Litany of Winter

Johann Peters did not move at once. Neumann had already lowered the list, but Johann kept looking at him.

Several seconds passed before his right hand went to the watch in his vest pocket.

Johann opened the watch and checked the face. Severin had seen him reach for it all morning, before Paul went down and again while Rafael was below.

This time Johann closed the watch and held it before setting it on the bench beside him.

”It’s best you leave that here,” Neumann said.

Johann nodded and took off his coat. The first fold sat crooked, so he redid it. He placed the watch on top and nudged it farther from the edge of the bench. Martin looked away as Johann straightened.

”Ready.”

Neumann gave him the same final chance he had given the others. Johann listened without interrupting and confirmed that he understood.

The surgeon opened the inner door, and Johann followed her through. Maeve stayed near the stair with the iron box under one arm.

When the inner door opened again, Johann returned in the undyed linen shift, barefoot. He crossed the hall alone over the dark script.

At the stair he stopped and glanced back, not at any of them, but at the bench where he had left his coat and watch. Then he started down, with Maeve following behind him.

The green returned soon after, running through the cut lines in the floor in narrow bands against the stone beneath Severin’s boots. The first pulse came through the soles of his boots.

Madeleine gripped the Eternal Ring at her throat and murmured a prayer. Anna stayed beside her while Martin stood with both hands in his pockets, one moving inside the cloth, opening and closing.

Nobody spoke as the second pulse came harder and something struck stone below. Severin turned toward the stair.

A voice followed, too muffled to make out. Another impact came almost at once, followed by the scrape of feet. Maeve shouted from below, but Severin could not make out the words.

The green in the floor flickered for a few seconds before going dark.

One of the assistants came up first. She crossed straight to the supply table without looking at the waiting candidates and grabbed fresh linen with a glass bottle. Then she hurried back downstairs.

Severin watched the empty stair. He already knew what came next.

The surgeon appeared several minutes later with her sleeves rolled above the elbows.

”I’m sorry. Johann Peters is dead.”

For a moment, the hall stayed silent. Neumann picked up his pencil, and the scratch of graphite sounded small in the hall.

Johann’s watch still sat on the folded coat. Severin stared at it until Neumann called the next name.

”Anna Richter.”

Madeleine tightened her grip on the flask. Anna looked at her.

While they waited, Anna had kept passing the flask back and forth, making Madeleine drink whenever she forgot. She had offered it to Paul before he went below too, and when Severin refused his turn, she shoved it at him anyway.

Anna pressed the flask into Madeleine’s hands, then leaned in and kissed her forehead.

”Keep it.”

Madeleine shook her head. ”You’ll want it when you come back.”

Anna gave her a small smile. ”Then make sure you save some for me.”

Madeleine said nothing else. Anna took off her outer coat and handed it to her.

”Are you ready?” Neumann asked.

”Yes.”

The surgeon took Anna through the inner door. When Anna returned, barefoot in the linen shift, Madeleine was still holding her coat and flask.

Anna looked at Madeleine once before crossing the hall. Maeve followed her down the stairs.

Madeleine held the flask against her stomach while Severin remained standing. He had sat after Rafael, but now Johann’s folded coat and watch occupied part of the bench, and he could not bring himself to sit beside them.

The green lines lit again, and the first pulse came through the floor. Another followed.

Anna made no sound at first. Severin found himself counting anyway.

Three breaths passed before a noise came from below, low and strained. Then Anna’s voice reached them.

”Wait.”

A few seconds passed before she spoke again.

”My heart...”

The rest broke into a hard gasp.

Madeleine took a step toward the stair, but Neumann blocked her path with one arm.

”No.”

Below them, Anna tried to say something else. A metal instrument hit the floor, and the assistants moved at once.

Severin heard the surgeon call for Maeve, then for someone to hold Anna’s shoulder. Anna’s breathing came fast and uneven, loud enough for him to hear from upstairs.

A single choking sound followed, and the green lines went out.

Madeleine stopped moving. Her face had gone white. The flask shook once in her hand before she caught it with the other.

The surgeon came up alone. ”I’m sorry. Anna Richter is dead too.”

Neumann’s pencil moved again.

The staff brought Anna up covered to the collar. Tears gathered in Madeleine’s eyes as she watched the stretcher pass, and Severin expected her to step aside.

She did not. At the last moment, one of the assistants angled the stretcher around her. The inner door opened, and Anna disappeared through it. Madeleine finally set Anna’s coat on the bench beside her.

”Andreas Hoffmann,” Neumann said.

He had already taken off his coat, folding it over the back of the bench and checking the pockets with the same clipped neatness Severin had seen when Andreas cleaned a weapon or corrected someone’s stance.

Former watchmaster. Imperial Police.

He looked toward the inner door. ”Let’s get it done.”

The surgeon took him inside to prepare.

When Andreas returned in the linen shift, he did not look at any of them. He crossed the hall barefoot and started down the stairs with Maeve behind him.

By then Severin knew where the first assistant would stand when the trouble started and which shelf she would reach for. Neumann would wait until the surgeon spoke before putting pencil to paper. None of that told Severin whether Andreas would come back alive.

The script burned green. Andreas lasted longer than Johann, long enough for Martin to lift his head. For a few seconds, Severin thought longer might mean better.

A deep grunt came from below, then another. Something struck the stone slab hard enough to echo up the stair.

Someone shouted, ”Hold him.”

Andreas cursed once. The next sound had no words in it.

Something heavy struck the slab again and again. Severin pictured Andreas’s heels or shoulders hammering against the stone while the others tried to hold him still.

The assistant ran upstairs for fresh linen and a bottle, then went straight back down. Just as Severin had expected.

When the green vanished, Martin swore under his breath.

The surgeon took longer this time. When she returned, blood marked one cuff.

”I’m afraid Andreas Hoffmann didn’t survive the pact.”

Neumann wrote. Five had gone below, and Rafael was the only one who had survived.

Severin looked at the remaining faces and wished he had not counted.

”Madeleine LeBlanc.”

The flask was still in her hands. For the first time since Anna had gone down, Madeleine looked at it.

She unscrewed the cap and took a long drink before closing it again. Then she set the flask beside Johann’s watch.

Madeleine’s fingers closed around the Eternal Ring for a moment. Severin waited for a prayer, but none came. She tucked the ring back beneath her shirt.

Neumann looked at her for a few seconds. ”The odds aren’t looking good. Are you sure you want to continue?”

Madeleine glanced once toward Rafael’s closed recovery door. ”Yes. I’m going.”

The surgeon led her through the inner door. When Madeleine emerged again in the linen shift, she was barefoot and pale, but steady.

She crossed the hall alone and disappeared down the stairs. Maeve followed with the box.

Martin sat beside Severin this time without either of them saying anything about it. Thomas remained standing by the narrow window.

The script filled outward. Severin watched the nearest line brighten as the first pulse came.

Madeleine screamed almost at once. The sound rose through the stairwell and cut off mid-breath.

Martin bent forward, elbows on his knees. ”No. Are we all fucking doomed?”

Another cry came from below, followed by a crash. Severin lurched to his feet.

The assistant came running up, and Severin looked toward the folded linen on the supply table. She ignored the linen and took two bottles, one clear and one dark, back downstairs.

Green remained as Severin stared at the floor. It had gone out quickly for everyone except Rafael.

Madeleine screamed again. The sound cut off, but the lines stayed green. A minute passed, maybe two, and nobody in the hall spoke.

Footsteps climbed the stairs, and the surgeon appeared, still focused on whatever was happening below. Neumann stood.

The surgeon looked at him. ”She’s alive.”

Severin let out a long breath, but Madeleine’s scream was still in his head.

”Is she stable?” Neumann asked.

”Not yet.”

She turned and went back down.

For several seconds nobody reacted. Then Martin let out a breath that sounded almost like a laugh and covered his face with both hands.

Thomas leaned his forehead against the wall beside the window. Severin sat again when his legs started to shake.

Madeleine had survived, but Severin still could not quite believe it.

Anna’s flask stood beside Johann’s watch. The watch would stay where Johann left it. Madeleine might still come back for the flask.

Nearly an hour passed before the inner door opened. The surgeon came through first, followed by two assistants with a stretcher.

Madeleine lay beneath a gray blanket. A dressing covered her right eye. Her face was damp with sweat, and strands of blonde hair had stuck to her cheek.

Her right hand rested outside the blanket, the mark already visible across the back.

Severin had only seen Rafael’s from across the hall. Madeleine’s was easier to make out, dark lines too deliberate to be a bruise and too clean to be a wound.

Her left eye opened. It found nothing at first, then fixed on the lamp beside the inner door.

Madeleine frowned. ”Why is it blue?”

The surgeon leaned closer. ”What is?”

Madeleine swallowed. ”The light.”

Her voice was weak. Severin looked at the lamp. The flame was the same yellow it had been all day.

Without looking away from her, the surgeon raised one finger in front of Madeleine’s open eye.

”Look at my finger.”

Madeleine tried. Her gaze slipped past the surgeon’s finger, then came back.

”Close your eye,” the surgeon said.

”But the light is blue.”

”I heard you. Please close it.”

Madeleine obeyed.

The assistants carried her toward the recovery rooms. As the stretcher passed, Severin saw her marked hand curl once against the blanket.

Behind them, the inner door shut. Once the stretcher wheels faded, the only sound left was the faint hiss of the lamp.

Thomas was still by the window while Martin sat beside Severin, forearms resting on his knees. Neumann looked down at the list.

Only three names remained beneath Madeleine’s: Thomas Bennett and Martin Keller. Severin Hale was last.

The surgeon came back through the inner door carrying an empty basin.

Neumann looked down at the next name and, for the first time that day, hesitated.