"He's still warm."
Lillian Ashworth knelt beside the body, her gloved fingers hovering an inch above the dead man's cheek. The frost that coated his skin should have made him cold to the touch, but heat radiated from him like a banked fire.
"That's impossible," said the guard behind her, his voice cracking. "He's been here since dawn. He's frozen solid."
His eyes were wide open, glassy, locked in an expression of pure shock. Frost clung to his eyelashes. His clothes were stiff with ice. In the middle of the summer market square, surrounded by sweating merchants and wilting flowers, the man had frozen to death.
"Someone get me a blanket," Lillian said flatly, not looking up from the body.
A guard scrambled to obey. She heard his boots clatter against the cobblestones, fading into the chaos of the crowd. The square buzzed with whispers, accusations, fear. A human merchant, frozen solid in broad daylight, with no explanation. The other vendors had backed away, forming a wide circle around the scene. No one wanted to get too close.
Lillian reached into her coat and pulled out a small leather notebook. She flipped it open to a fresh page and began writing.
Victim: Male, human, mid-forties. Merchant's attire. Cause of death: suspected hypothermia, though environmental conditions do not support this. Time of death: approximately one hour ago, based on body temperature and stiffening.
She paused. Something glinted in the sunlight, caught between the victim's frozen fingers. Lillian leaned closer, squinting. It was a strand of hair. Silver-white, impossibly fine, shimmering like caught moonlight. She carefully extracted it with a pair of tweezers from her belt pouch and held it up.
"Strange," she muttered.
"What's strange? The frozen man in the middle of summer? Or the fact that you're wearing gloves in this heat?"
Lillian didn't turn around. She knew that voice. She had known it the moment the crowd parted, the moment a ripple of unease spread through the guards. People always reacted to him the same way. He was too tall, too bright, too unbothered by the space he occupied.
"Matteo," she said, still examining the hair. "You're not assigned to this case."
"I'm never assigned to anything." He stepped into her peripheral vision, dropping into a crouch beside her with far too much ease for someone looking at a corpse. "I heard there was a body. I got curious."
"You're always curious. It's exhausting."
"And you're always meticulous. It's adorable." He grinned at her, silver eyes dancing with amusement. "We make quite the pair."
Lillian finally looked at him. He was wearing his usual disaster of an outfit, a deep blue coat that had seen better decades, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and no official insignia anywhere. His dark hair was a mess, wind-tossed and wild. He looked like he had just rolled out of a tavern brawl and decided to attend a crime scene for entertainment.
She returned her attention to the frozen corpse. "We are not a pair. I work alone."
"You worked alone. Past tense. Because now I'm here." Matteo reached toward the victim's face. "Look at the frost pattern. It's not natural. Ice mages can do this, but they need contact. There's no bruising. No burns. Just-"
"Don't touch the evidence," Lillian snapped, slapping his hand away with her tweezers.
He pulled back with an exaggerated wince. "Wow. Aggressive. I was just going to check his pulse."
"His heart stopped. That's what dead means."
"Technically, death is a process, not an event. There's a window-"
"Matteo." She fixed him with a look that had made seasoned guards wilt. "You are not a royal investigator. You are a mage who happens to have a royal title and zero respect for procedure. I don't know why you're here, but you will not touch my crime scene."
He held up both hands in mock surrender, still smiling. "Fine. I'll just use my eyes. You can't arrest me for looking."
"Don't test me."
"I'm not testing you. I'm observing." He tilted his head, studying the victim with an intensity that clashed with his flippant tone. "He's a merchant. His hands are calloused from carrying goods, but his clothes are well-made. That's a quality wool coat, even if it's soaked now. He wasn't poor. Not rich, but comfortable."
Lillian paused, her pen hovering over the notebook. "That's... actually helpful."
"I have my moments." He flashed her another grin. "Also, his boots are from the eastern district. Only one cobbler uses that specific stitching. So he probably lived or worked near the eastern market gates. That's a lead."
She stared at him. She hated how right he was. "How do you know about cobbler stitching?"
Matteo shrugged. "I pay attention to things. Unlike some people, who pay attention only to rulebooks." He nudged her notebook with his finger. "Did you write that down? The boot thing? That's important."
"I'm aware of what's important."
"Then why are you glaring at me?"
"Because I'm trying to solve a murder and you're treating it like a game."
"Murder is a game." He said it without humor, his silver eyes suddenly sharp. "It's the oldest game. Killer versus investigator. The killer leaves pieces. The investigator finds them. Whoever runs out of pieces first, loses."
Lillian felt a chill that had nothing to do with the frozen corpse. For a moment, she saw something behind his easy grin, something old, something that had seen too many bodies. And then it was gone, replaced by that infuriating smile.
"Fine," she said, snapping her notebook shut. "You're here. You're impossible to remove. Make yourself useful."
"Finally." Matteo clapped his hands together. "Now we're talking. What do we know?"
"Human male, merchant, frozen solid in public with no ice mage present. Multiple witnesses saw him collapse, but no one saw anyone approach him beforehand." She glanced at the crowd. "He was alone when he fell."
"Which means the killer didn't need to be close." Matteo tapped his chin. "Magic can be cast from a distance. High-level mages can freeze a person's internal temperature from across the square. But that's difficult magic. If the killer is a mage, they're powerful."
"Or they're using a weapon."
"Possibly." He turned his attention back to the body, and this time when he reached out, Lillian didn't stop him. "Let me see the hair you found."
She hesitated, then handed him the tweezers. "Don't lose it."
"I won't." He held the silver-white strand up to the light, turning it slowly. His eyes narrowed. "Lillian. Look at this."
She leaned closer, her shoulder brushing his. "What?"
"This hair. It's not human. But it's not vampire, either." He ran his thumb over it. "And it's not werewolf. I can feel that much. It's... something else."
"You can feel the race from a single strand of hair?"
"I can feel the magic residue." He looked at her, and for once, his expression was entirely serious. "Someone powerful touched this man. Someone with magic I've never encountered before. And I've encountered a lot."
Lillian pulled back, her mind racing. "If the killer is something new, something unknown-"
"Then we have a problem." Matteo pocketed the hair with a casualness that made her want to strangle him. "I'm keeping this. For testing."
"You can't just take evidence!"
"I can. I just did." He was already on his feet, brushing off his coat. "Meet me at my quarters tonight. I'll have answers by then."
"Matteo. We have protocols. We need to document-"
"Protocols." He laughed, bright and sharp, turning to walk backward through the crowd. "Lillian, if you follow protocols, the killer will be three steps ahead of you by sundown. Sometimes you need to break the rules to catch a monster."
She glared, "That's not how investigations work-"
"That's how I work." He spread his arms wide, nearly colliding with a fruit vendor. "And you're stuck with me. The Council made it official this morning. I'm your partner."
Lillian froze. "What?"
"Didn't they tell you? That's hilarious." He laughed again, delighted at her distress. "You and me, Lily. Solving crimes. Breaking rules. Definitely not falling in love. No, no, that's a joke. We hate each other. Obviously."
She opened her mouth to say something cutting, something that would put him back in his place, but he was already gone. Vanished into the crowd like smoke, leaving only the echo of his laughter behind.
Lillian stood there, surrounded by the dead merchant and the whispering crowd, her gloved hands trembling with barely suppressed fury.
She had been paired with a madman.
A powerful, unpredictable, infuriatingly handsome madman.
She looked down at the frozen corpse, and then at the space where Matteo had been standing. The silver-white hair was gone. The evidence was gone. And somewhere in the city, a killer was watching them both.
"This is going to be a disaster," she muttered.
Behind her, a new voice spoke, one of the guards, nervous and uncertain.
"Lady Lillian? There's something else. Another body. Just found in the eastern district."
She turned sharply. "Another one?"
"Same... same condition. Frozen. But this one's a vampire."
Lillian's blood turned cold. A human and a vampire, both frozen, both dead, in the span of an hour. This wasn't a single murder. This was a pattern.
"I need Matteo," she said, the words tasting strange on her tongue. "Where did he go?"
The guard pointed vaguely toward the eastern gate. "He said he was heading to the second scene. Told me to tell you to hurry. Said something about not having all day and that you'd want to see what the victim was holding."
Lillian's stomach dropped. "What was the victim holding?"
The guard swallowed hard. "A single strand of silver-white hair. Matches the first one exactly." Lillian closed her eyes. "He's already there." The guard nodded. "Said you'd figure it out. Also said to tell you that he's already touched everything, so you might as well not bother yelling at him." And just like that, Lillian knew her new partner was going to be the death of her. But as she ran toward the eastern district, she couldn't shake the feeling that he might also be the only thing keeping her alive.