Cold is the first thing she knows. It is a sharp, medicinal chill that tastes of pine needles and iron. Sigrid opens her eyes to a ceiling of dark, heavy beams and the shimmering reflection of a frozen fjord dancing on the plaster. This is not her flat in Oslo. There are no sirens here, only the suffocating silence of the high north. She is lying in a canopy bed draped in heavy charcoal wool, her limbs leaden and slow.
Her hand fumbles toward the bedside table, seeking the familiar weight of her phone. Instead, her fingers graze something rough and warped. She pulls it into the weak dawn light. It is the Oslo ledger. The cover is water-damaged, the leather swollen and stiff, but the ink inside remains clear. Every number she harvested from the Rasmussen shipping accounts is still there. She is not a witness anymore; she is a liability.
She sits up, the movement sending a flare of nausea through her skull. The room is a beautiful cage of stone and timber, grand enough to be a palace and quiet enough to be a tomb. The air smells of woodsmoke and expensive soap. She reaches the floor, her bare feet hitting the freezing rug, and moves toward the only exit.
Outside the bedroom door, the heavy iron bolt begins to slide back.
