The palace was too quiet.
Napoleon had taken the Old Guard. The courtyard, usually a riot of drilling soldiers and shouting sergeants, was empty.
Just the wind. Whistling through the iron gates.
I walked the corridors of the Tuileries.
My boots made no sound. I had learned to walk like a predator. Heel to toe. Rolling the weight. Absorbing the impact.
It wasn't a choice. It was instinct.
My senses were dialed to maximum.
I could hear the servants in the kitchen, three floors down. I could hear the rat scuttling behind the wainscoting in the hallway. I could hear the structural groan of the palace settling into the night.
Creak. Pop.
And I could feel the city.
Paris was a living organism, and it was sick.
The "Blue Drop" withdrawal was hitting the slums. I felt the collective tremor of thousands of addicts shaking in their beds. I felt the spike in cortisol as fights broke out in bread lines.
It was overwhelming.
A cacophony of misery.
"Filter," I whispered to myself. "Isolate variables."
I forced my brain to ignore the noise. To focus on the immediate.
Target: Charles.
I hadn't seen him since the ice bath. Since I turned him into a thermodynamic anomaly.
I reached the door to the Prince's Wing.
It was cold.
Not cool. Cold.
Frost had formed on the brass doorknob.
I turned it. It stuck, frozen shut.
I applied pressure.
SNAP.
The mechanism shattered. The door swung open.
A wave of frigid air hit me. It smelled of winter. Of snow and ozone.
I stepped inside.
It was snowing.
Literally.
Moisture in the air had crystallized. Tiny flakes drifted down from the ceiling, glittering in the moonlight.
The furniture was covered in a thin layer of white rime. The water in the pitcher on the bedside table was a solid block of ice.
And in the center of the room...
Charles.
He was sitting on the floor, surrounded by a fortress of blankets and fur coats. He was wearing three layers of wool. A bear skin rug was draped over his shoulders.
He was shivering.
Violently.
His teeth chattered. Clack-clack-clack.
His skin was pale blue. His lips were almost black.
"Charles," I said.
My breath plumed in the air.
He looked up.
His eyes were gold. But they weren't spinning like mine. They were dull. Like tarnished brass.
"F-father..." he stuttered.
I walked to him.
The cold bit into my skin. My new, sensitive nerves screamed. It felt like walking into a fire, but reversed.
I knelt in front of him.
"Status," I said.
I hated the word. I sounded like a machine. But it was the only language we had left.
"Core temp... ninety-four," Charles whispered. "Falling. Metabolic rate... inverted."
"Inverted?"
"Endothermic," Charles said. "I consume heat. I don't generate it. I am a heat sink."
I stared at him.
The Ichor.
It had burned hot in me. It had boiled my blood, rebuilt my organs, accelerated my entropy.
But Charles... he was young. His biology was still developing. The Ichor hadn't burned him. It had frozen him.
It had turned him into a void.
"I'm so cold," Charles whispered. A tear leaked from his eye. It froze on his cheek instantly. "It hurts."
Guilt hit me.
Not the dull ache of a failed audit. Sharp, visceral guilt.
I did this.
I injected him. I let him run. I turned my son into a monster to save my own neck.
"Give me your hand," I said.
"No," Charles said. He pulled his hands into the sleeves of his coat. "I'll hurt you. I drain energy. If I touch you..."
"Give me your hand!" I ordered.
I reached out.
I grabbed his wrist.
HISSS.
Steam exploded from the point of contact.
It felt like grabbing a liquid nitrogen pipe. The cold burned instantly. My skin blistered.
I gritted my teeth.
"Take it," I growled. "Take the heat. Balance the ledger."
I pushed my own metabolic fire into him. I visualized it. Calories burning. Cells vibrating. Energy transferring from high potential to low potential.
Charles gasped.
His eyes widened. The dull gold flared to life.
"Warm..." he breathed.
The shivering stopped. The blue tint faded from his lips.
I held on.
My hand was agonizing. The skin was turning black where I touched him. Frostbite.
But I didn't let go.
I watched the color return to his face. I watched the ice on his eyelashes melt.
"Better?" I asked.
"Yes," Charles whispered. "It tastes... like fire."
He looked at my hand. At the damage.
"You're hurt," he said.
"Depreciating asset," I said through gritted teeth. "Skin grows back."
I sat there, feeding him warmth, listening to the silence of the frozen room.
And then...
I heard it.
Thump-thump.
A heartbeat.
Not in the palace. Outside. In the Tuileries Garden.
It was slow. Controlled.
40 beats per minute.
A sniper? An assassin?
No.
It wasn't human.
The rhythm was wrong. It had a double beat. Thump-thump-click.
Like a valve closing. Or a clock ticking.
"We have company," I whispered.
Charles looked at me. "Who?"
"Asset unknown," I said. "Hostile."
I stood up.
My hand was numb, useless. I flexed the other one.
"Stay here," I said. "Keep the blankets on."
"No," Charles said.
He stood up. The bear skin slid off his shoulders.
He wasn't shivering anymore. He looked focused.
"I'm full," Charles said. A strange smile touched his lips. It was sharp. Predatory.
"Full?"
"You fed me," Charles said. "I have energy now."
He walked to the window. The frost on the glass melted as he approached.
"He's in the hedges," Charles said. "Sector four. By the fountain."
I joined him.
I looked down into the dark garden.
I saw a shadow moving.
It wasn't hiding. It was walking toward the palace wall.
A figure in a long coat.
And on its wrist... a faint green glow.
A digital watch.
My blood ran cold.
"A Drifter," I whispered.
"Another one?" Charles asked. "Like Cagliostro?"
"Worse," I said. "Cagliostro was a scientist. This one moves like a soldier."
The figure stopped.
It looked up.
Even in the dark, I felt the gaze.
It raised a hand.
Not a gun. A tube.
PFFT.
A dart hit the stone wall next to the window. It shattered.
Blue liquid splashed the glass.
It hissed. The glass dissolved instantly.
"Acid?" Charles asked.
"No," I said, backing away. "Concentrated entropy. Blue Drop weaponized."
The figure started to climb.
It didn't use a rope. It dug its fingers into the stone. It climbed like a spider. Fast. Unnatural.
"We can't fight it here," I said. "Too confined."
"I can fight it," Charles said.
He turned to me.
His eyes were spinning now. The gold gears were whirring.
"I'm not just a heat sink, Father," Charles said. "I'm a thermodynamic engine."
He held up his hand.
The air around his fingers shimmered. Frost formed in mid-air, creating jagged icicles.
"I can freeze the blood in his veins," Charles said.
"He," I corrected. "Or she. It doesn't matter. It's a variable we need to delete."
The climbing sounds got louder. Scrape. Scrape.
"Get back," I ordered. "Let me handle the initial engagement."
"No," Charles said.
He stepped in front of me.
"You audited the accounts," Charles said. His voice was cold, echoing the freezing room. "Let me handle the collections."
The window exploded inward.
Glass and wood flew across the room.
A shadow landed in the center of the frost-covered floor.
A woman. Rags. Wild hair.
She held a knife in one hand and another dart tube in the other.
She looked at me. Then at Charles.
She smiled.
"Two glitches for the price of one," she hissed.
She lunged.
And the Wolf Cub moved.