Negative four degrees and zero cell reception.
Dorian Cross picked a safehouse in a nameless Swiss valley where the locals minded their own business and the roads were purely ice. Cassian and I parked the rental half a mile down the mountain and walked the rest.
No perimeter security. No cameras. Just a heavy timber cabin coughing woodsmoke into the freezing dark.
Dorian opened the door before I touched the wood.
He looked absolutely wrecked. Ten years aged in thirty days. The grey had eaten his temples, his cheekbones were hollow, but his eyes—that dead, slate-grey he inherited from his father—were completely flat and steady.
"Aurora. Blackwood," he muttered, stepping back. "Inside."
We walked in. Stripped to the studs. One struggling fire in an iron grate. Piles of cracked, moldy b
