The howling wind tore across the roof, but the sudden silence inside my head was deafening me. My heart stopped.
The shadows didn't fire immediately. They fanned out in a perfect, coordinated semicircle at the same time, their heavy boots crunching rhythmically on the snow-covered crushed stone. Behind them, the swirling flurry of snow parted just enough to reveal the face of the person who had followed them up from the bloodstained stairwell.
My breath caught in my throat. It wasn’t Victor Laurent. And it wasn’t Arthur Vance.
It was Evelyn.
My knees nearly lost courage. “No…” I whispered.
The older woman looked entirely out of place against the backdrop of the cold winter sky and the armed mercenaries flanking her. She was still wearing her dark wool housekeeper’s coat, but she was n
