Chapter Text
THE IRON PRICE
He fell. He was pushed.
The old conundrum had consumed the hive mind of the Metropolitan police for twelve solid hours and by the time the night was beginning to gather, they were still nowhere close to an answer.
"Do you think that's why they build those places so close to the docks?" he'd asked as the sirens had been filling Scotland Yard Road and the lights had beaten their path east through the setting sun. "So if anyone jumps, there's less mess?"
"He didn't jump." Sergeant Mormont had been pulling on his vest, slipping the straps around the arms of his oxford shirt. His work was symbolic, for the most part: desk-work and press-work. But the newspapers and the televisions' eyes had all turned eastwards towards the wharfs and the harbours. The old man's body had washed up with the tide on the Tilbury side of the long tongue of the Isle of Dogs. "You've never seen what the Thames does to a dead man." He looked up, eyes the same turgid gray as the water that swallowed the corpse. "The crabs ate his eyes. It's a mess."
"How do you know he didn't jump?"
The Old Bear grunted and clipped his radio to his chest.
"I just know. And you know nothing, kid. Men like Balon Greyjoy - they don't jump."
The rain was beginning to dash against the ground outside. A fresh batch of cars waited, lights steaming, red-blue, red-blue, in the mist. The cold air stung his face as the sergeant swept out. The metal doors squeaked shut again and silence crept in like winter, settled like the frost. Jon Snow felt it in his bones.
THE GIRL IN GREY
She came in from the rain and his heart might have stopped.
"Night's watch?"
Jon was alone in the offices. The bloated corpse of Balon Greyjoy had dragged all his fellow officers with it downstream to Canary Wharf. It was a quarter to midnight and he was on his third cup of coffee. Her smile had a wicked edge to it.
"I'm sorry?"
The girl wasn't even smiling. He didn't know what he was talking about. She had a hollow, hungry look to her, and as she bent to shake out her umbrella Jon saw that beneath the buttons of her black coat, there were silver sequins flashing.
"I said are you the night's watch?" There was something about her that was familiar, but she was too beautiful for him to think he'd forget her. Perhaps creatures with such icy eyes and such ink-black hair would always strike a similar chord in him. Her earrings were like smashed glass. He could cut his throat on them.
"I'm the watch."
She stood up straight, fixed him in her gaze.
"I'm Alys Karstark." Jon knew that name. "My fiancé is missing. I need your help."
He hadn't gotten as far to look at anything but her face and her legs, but she drew up close to the desk and put her hands out on the counter and it was then he saw the diamond round her finger. An old money sort. Yes, Karstark was a name he knew.
“I know of your father,” he said, blankly. The girl stared at him, so he cleared his throat and changed tack. "How long has he been gone?" He reached for a form. Alys's eyes moved with his wrist.
"About four days," she said. "Passed me on the threshold, gave me a kiss and said he was going out."
"You know where?"
"His uncle's business, I think. He's a journalist. Said there was something he had to find there."
Jon put a form out on the desk for her.
"Fill this in and-"
"No." She slapped down the hand with the ring. "No, there's no time for that." Jon looked up at her, unblinking. Alys pressed her lips together. "He's gone. He wouldn't just leave like that. Not me. Daryn's so loyal it makes me sick sometimes. But he's an idiot and he likes his secrets. All I know is that he was going to his uncle's place that night to get something, and that he was supposed to be back in time to get some sleep. He had a interview with Balon Greyjoy in the morning and when he didn't come home I thought maybe he'd slept somewhere else and gone straight there the next day. Only now Balon Greyjoy's dead and Daryn's missing and I'm out of excuses to give him." She looked stiff as a corpse. Her eyes didn't shy away from his. Jon felt exposed as if she'd pulled a knife from her sleeve and put the tip to his chin. "What's your name?" she asked.
"Snow," he told her, Snow - she didn't have to know the rest. Alys Karstark processed the information and then her spine went loose. She dropped her hands and there were tears in her eyes. Jon flicked his tongue against the back of his teeth and tried to fight his gut instinct, which was to offer her tea. "Did your fiancé have any enemies?"
She went pale, paler than she had before, and everything about her glittered like ice. The diamonds in her ears, her eyes, the silvery-grey spangles beneath her coat. There were raindrops caught in her black hair.
"Night's watch," she whispered. "When do you get off, Snow? Say midnight. Please say midnight."
Her lips were red as cherries. He might have told her anything.
"Midnight," Jon murmured, and it was true.
Her diamond flashed again as her fingers wound into her hair.
"I know where to look, but I can't go there alone. I need protection and I don't know where to find it other than what the state can give me." The half-moons of her lashes fluttered. "If you come with me, I can pay you."
"Miss Karstark-"
"No. Listen. You don't understand. Please."
Alys shut her eyes briefly.
"Please." Her voice trembled. "Help me."
It was ten to midnight on the wettest summer night he'd yet known. Bed was an hour's journey underground and it would be cold and lonely when he got there. A rich man was dead and his empire was dissolving into the rain. No one would let him help when he wanted.
And the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen was asking him for it.
"I'll help you," he said. I'm a policeman, I help people, he thought. Alys opened her eyes, but still, she didn't smile. She looked as if she might cry again. She passed her hand back through her hair again and wiped beneath one eye. He gave her all her answer willingly in the end, and she pushed her fingertips into the edge of the counter and drew a breath in over her teeth.
"Do you have a gun?"
Slowly, he nodded. Alys Karstark smiled and it was as fox-sly as he'd imagined.
"My hero," she sighed. "You'll do just the trick."