Free Preview - Frozen Arcana - Chapter 1: The Gilded Cage

Winnipeg, Manitoba December 31, 1939

The wind didn’t howl in Winnipeg; it screamed. It tore down the Portage Avenue wind tunnel, stripping the heat from the streetcar tracks in the downtown area and rattled the frost-choked windows of the tenements in the North End of the prairie city. It was thirty-two below zero, a temperature that turned breath into ice fog and exposed skin into dead parchment.

For most of the city, New Year’s Eve was a somber affair. The Great Depression had barely unclenched its jaws before the War snapped its teeth shut. In the cramped kitchens of Selkirk Avenue and Boyd Street, families huddled around woodstoves, rationing food and worrying about sons who had just shipped out to England. They toasted the new decade with watered-down tea and dread.

Inside the wrought-iron gates of Armstrong Point, the wind lost its teeth, becoming nothing more than a dramatic sound effect for the orchestra playing in the lit parlors. The streetlights here were brighter, casting long, respectful shadows over the sprawling grounds and stone facades of fading Edwardian reserve—houses built on money made fifty years ago, old enough to have forgotten the sweat it cost. The neighborhood seemed to turn its back on the Assiniboine River, treating the wide, frozen channel not as a view, but as a necessary moat separating them from the rest of the city. Just across that sheet of ice, on Wellington Crescent, electric lights blazed from every window, loud and frantic, the domain of men who were still busy making their fortunes and desperate to prove their existence.

At the sprawling Armstrong Point West Gate mansion of Elias Vance, the Depression hadn’t just been kept at the gate; it had been denied entry entirely. Waiters in crisp white jackets moved through the crowd with silver trays of oysters, caviar and expensive champagne, weaving between men whose cufflinks caught the light of three crystal chandeliers blazing against the boreal dark. The house itself, a fortress of Tyndall stone quarried from the prehistoric sea beds of Manitoba, seemed to absorb the night, its gothic turret piercing the sky like a lance. Inside, the War wasn't a tragedy of mud and blood. It was discussed in hushed tones over brandy, a distant fluctuating market that made the money men nod and smile.

"To 1940!" Vance bellowed, raising a crystal flute of champagne.

A cheer went up from the crowd. These were the titans of the prairie: the Grain Exchange barons who turned wheat into gold, the railway vice-presidents who owned the steel arteries of the Empire, the bankers and the politicians who looked the other way for a price or favour.

Elias Vance stood at the center of it all. He was a man of sharp angles and American confidence, wearing a tuxedo that cost more than a labourer’s annual salary. He had arrived from Chicago months earlier, buying his way into Winnipeg society with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"A marvelous party, Elias," whispered Mrs. Rutherford, the wife of the Dominion Bank’s vice-president. She leaned in close, the heavy scent of lilac powder struggling to mask the gin on her breath. Her fingers didn't just clutch her pearls; they strangled them, twisting the strand until her knuckles turned the color of skim milk. "Though one feels a bit... sticky about it. With the rationing starting, and the boys eating bully beef in the barracks..."

"Nonsense, my dear," Vance soothed, placing a warm, manicured hand over hers to stop the fidgeting. His voice was a smooth baritone, flattening the sharp British clipped tones of the Winnipeg elite with a broad, reassuring Midwestern drawl. "If we let the lights go out here, if we let the music stop, then the darkness wins. We aren't just drinking champagne, Margaret. We are keeping the fires of civilization burning. That is what the boys are fighting for—the right to a good life."

He smiled, a perfect, practiced expression that crinkled the corners of his eyes just enough to suggest warmth without ever reaching the iris.

While Mrs. Rutherford preened under his attention, Vance’s gaze detached itself, sliding past her shoulder to scour the perimeter of the ballroom.

He found his target in the shadows of a heavy velvet drape near the orchestra.

Lionel Sterling looked less like a guest and more like a man waiting for a firing squad. The lawyer was vibrating with a nervous energy that seemed to repel the other guests. Sweat beaded on his upper lip, glistening under the chandeliers despite the draft that snaked through the old house. He was gripping a tumbler of scotch with a force that threatened to shatter the crystal, the ice cubes rattling a faint, terrified rhythm against the glass.

Vance didn't wave. He didn't call out. He simply locked eyes with the man and gave a single, microscopic nod toward the heavy oak doors of the library.

Sterling swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing above his bow tie. He downed the rest of his drink in one burning gulp, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and pushed off the wall. He moved through the crowd with his head down, drawn toward the library doors as inevitably and reluctantly as a dog answering the snap of a leash.

Vance’s library was a sanctuary of leather and mahogany. A fire roared in the hearth, sucking the oxygen out of the room.

As soon as the heavy oak doors clicked shut, cutting off the sound of the evening’s jazz band, Lionel Sterling’s facade crumbled. The lawyer was a tall man, accustomed to being the smartest person in the room, but tonight he looked like a trapped rat.

"I can't do this anymore, Elias," Sterling hissed, putting his glass down on a coaster.

Vance walked to the humidor, clipped a cigar, and lit it slowly. "And why is that, Lionel? You were happy enough to broker the sale of this house without question. You certainly enjoyed the commission and the bonus."

Sterling stammered, wiping sweat from his upper lip. "But now I know... I have to do my due diligence, Elias. I have to.”

Vance didn't blink. He exhaled a plume of blue smoke. "You are a thorough man, Lionel. I admire that."

"Admire it?" Sterling’s voice rose to a squeak. "This is treason, Elias! If the RCMP ever sees the paper trail... 

"Then you would go to prison," Vance said calmly. "Or worse,”. 

"I'm going to the authorities," Sterling said, trying to summon courage he didn't possess. "Unless..."

"Unless?" Vance raised an eyebrow.

"Unless… unless my commission is... adjusted. Significantly. To cover the risk and give me time to get out of this city."

Vance smiled again. It was a terrifying expression. "Ah. Blackmail. So much more forthright than patriotism, Sterling."

Vance walked to the desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out a thick envelope. He tossed it onto the blotter.

"There. That should settle your conscience."

Sterling grabbed the envelope, peeking inside the stack of bills. Relief washed over him. "I was hoping we could come to an understanding, Elias.” 

Sterling stuffed the envelope into his coat pocket and turned to leave. "I'll see myself out.”

"Do be careful, Lionel," Vance called after him. "The ice can be treacherous."

As the door closed, the shadows in the corner of the library shifted. Viktor Kloss stepped into the firelight. He was Vance’s driver—a silent monolith of a man with pale eyes and hands that looked like they could crush coal into diamonds.

"He knows," Kloss said. His voice was like grinding stones.

"He knows one piece. A small one, but still," Vance agreed, staring into the fire. "But he’s now become greedy. A fatal combination."

Vance reached into his own pocket and pulled out a single playing card. He looked at it for a moment, then handed it to Kloss. He took another pull on the cigar and watched the smoke disappear. "Mr. Sterling will take his river shortcut to Wellington Crescent. Ensure he finds his way."

The heavy servants' door clicked shut, severing the lifeline to the mansion’s warmth. The cold didn’t just hit Lionel Sterling; it vacuumed the air from his lungs, instantly freezing the moisture in his nostrils. He gasped, the expensive camel-hair coat offering about as much protection as tissue paper against the thirty-below vacuum of the night. But beneath the shivering, a fire still burned—a quart of aged scotch and the manic, vibrating heat of survival.

He pressed his gloved hand against his chest. The envelope was there, a solid, reassuring brick of currency tucked against his ribs. It crinkled as he moved—the dry, paper sound of a retirement fund, of silence bought and paid for. 

He navigated the steep slope of the embankment, his smooth leather dress shoes acting like skis on the hard-packed drifts. He flailed, grabbing at frozen willow branches that snapped in his grip, sliding down into the bowl of the river valley.

At the bottom, the world changed. The city's streetlights did not reach here. Above him, the Maryland Bridge was a cage of black steel bones and brick, etched against the starless sky, massive and indifferent. Below it lay the Assiniboine River—no longer water, but a wide, flat highway of concrete-hard ice that severed the neighborhoods in two.

To his right, the dark tree line of Armstrong Point loomed like a cliff face, silent and impenetrable. To his left, a white void, the mansions of Wellington Crescent glittered. He could see the amber glow of porch lights, the smoke rising from chimneys—his safety, his home.

"Just a ten-minute walk," he whispered, the words turning into white puffs that vanished instantly. "Just across the ice."

He stepped onto the frozen river. The wind died down here, blocked by the high banks, but the silence that replaced it was heavier. It was a vacuum silence, deep and ringing. The only sound was the scritch-slide of his soles on the wind-scoured surface.

He made it to the bridge's shadow. The massive concrete piling rose up like a tombstone, blocking out the view of his home for a fleeting second.

Crunch.

Lionel stopped. The sound was distinct. It wasn't the wind rattling the steel girders. It was the dry, granular sound of a heavy boot compressing frozen snow.

Behind him.

"Hello?" Sterling called out, turning. "Is someone there?"

A figure emerged from the darkness of the bridge piling. Tall. Heavy coat. Hat pulled low.

"I have money," Sterling stammered. "Take it."

The figure didn't speak. He moved with terrifying speed on the slick ice.

Sterling turned to run, but his dress shoes slipped. He went down hard, the air knocked out of him. He rolled over, looking up.

Viktor Kloss stood over him, silhouetted against the city's faint lights. He didn't look like a man. He looked like a statue carved from the night itself.

"Please," Sterling whispered.

Kloss knelt, his movements almost gentle. Sterling felt the warmth before the pain. And then nothing.