It came like a sharp sting to the nose, blocking his enhanced airways with a coarse odour.
It was smoke, the heavy kind that came from stone and timber burning together rather than a campfire or a hearth. It sat in the air above the valley road like weather, thick and heavy, the kind of smell that didn't dissipate the way ordinary smoke did but settled into everything it touched and stayed there. Then underneath it, fainter but unmistakable, the specific sourness of things that had burned and weren't burning anymore.
Lucius's pace didn't change. But his hand found the edge of his coat without any conscious decision from him.
Seraphine had gone quiet beside him. He could see her reading the sky ahead, the way the light sat differently above where Hancock should be, too dark for the hour, a brown-grey haze that smudged the otherwise clear afternoon.
Valeria said nothing. She rarely said anything first. But her three-pace distance had closed to one without him noticing exactly when.
