Free The Mysterious Case of Mr. Strangeway (The St. Croix Chronicles) by Karina Cooper

has always been like that; a creature crafted to dominate every room, every conversation, all things. Time has only refined the effect.
    “So, the little sparrow is awake,” came my quarry’s greeting, one whose dry-as-toast tones did little to pry my wide-eyed stare from the black glower of his companion.
    Strangeway noticed, for he ran a bare hand through his mussed, close-cropped brown hair and turned his aggrieved exasperation to the side. “Hawke, for God’s sake, do refrain from frightening this one into a stupor.”
    “Her, you say.” Hawke’s derision as palpable. “How can you be sure, under the grime?” He gave me no chance to mount a defense, for his gaze slid somewhere past my shoulder, and he clipped off a few short, sharp syllables.
    The girl under whose gaze I awoke answered back, but whatever it was they discussed, I could not decipher its intent. If Strangeway knew the foreign gibberish they spoke, he did not share, his heavy-lidded gaze studying me with mild interest over the rim of the spirits he imbibed.
    Awkward, I stood in my too-big clothing, aware that I resembled a chimney sweep from crown to boots. Yet I could not resist the lure of the fireplace stoked in the open study, or the glint of gold beneath the map.
    Or the map itself, with its London streets outlined in stark black ink.
    Part of this fascination stemmed from the opium I had been given. It paints a trilling symphony along the brain, gilding much of one’s senses in delight—or allowing the insidious thrill of imminent danger to turn to something guiltily provoked.
    I seized upon their communal disinterest. “I demand to know what has happened,” I declared, striding fully into the warmed study.
    Hawke’s gaze once more shifted, this time to pin mine.
    I cupped a hand around the wound in my side, feeling suddenly defensive. Yet I raised my chin. “I’m on collector’s business, you know.”
    Strangeway’s sigh stung no less than Hawke’s derisive laughter. “That again,” the former muttered, his lilting accent doing little to ease the hurt. He stretched out his long legs, utterly unconcerned by the trace remnants of station dust and dirt clinging to them. His booted feet crossed at the ankle, without a care in the world.
    “Don’t be a fool,” Hawke added, earning my ire with an immediacy that bit deep. “You’ve lost whatever little game you attempted to play.”
    My teeth set as I matched glower for glower—though that I matched wills with two grown men, and one much more forceful than the other, caused sweat to sweep across my already filthy skin. “I am playing no game,” I retorted, “and if I were, I would win.”
    “Not even should you bring help,” Hawke replied. The cutting edge of his arrogance, less polished than it would become, was no less sharp. “Which you should have, obviously.”
    I scowled. “You would not say that if I weren’t female.”
    “I would say it even if I had not been assured of your sex,” he replied in glib dismissal of my apparent deficiency of notable curvature, “for you obviously lack all sense.”
    Allowing the byplay, Strangeway used the opportunity to drain his glass. Then, as if he had not borne witness to the jibes between his companion and I, he asked lazily, “What’s your name, lass?”
    My attention turned abruptly to him. It had been a very long time since I had been forced to think so quickly at a push, and this time, I stumbled. “I—That is...” Names, garbled and unfamiliar, cluttered in my opium-riddled thoughts.
    Hawke’s arms folded over his chest.
    “Naturally,” Strangeway drawled in his languid lilt, as if he’d come to a conclusion amid my stuttering. “You said that you were hunting on that train. What is your notice, then?”
    My gaze narrowed. Did I tell him that he was it? “Why?” A hedged demand, seeking time to think.
    Hawke’s gaze did not leave my face, his eyebrows now knotted in thinned patience.
    “Momentary interest,”