his chin. “Your servants. Maybe. Staff, or—somebody powerless you’ve got access to.”
“Someone comes looking, when your nanny gets killed. This is someone who’s nobody. Who nobody knows and nobody knows that you know. Where would you start.”
And his brow lowers.
“Sex workers,” she says, simply. “You’d kill call girls. You’d kill prostitutes.”
Harwin shakes his head. “And you’ve—” Gestures, vaguely. “You’ve got on word—word of this—person—that some group of men in some circle of elites are tied in on, what, a murder ring—”
“Don’t make it sound like a Bond film, Harwin, I’m not suggesting they hold regular meetings. I’m saying men with similar tastes congregate, and men with resources pursue their tastes. I don’t know if it’s all like this exactly, but I’ve got a dead suspect in a six-million-pound flat who’s been matched to the murders of four of these girls—and come face-to-face with another who tried to abduct me in Armani shoes, and—”
“You remember the shoes?”
“—And I’m convinced as to what she’s saying.”
Her eyes are hard. He tilts his head. “So they’re a she. Your source.”
Shuffling with the papers, then—“She is.”
He raises a brow. “Why the tone.”
“Tone?”
“Sorry. Attitude.”
“No attitude.”
“No, I’m just wondering, because usually your attitude toward people who are infinitely dangerous is one of a respect for that infinite danger.”
She doesn’t reply. “There’s a gala, soon,” she continues. “Royal Albert Hall. A charity event. I’m going.”
He shakes his head. “We’re not doing this again.”
“I’m not asking.”
Brows shooting to his hairline, hands hard on the armrests—“Shall I march down to Beesbury, then? Ask his opinion?”
“Certainly.” She jogs the files on the table; sets them neat down. “It won’t change my course.”
A sigh. Something else in those brown eyes. “Alicent,” he says. “I’m assigned to you to help you. I care about these cases, too.”
“You’ve been assigned to me because you shrugged your shoulders at counterterrorism.” She clicks her pen—sets it in a line by her papers. “And because matters at Thames House are slow. I’d like to proceed my way. As I’ve always done.” Sets her hands down flat atop them. Something like Father. “You can reassign if you like.”
He looks at her, long. Something playing at the edges.
(That look she’s come to know from him. That go on you one.)
He leans back.
“Royal Albert,” he drawls. “Assume you have an invitation of some sort.”
She only looks back, long.
“Right.” He smiles, wry. “Your source, then.”
“Something like that,” she says.
Rhaenyra’s club, again.
(Once upon a time when the lights were dark—when I was young and everything was sexy—you, in the light of a glittering half-moon hung sparkling and low behind the stage, and me, in a dress my father would never have known I had worn, would never have known I had wanted—Rhaenyra when she’d still smelled like cigarettes—
Can I have one?)
Most people don’t return to the scene of their murder. She wears a different dress. Her hair’s down. Rhaenyra’s door man lets her in, too quickly, maybe. Almost murder.
Well.
(It flashes up like nothing and she doesn’t know why—the image of him in the bathroom mirror beyond the steam—grabbing her arm and her moisturiser had toppled and flung off the countertop and stop it, she’d said—)
Stop it, she says.
Harwin’s absolute you’re fucking kidding me look. Indignant or psychiatrically concerned or genuinely gobsmacked or something. She’s had to wipe cheese dust from the seat too many times. Starting to genuinely enjoy that look, honestly.
(Right, how do you even know she’ll even be there.
She will, she’d said.)
Rhaenyra, nineteen, once. I’d rather be alone around everybody else. If I’m going to feel alone that way.
She’d taken her cigarette and pretended to nod. Gods, right, exactly.
She lingers by the bar, for a moment.
(Orders a seltzer, this time, in a glass; watches him open the can.)
Takes a tentative sip. Disgusting as always.
(Rhaenyra at nineteen. You’re one of those girls who fucking hates beer. She’d unsuckered her lips from her neck and frowned. Is that a question?)
There’s a mezzanine level, apparently, when she looks up.
(And upon it—just one person standing.)
Alicent stares until she’s sure she’s looking.
(I know you see me.)
She finishes her seltzer. Moves to the dance floor—to the crowd.
Swaying of the hips with her hair down—hands above her head, a little; hands sliding lower—the slim edges of her body.
“Back again,” Rhaenyra whispers. Her body’s close. She doesn’t turn.
“I was hoping to find you,” she replies. Doesn’t react, even when Rhaenyra draws closer still.
The music changes; something sultry.
Rhaenyra almost giggles. It’s mirthless. “Am I under arrest?”
“Maybe.” And then she does turn—puts her hands over the shoulders of a silk jacket and sways a little slower; tips her chin toward the cooler air. “Do you think I should?”
“I think,” And hands draw to her waist, then—maybe a bit lower, actually—“You think you can put on a tight little dress and I’ll do whatever you like.”
Alicent rests her hand at the back of her neck, then—ghosts her nails through silk-soft shaggy tendrils. Rhaenyra’s hands grow tighter. “That’s exactly what I think.”
“I think you’re quite presumptuous.”
“I think you like to look at me.”
Rhaenyra grins. It’s predatory. The lights flicker on and off of her face—gone and lit and then gone again, in the dark. “Really.”
“You did when we made love.”
She scoffs. “Made love.”
Her hands draw lower—her hips, the top of her ass. Alicent leans up; up and away, almost, so she can look at her, arches her back.
(I want to catch him.
I want it I want it I want it—
(Dyana—)
Playing in her head like a refrain.)
And so she draws her closer, by the neck; looks up under her lashes. “Did you fuck me, Rhaenyra? Is that what you did?”
Her eyes darken. Good.
Closer still, drawing her arms about her shoulders, lips by her ear, her jawline. “Do you want to do it again?”
And then Rhaenyra pulls back just enough to look down at her—those few inches down.
Dark and deep and expressionless.
“What do you want.”
“I only want you to look at me,” she whispers. “Someplace specific.”
(The light doesn’t return. She thinks of Nine. Maybe you really did.)
Rhaenyra’s eyes never change.
She rests her head on her shoulder, soft. “I want you to take me somewhere.”
She takes Harwin dress shopping.
“This wasn’t what I envisioned,” he calls, from outside the curtain, “When I imagined working with the police.”
She pulls it back from the rod. “Thoughts?”
(It’s long. And black. And sleeveless. He only stares.)
Harwin blinks. “Right.”
“It has to be distracting.” She says. Pulls it lower, then; readjusts. “I don’t want them to look at my face.”
He scoffs; eyes somewhere on the bodice. “They won’t.”
“Or remember it.”
He raises a brow. “I thought you said this was—you know. Fucking Etonians, and—”
“It is.”
“Right, you’re wearing that in a room of drunk spoiled twats—”
“Among them some quite dangerous—"
“Who can hardly remember the four middle names of their own girlfriends—
She sighs. Cocks her head. “What do you think.”
He shrugs his shoulders; scoffs again. “I think if they can recall you with any decency,” he says, “I’ll eat my shoe.”
And she turns back, then, to the dressing area—
“Hair up,” he calls.
She pokes her head out. “Hair up?”
He raises his brows. Maybe a little embarrassed. “Well—when we study—in terms of theories of recall and identification, we’ve found, you know, just—for most—it’s always easier if a single striking feature can ground the rest of the—”
“Right.” She says, then. Draws it shut again. “Red.”
Rhaenyra picks her up at her flat.
(It’s not her flat. It’s a safe house. She tells her it’s hers.)
It’s a black car. A Rolls. Her driver steps out; closes the door behind her, once she enters.
(Rhaenyra Targaryen was always rich.)
Rhaenyra’s leaning across the other side—slouching, almost, maybe, like a cat—a sleek black suit. Twisting her fingers in the imagination of a cigarette.
But she sits up, when Alicent slides in.
“Would you like me to turn down the air?” Alicent shakes her head. Her eyes are purple, in the lowlight. They’re on her face. “You look very beautiful.”
She blushes; maybe only a little. You’re not nineteen anymore. “Thank you,” she murmurs. Rhaenyra’s driver finds a break in the traffic—the lights of the city begin to swim by.
Rhaenyra raises a brow. “Champagne? I think we’ve got—”
“No, no,” she tells her. Leans closer, then, at the middle—not far from where her arm is stretched across the back rest.
(There’s an initial, on her cufflinks. It looks like an M.
And she’s wearing that bracelet—that golden one—from long ago.)
Rhaenyra catches her eyes in the light, just softly. Looks long at her for a moment; tracing from her hair to her earrings—the edges of her dress.
There’s a smile, almost, a soft one, at her features.
(She looks nineteen again.)
Rhaenyra raises the partition, then, a button on the middle rest—almost like she’s playing with it, absentminded. Eyes out the window.
It shuts. Alicent leans closer, still. “That bracelet.” She says. “I remember it, from—”
Rhaenyra grabs her by the back of the neck and yanks her hard into the crook of her elbow and drags her up across the seat bruised ribs banging against the middle rest and locks the other round to a chokehold and squeezes.
Alicent screams.
(Claws and kicks and stares up at her absolutely expressionless face and tears bloom in reddening eyes and pulls desperate at her forearm and tries to kick up to leverage but her dress is too tight and her heels catch and she’ll never reach the knife on her leg and fuck fuck fuck—)
Rhaenyra releases her neck. Doesn’t let her go, though.
Alicent screams and screams. Kicks the partition and screams.
The car drives on.
Her spine’s rigid, throat’s raw—nothing comes out—struggles still against Rhaenyra, like struggling against steel—
“Soundproofed.”
“It’s not,” Rhaenyra replies. Calm as ever. “My driver can hear you. He doesn’t care what I do to you here. Only that he gets paid.” Eyes staid. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
Her chest, heaving—up and down, and up and down—she nods.
“You do? About where we’re going?”
Alicent only stares.
And then Rhaenyra pulls her—Alicent gasps—not hard; but firm. So she’s faced forward. Lips just behind her ear.
“When you’re with me,” she murmurs, easy, “Don’t forget who has the power.”
And then she releases her. Sets her back in her seat against the headrest. Like nothing had happened at all.
Rhaenyra pushes an errant curl back behind her ear, while she labours for breath. Picks a speck of dust off her dress.
“Sorry, love,” and takes her limp hand, soft, squeezes. “You’re perfectly safe with me.”
It’s her father’s world. And it shines every time.
Glitter and gleaming and gold and silver trays—a sea of black and whites and sparkling-yellow lights, reflecting off of shining black shoes, black drinks—golden walls and ceilings and banisters and buttresses and of course, that endless, endless, sea of red.
Her hair looks blue against it. Alicent takes her arm.
(Takes a moment, in that moment, to press closer to Rhaenyra’s jacket—figure out if there’s something hard and metal in it, and—
Of course there is.)
Rhaenyra raises a brow, when she feels her push closer.
Smirks. “I’m just happy to see you.”
(Her throat fucking hurts and still Alicent rolls her eyes.)
Rhaenyra moves in and out, weaves through the crowd over time—makes small talk. Yes of course—shooting again. Oh no, well, you know what my father used to say. No Jasper—I have absolutely no recollection of what your father used to say. Except ‘more whisky.’
(And the woman on his arm—Alicent spots it immediately.
Call girl.)
Excess and odd chatter and spoils. People look at Rhaenyra strangely. With trepidation, maybe. The only time she leaves is to clap someone on the shoulder—Alicent catches only pieces. My uncle. Sips her wine; memorises names; faces.
It’s the top of that third hour, wine in her hand, again, the pretense of drinking, when she says it.
“Silver bracelet.”
Sips her own whisky. Alicent looks up. “What?”
“Your man.” She sighs. “Silver bracelet.”
And Alicent whirls—
“Don’t look now. You won’t see him. He’s left, I think.”
And maybe she’ll just choke her right back—“Rhaenyra—”
“Easy, Inspector Morse.” She rolls her eyes. Alicent resists the urge to grab her knife from her jacket and stab her with it. “He’ll materialise at the afterparty.”
“The afterparty.”
“A masquerade.” Her brows raise, teasing, sanguine. “Isn’t that fun.”
“I’m going to kill you,” Alicent whispers—moves as someone scoots past.
Rhaenyra chuckles; stares out at the crowd. Looking for something. “In a little black dress, I hope.”
Rhaenyra calls for her car. And then asks her to dance.
(Rhaenyra sways her slow, eyes gone in that wordless—that cryptic sort of capacity.)
Alicent rests her head on her shoulder, again.
“Your cufflinks,” she murmurs. “I’m curious.”
“Curious indeed.”
“Unless Targaryen has always begun with a silent M.”
“No.” She’s quiet, for a while—looks down, on her hair; away again. “It was for a girlfriend.”
“And you absconded her somewhere, did you.”
Rhaenyra stares out. “She died.”
(Alicent doesn’t say anything.)
Rhaenyra’s fingers don’t move, at her back. They sway and sway.
“And your lover,” Rhaenyra murmurs. “I remember hearing about him.”
Something in her heart still seizes. Alicent closes her eyes.
“Has he been absconded, too?”
Her jacket’s soft, beneath her cheek. “I left him,” she replies. “After he hit me.”
Rhaenyra hums. “After the first time?”
“No.” The music crescendos. Rhaenyra keeps them steady. “Not the first time.”
“You fought back,” Rhaenyra says, then. It’s soft. “In the car. You didn’t freeze.”
“I’m hard to scare.”
“You’re used to being aggressed.” She switches grips on her hand, then—lets Alicent reposition her fingers. “Freezing is the mammal’s response. Fighting is the man’s.”
“I’m not a man.” Looks up, then. “Neither are you. And yet here you are.” Eyes flicker down to her waist. “Not even bothered with poison.”
“Nor does the enemy.”
Her brows raise, before she can think about it. “The enemy.”
Rhaenyra nods to the crowd. Lower, then; soft.
“Some of them collect,” she whispers. “Others use.”
“Use.”
“And discard.”
“Rhaenyra—”
She looks up, then, as her eyes catch something by the door—steps away. Alicent picks up her head.
“Car’s here,” she says. Gestures forth, a single hand.
A velvet hallway; reds and purples and blacks down a crowded corridor—hard-held shoulders, back and rigid, soft warm skin—
Masks turn as she passes above silk bow-ties. Ornate sadness, ornate joy—gold-shimmery horror—
(She knows Rhaenyra by the body—but Rhaenyra snuck away long ago.
I see someone I know.)
She didn’t ask questions.
Silver bracelet. Left hand.
(Her knife’s between her breasts, now, retracted and cold, and her heart’s warming it, thudding, steady.)
(After the first time?
Not the first time.)
She turns a corner—patters down hot marble stairs.
(She’d shown up at her father’s house in the rain with a rucksack and the two winter coats she could snag; and he’d opened that black door and crossed his arms below that towering chandellier and let her in with disgust, and then he’d sat her down in the dining room and shaken his head and said how could you let this happen to you.
He’d said and what did you say to him, before he struck—)
She steps to the landing, before another corridor. Someone’s smoking in the hall.
The mask turns.
Silver bracelet. Left hand.
Alicent tilts her head. Her mask feels hot.
She draws her knife; clicks it open.
(And now you want me to solve it, Father said.)
She steps out of her heels. One, then the other.
The cigarette drops.
(He runs.)
She presses the bug behind her ear; sends Harwin the signal.
And in the next interlocking second, without a semblance of fear—
Pursues.
(Father used to go shark fishing.)
A story in six flashes—
She catches him down the opposite stairs and kicks him clean in the back and he stumbles and turns and punches her clean in the stomach and knocks her down on her feet—
She catches him down the end of the corridor—the fire alarm’s gone off and the light’s flashing through the dark, the sound blaring through the hall—running against a current of bodies and her middle searing but she can see him, still, like a fish in the dark—
Pushes and pushes and goes—
He waits for he round the corner and lunges and she grabs his elbow and flings him forth with his own momentum down and draws the knife to stick right into the side of his knee and you can try running after that—
He kicks her back and scrambles up when she falls—down again, and through the doors to the ballroom—
She catches it, when she rises to her own feet—that flash of something when his mask slopes loose and torn up to the side—
His neck.
(A symbol she can’t define.)
She can’t find him through the crowd or trace him through the din but the back emergency doors are open and probably and she pushes through evacuating suits and dresses and out and—
Into the rain.
On the street; red and blue and lights and sounds, police cars, maybe a half dozen—the fire brigade—
She rips her mask off in the rain.
It’s Harwin, then, she can see it—standing by the other officers in his blue jacket, a head taller than all—she waves her hand, and he spots her, barefoot, and shakes his head and fuck fuck fuck fuck she knows—he fucking didn’t—
“Fuck!”
Harwin, breathless—“No, a body.”
She could fucking kill someone herself. “Gods fucking damn it he fucking—”
“No, not him.” The rain’s pouring. He pulls her under his umbrella—peels off his jacket, wraps it round her. “A man. Description matches four assaults. It’s a—a very specific tattoo. We don’t have DNA yet. It’ll take—”
“What assaults.” She stares. “Who.”
“I think—” He shakes his head. Lights flash around him, red blue red in the wet dark concrete glow. “I think it’s Eight. Suspect Eight.”
She closes her eyes; breathes in, slowly.
Fuck you.
Her doorman lets her up. Like he doesn’t even think twice.
She doesn’t bother knocking.
(Doesn’t even change her dress before she goes.)
Rhaenyra’s sitting in her chair by the windows. Her lamp’s back on again—the only one.
A whisky in her hand. There’s blood on her face.
(And on a gold ring on the table—one that’s not hers.)
“Well,” Rhaenyra grins. “This is interesting.”
Alicent draws her knife.
“I want to ask you some questions.”
“I don’t think you want to do that at all.” She sets her glass down, then. Blood on her sleeve. Her eyes never leave her. “I think you want to take off your dress.”