Black Fang had chosen the room herself.
Third floor, at the top of the last staircase.
The wide hall with the tall windows that nobody in the household had ever found a use for, meant for events never thrown as they were far too busy, furnished with chairs that collected dust until tonight.
She had cleared it down to bare floor, and the two blocks of ice stood alone in the center with the frozen faces of the last Fujimori elders staring out of them.
Quinlan reached the top of the stairs first and stopped.
'Damn...'
Moonlight fell through the tall windows and pooled silver across the floorboards and the ice. Rosie's otherworldly, fairy tale-like tree's crown pulsed its slow gold beyond the glass, and the frozen elders stood at the center of it all as if the room had been built around them.
'This woman... Why is she always so mesmerizing?'
