The snow falling over Vienna was thick and silencing, turning the imperial city into a ghost town of white marble and dark shadows. It was November 1814, and while the nobility of Europe danced in the opulent halls of the Hofburg Palace, the alleys belonged to the rats, the beggars, and the spies. Felix Adler fell into the latter category, though he preferred the term ‘information broker.’
Felix stood in the freezing shadow of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, pulling the collar of his heavy wool greatcoat up against the biting wind. He was twenty-eight, with sharp, hawkish features and the permanent, calculating squint of a man who spent his life looking for ambushes. During the war, he had scouted ahead of the Austrian vanguard. Now, he scouted secrets.
He was waiting for Lord Harrington, a British diplomat who paid handsomely for decrypted French missives.
A sharp, wet cough broke the silence of the alley. Felix’s hand instantly went to the heavy, double-barreled flintlock pistol hidden beneath his coat. From the swirling snow, a figure stumbled forward. It was Harrington, but he was not walking with the arrogance of a British lord. He was staggering, clutching his chest.
“Felix,” Harrington gasped, collapsing against the stone wall of the cathedral.
Felix rushed forward, catching the man before he hit the frozen cobblestones. The diplomat’s heavy velvet coat was soaked with blood. A thin, perfectly thrown throwing knife was buried to the hilt between his ribs.
“Harrington! Who did this?” Felix demanded, his eyes scanning the rooftops and the dark mouths of the surrounding alleyways.
“The Crown…” Harrington wheezed, blood bubbling at the corners of his mouth. “The Iron Crown. They know… the peace is a lie.”
“Hold still, I can stop the bleeding,” Felix lied, pressing his leather-gloved hand against the wound.
“No time,” Harrington choked out. With a trembling hand, he reached into the inner pocket of his coat and pulled out a tightly folded piece of parchment. He shoved it into Felix’s hands. “The music… it plays at midnight. If the waltz finishes… Europe burns. Find the thief. Find Clara.”
Harrington’s head lolled to the side, his eyes fixing blindly on the falling snow. He was dead.
Felix barely had a second to process the loss of his best client before the unmistakable crunch of boots on fresh snow echoed from the end of the alley. Three men emerged from the whiteout. They wore heavy dark coats and tall hats, their faces obscured by the shadows and the storm. The man in the center held a long, suppressed air-rifle—a quiet, deadly weapon favored by elite assassins.
“Hand over the paper, Austrian,” the lead man said, his accent thick with Parisian vowels.
Felix didn’t speak. He dropped Harrington’s body, dropped to one knee, and drew his double-barreled flintlock in a single, fluid motion. He fired the right barrel. The deafening roar of the black powder shattered the quiet night. The heavy lead ball caught the man with the air-rifle squarely in the chest, throwing him backward into the snow.
The other two men drew cavalry sabers and charged.
Felix didn’t bother trying to reload or fire his second barrel; the snow was too heavy, the powder likely damp. He shoved the pistol into his belt and drew the short, curved hunting hanger sword he kept at his hip.
He parried the first man’s downward slash, the impact jarring his arm, and used the man’s momentum to throw him off balance against the cathedral wall. The second assassin thrust low, aiming for Felix’s stomach. Felix sidestepped, the blade slicing through the heavy wool of his coat, missing his flesh by inches. He brought the pommel of his hanger down viciously on the man’s wrist, shattering bone. As the assassin dropped his sword, Felix delivered a brutal kick to his knee, sending him collapsing to the ice.
The first man recovered and lunged. Felix threw a handful of snow directly into his eyes, stepped inside his guard, and drove the hilt of his sword into the man’s temple. The assassin crumpled.
Felix didn’t wait for them to wake. He grabbed the blood-stained parchment Harrington had given him and sprinted into the labyrinth of Vienna’s side streets. He ducked under a stone archway, his heart hammering against his ribs, and unfolded the paper.
It was not a letter. It was a sheet of music. Specifically, a waltz, written with frantic, jagged ink strokes. Smeared across the musical staffs was Harrington’s blood.
Find Clara, the dead man had said. Felix sighed, his breath pluming in the freezing air. Clara von Arnim was the most dangerous woman in Vienna, a disgraced aristocrat who stole from the very people she used to dine with. And she was the last person Felix wanted to see.
