The house looked so out of place, it was like someone had dropped it onto the landscape, fully-formed, before realizing their mistake. The area to the south of Lowertown was largely undeveloped, with groves of trees and unruly hills that made traversing the snowy terrain even less appealing. And yet there it was, this odd brick house, standing alone in the middle of nowhere.
Ada grinned over her shoulder as they approached. “Don’t freeze yet! We’re nearly there.”
Maggie pulled the collar of her coat a little tighter and took stock of her situation. She wasn’t exactly a prisoner on the march, but she had limited options to exploit. The second they got to that building, she would have nowhere to run…but where would she run, even if she could?
Snowy hills blocked her view of Lowertown; she could faintly see landmarks that seemed familiar to the west, toward the canal, but it was hard to judge the distance in the winter. And regardless, that was Irish territory…not the best option, either.
So east, then, into the forest, and up to the Rideau River. In these temperatures, with daylight fading fast, there was no way that would end well. South was more of the same, and a long way to any kind of civilization.
She couldn’t run, but she had to run. Somehow.
She caught sight of horses waiting outside the house, stomping their feet in the cold. Unattended. If she could find a way to—
“Quickly now!” Ada called, hurrying her pace. “No time for patience when the men are on the hunt!”
Maggie’s heart stopped at the sound of that. Panic welled up inside her…until she realized Émile and Béatrice looked just as spooked. They gave nervous glances back toward Lowertown, where Maggie could have sworn she saw a small band of men heading their way.
They all hurried inside without another word.
Maggie settled into her seat as Ada closed the curtains in the parlour. Despite the little shafts of light coming in here and there, the room was oppressively dreary. Even the candles didn’t seem to give off enough light to help.
Béatrice took a seat across the way, watching Maggie with a suspicious eye, hands folded on her lap like this was any other social occasion. Émile, behind her, paced back and forth, hands in his pockets, deep in thought. Maggie couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but whatever it was, it wasn’t on the happier end of the spectrum.
Ada’s house was, in a word, ornate. It was a rare stone building east of the canal, with imported rugs across every inch of floor space, and rich, polished furniture from end to end. The curtains looked imported from Europe, the dishes from the far reaches of the empire, and even the remains of desserts left out on the table seemed too perfect to have come from a place like Bytown.
Ada set her hat on a table and unbuttoned her coat, then settled in a tall-backed chair that overlooked the proceedings, like a queen surveying her subjects. Everyone looked agonizingly uncomfortable.
Except for Ada. She clapped her hands together—startling the lot of them—and smiled. “So, where to begin. Your ransom, I suppose.”
This got a wide range of reactions all at once: Maggie’s heart stopped, and she looked ready to bolt for the nearest exit. Émile’s eyes went wide with shock and anger. He squeezed the arm of the sofa so tightly it looked in danger of cracking. And Béatrice? Béatrice just laughed.
“To the point as always,” she muttered.
“Ransom?” asked Maggie, half-standing. “What are you—”
“Oh, calm yourself, dear,” said Ada, waving Maggie back down to her seat. “Running comes later.” She tapped a finger on her lips, deep in thought. “The question is: how to set a price? Is it based on what Mrs Kelly is worth, or what the payee can afford? Because truth be told, you’ve a range of options to look at, but not all are created equal.”
Émile was halfway out of his seat as well, ostensibly to catch Maggie before she could get to the door. But he was working hard to wear an expression that said he wasn’t a threat, and was only there for pleasant conversation. It was a losing battle.
“We are just trying to get to the bottom of—”
“And furthermore,” said Ada, carrying on in her monologue, “how does one factor in the generous bounty already in the wind?”
Now Émile really was on his feet. “What bounty?”
Ada frowned to herself. “And can one claim their own bounty, I wonder?”
Maggie had had enough. She got up, walking quickly to the door—but only got a few steps before Émile moved to catch her. He reached, and she twisted away, bumping into a wall…cornered somehow, despite all the space between them. They stood there, frozen, waiting for the other one to make a move.
Béatrice blew out her cheeks and shrugged to Ada. “You see what I am dealing with?”
“Hmm,” nodded Ada, settling back into her chair.
Maggie’s voice cracked as she said: “I’m very sorry for…for everything that’s happened. I never meant to cause other people pain, but I—”
“Where is the evidence, by the way?” asked Ada, reaching for a bell on the table to her left. “Do you have it on you?”
Maggie watched for Émile and Béatrice’s reactions when she said: “Perhaps.”
Neither reacted as expected. Émile’s jaw tensed, but the rest of him stayed static. Béatrice, though, was clearly confused. She tilted her head toward Ada.
“What evidence?”
“Proving who killed her husband,” said Ada, with a slight grin. “Definitively, I hear.”
This stirred Émile out of his stoic posture. “So who did kill him?” he asked, and Maggie could have sworn she heard the tiniest bit of care and concern in his voice.
“It’s not that simple,” she said.
“It’s not that…” Émile said, tension rising in his voice. “We are beyond simple, Madame. For you, for me, for Béatrice…our lives are in ruins.”
“Yes, and that’s without your bounty figured in,” said Ada.
Émile froze, turned to face Ada. “What bounty?”
“Ah, I meant to say. They think you kidnapped her. Which I suppose you have, in a way. But regardless, there’s a bounty on both your heads. Yours—” she pointed at Maggie. “—alive, obviously. And yours—” she pointed at Émile. “—less so.”
Béatrice raised her hand to ask a question, but Ada waved it off. “Not you, dear. You’re blissfully unimportant.”
Émile shifted his attention from Maggie and her probable escape, and settled back on the sofa, in a daze.
Maggie felt a burning guilt overcome her. “But he didn’t…he’s not—”
“Do they know who he is?” asked Béatrice.
“A French baker, yes,” said Ada. “Though all that the Shiners are concerned with at the moment is the sound of his tongue, so he’s some anonymity in that.”
Émile was about to relax when she added: “It’s the Canadiens that worry me.”
He looked up, ashen. “Les Gens?”
“All of them,” said Ada. “The bounty’s bigger than honour can withstand. It’s only a matter of time before one of your own turns on you.”
Émile squeezed his hands together. “So what are my options?”
“Our options,” said Maggie, carefully heading back to her seat. Whatever Émile’s original intentions, they were in this together now. He glanced at her, the tiniest bit of a smile on his face.
Béatrice put her hand on his. “Yes,” she said. “Our options.”
Ada turned her attention to Maggie once more. “It really all depends on who killed Mrs Kelly’s husband.”
Maggie felt on the spot again. “I…I don’t…”
Ada sighed, leaned forward. “Mrs Kelly, allow me to put this in perspective, because I find that far too often, people make decisions based on incomplete information, and it greatly hinders their outlook.” She held out two hands, palms up. “Perhaps Monsieur Montferrand did kill your husband, and in the ensuing confusion, poor Mr Deschênes has been unfairly implicated. In which case, the reasonable course of action would be my arranging your safe return to Corkstown, and finding Mr Deschênes safe passage somewhere east.”
Émile looked extremely troubled by that. Worse than he had about a bounty on his head, even. Béatrice squeezed his hand even tighter.
Maggie had her own issues, though. “But Montferrand didn’t kill Rían…”
“And so the second possibility,” said Ada. “That the bounty is not to ensure your safe return, but your silence. That turning you in would be a death sentence. And as much as I do enjoy a good drama, there are some bridges I will not cross. In this case, I would make arrangements for you both to escape Bytown, and—”
“No,” said Maggie. “No, I can’t. Not yet.”
Ada smiled. “Because you have evidence.”
“Yes,” Maggie lied.
“That’s the answer, then,” said Émile. “Isn’t it? For her problem, and mine. We take the evidence to a judge and they arrest the killer, and she is safe, and my name is cleared, and—”
Ada smiled at Maggie. “Do you want to tell them, or shall I?”
Émile’s hopeful expression faded. “Tell us what?”
“The man who killed her husband,” said Ada. “And set the bounty.”
Everyone looked at Maggie. Her voice was nearly a whisper. “Peter Aylen.”
Béatrice looked like she’d been slapped. She jerked Émile’s hand and got up, moving for the door. “Non. That is too far. We cannot.”
But Émile wasn’t budging. Béatrice tried to pull him up, but it was no use. “Émile!” she hissed. “Peter Aylen! Le roi des—” She knelt down next to him, trying to meet his eye. “This is a battle we cannot win. Montréal is—”
Émile looked to Maggie, eyes red with fear and fury. “You have evidence? Evidence that can stop him?”
“Nothing can stop Aylen,” Béatrice pleaded.
Ada was watching Maggie closely. Looking for some sign she was lying, probably. It took all her nerve to not act the part…because she knew that if she admitted that she didn’t have solid evidence implicating Aylen, then they would turn against her, and use her as a bargaining chip to clear Émile’s name.
“I do,” she said.
“Let us see it, then,” he said, eyeing her with suspicion. “Where is it?”
Maggie took a sharp breath. “I don’t know you,” she said. “Any of you. I don’t know who you’re loyal to, or whether I can trust you, or whether you’re just—”
“We’re here to help, Madame Kelly,” said Béatrice.
“That’s what Aylen said, too,” she said. “With the sweetest touch, he swore he would help me find justice. So excuse me if I have a hard time trusting strangers making promises.”
“This is not just about you anymore!” Émile said. “We are all of us caught up in this mess you created and—”
“I?” said Maggie, face flushing with anger. “You think I—”
“If you will not share this evidence with a judge, then yes, you are—”
Ada cleared her throat. “Not a judge,” she said.
Émile frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Aylen has a judge in his employ. A recent development, and a worrying one.”
“So we try another…” said Émile.
Ada laughed. “Oh my dear, no. One cannot work around justices in this county. If one rules against you, for whatever reason, the others will back him up ‘til the ends of the earth without ever asking why.” She looked troubled. “If Mrs Kelly brings her evidence to the courts, it’s as good as lost. And she, I’m afraid, is as good as dead.”
Béatrice tugged at Émile’s arm. “Please. We can go. I have family in Montréal, and—”
“I’m not going to Montréal!” Émile shouted, getting to his feet and pacing to the window. Béatrice looked shocked by the outburst, but Maggie knew it all too well: the reflex triggered by a repeated doom. She felt nothing but pity for him now, the way he was peering out the curtains, waiting for fate to strike all over again.
“Perth,” she said. “We can go to Perth. There are different judges there, and proper law. Aylen’s influence can’t reach all the way there.”
Ada thought on this a moment, as Émile and Béatrice waited in pained silence. Finally, the verdict: “There’s no guarantee it will work out any better,” she said. “But it certainly couldn’t be any worse.”
She stood, adjusting her coat and giving her guests a confident nod. “It’s too late to set out now. Rest here until morning—”
“But you said they’d be coming for blood!” said Béatrice. “We cannot simply—”
“My dear, within these walls, you are as good as invisible. One of the few perks of being an aberrant exile, such as myself, is people look right through you. It allows one to gather the most shocking gossip, true, but it also means even the hottest drama slides right off. Aylen’s men won’t come down this way for anything, so long as we don’t give them cause to.”
She smiled at Maggie. “Sleep well, Mrs Kelly. We leave at first light, and with God’s help—and a little evidence—this nightmare of yours will soon be over.”