The White City by Elizabeth Bear Page B

rain.
    Phoebe seemed to know where she was going, though, which—given her unfamiliarity with Moscow—told Sebastien she’d planned out this route over the course of the afternoon, and maybe even walked it once or twice. He wondered if she’d already contacted—and perhaps warned—Irina. If she had—well, he trusted Phoebe’s judgment. Implicitly, and with tested cause. She would have weighed her options and done what she thought best, and Sebastien would choose to rely on that.
    Another way in which he had little in common with his brethren in the blood, come to think of it.
    Phoebe’s path led them into fashionable streets through which rolled glossy carriages, lanterns burning on each corner, the matched teams of horses tossing wet feather cockades on rain-draggled heads.
    “I would have summoned a hansom,” Sebastien said.
    Phoebe in her turn shrugged, shawl hiked up to her collar, and said, “It’s not so far now.”
    Nor was it. Phoebe paused before a modern block of flats, five stories of pale green façade with wrought-iron balconies, and gestured impatiently for Sebastien. You couldn’t argue, exactly, and so Sebastien fell in beside her obediently.
    —Flat B3,— Phoebe told the stocky red-faced doorman. —We are expected.
    She must have rehearsed the phrase, to say it so smoothly.
    He consulted his book, an obvious affectation, and when he had paused with his finger on the page said, —Name, please?
    —Mrs. Phoebe Smith and Don Sebastien de Ulloa.
    He frowned at them over the tops of rimless spectacles. —The lift is on your right.
    It was, along with a slight, blond lift operator who took them to the third floor through the power of eavesdropping, because neither Phoebe nor Sebastien had any need to direct him. The floors scrolled past beyond the filigree cage, each heralded only by a hum and a series of slight bumps—and Sebastien made up his mind to enjoy the novelty of the experience. It wasn’t actually his first ride in a lift, but it was the first in some months. When the operator released his handle and the cage settled at the proper floor with the slightest of rocking motions, Sebastien found himself rather grateful not to have plummeted to his death. Will wonders never cease?
    “Probably not,” Phoebe said, as if she had heard him. She nudged him with one elbow and started forward as the lift operator scrolled the cage door back.
    The hallway was tiled in black and white diamonds, very modern and very chic. The rattle of the brass lift cage behind them echoed against hard edges, making Sebastien wish for the carpets and upholstery of a bygone age.
    Phoebe, unaffected, paused before the door closest to the lift and raised one small gloved fist to knock there. The scent from beyond the door told Sebastien in advance who had lived there, and he wondered that the police had not already arrived. Perhaps , he thought, the apartment was in some third party’s name.
    Olesia Valentinova had lived here, while she had lived, and it seemed striking to him that he had not realized until now where Irina Stephanova might have come for refuge in the aftermath of her friend’s death. That she had done so enlightened him on certain matters. He knew now that Olesia had been a friend, that Irina knew of her death, that Irina also knew that no-one was likely to come looking here. His sense of smell also told him that Irina was alone in the apartment, and that she had not recently been at work.
    “Come in,” she said, and stood aside to let him and Phoebe clear the door.
    It was a little too fast of a greeting. Sebastien thought he would have liked to have tested his ability to just walk inside, because that might have told him whether or not Olesia Valentinova lived alone, or if there were another presence keeping him from entering he apartment. But what he had would have to do for now.
    Once they were inside the kitchen, Irina shut and locked the door behind them. She still wore his ring, he