“The Fenris don’t, but it looks like Mora has that covered anyhow,” Ella says as she flips another page of a thick book that appears to be written in Italian. I fidget for a few moments, looking at the clock. Ella lifts her eyebrows at me and smiles.
“He’s just finding them. Then he’ll come back and get us and you can go to work on convincing Kai to stay away from the Snow Queen, while I pummel her to find out where she took our opera singer. You have no idea how much money we poured into that kid,” she says.
“That’s probably why she wanted him,” I say. “I was thinking last night… Mora told me and Kai once that she used to be wealthy, but that she was trapped. And something about how she wasn’t allowed to dance.”
“Huh,” Ella says. “So she wasn’t always the Snow Queen, then.”
“No,” I say, and shake my head. “And I’m thinking that’s why she takes certain boys. Because now that she has this power, now that she’s a queen—”
“She’s using it to own the things she’s always wanted. Artists. Bohemians. Rebels. The anti-tie crowd,” Ella says, nodding. “Like Larson.”
“Like Kai.”
“I wonder what the other boy did—the redheaded one,” Ella says.
“I wonder how many boys there are,” I answer. I open the cookbook and flip through a few of the pages I haven’t studied closely yet. The pages grow more confusing as the book goes on—the recipes toward the back are written in shorthand so punctuated I can’t fathom what they mean, and one page contains a weird shape outlined in pencil, something resembling a curled-up dog. There’s text near it, but it’s too smudged to read.
Read. I’m sitting here reading, while Kai is with her. While she’s doing whatever it is she does to him, however she does it. Making him a collectible, all to prove something to the world, all because of some terrible past. Did she become the Snow Queen because of her past, or in spite of it? I look at Ella again. I trust her—I trust her and Lucas more than anyone other than Kai, even though I hardly know them, yet just sitting here while Lucas is out is making my head spin.
“What about you?” Ella interrupts my thoughts.
“Hm?”
“Kai plays violin. Larson sings. Lucas tracks things. The redheaded boy did something. What do you do?”
“I…” I trail off. I try to stop it, but my stock response, the same one I gave Mora, falls from my mouth, clunky and awkward. “I don’t really do anything.”
“Don’t do anything,” Ella asks, drumming her fingers on the sofa, “or don’t do anything yet?”
I smile. “Is there a difference?”
“Huge difference,” she says. “People who don’t do anything annoy me. People who don’t do anything yet excite me, because they can potentially do everything.”
“Kai always said I need to find something,” I admit, letting the idea that I can do everything sink in and rattle me pleasantly. “I think it bothered him that he knew he was a violinist, and I didn’t know what I was. He said I should be something.”
“You will,” she says. “When you’re ready. Don’t let anyone rush you. Unless you’re living in your parents’ basement at thirty. Because then I’ll personally show up and rush you. Don’t think you can hide down there. Lucas can track anyone anywhere.”
I laugh. “Don’t you ever go with him, when he’s tracking? Don’t you want to?”
She shakes her head. “He’s good at what he does. I’m good at what I do. But that doesn’t mean that I’m good to have along when tracking. Or that he’s good to have along when meeting the governor, because my god, he’s not. Nor does he like wearing a tux, so it works out.”
I’m not entirely sure if that’s what I was asking. Kai and I have always done everything together, so I assumed all couples in love did so. Not that we had to, exactly, but we wanted to, before Mora showed up. I grimace, thinking about what Kai said to me on the roof, words that make my heart twist uncomfortably.
“What would you be without me, Ginny?”
“Nothing.”
I know it was just Mora, that he didn’t mean it, but the words still sting. We did everything together, because we were in love—but maybe also because I’m nothing without him. I’m just a girl, not a witch or a queen or a monster.
But then, once upon a time, Mora was just a girl, too. She told Kai that she wasn’t all that different from him, but really, she’s not all that different from me. At least, she didn’t start out that way. She’s just already figured out what she does—she steals boys. But right now, I can do everything. If Mora can steal boys, I can bring them back.
So why am I just sitting on the couch, like I’m nothing?
“Ella,” I say, rising. “We have to go look for them ourselves. Or at least follow Lucas.”
She frowns. “He’ll call us—”
“I know, but… I can’t sit here. I have to go. I trust Lucas, but… knowing he’s out there and I’m here is driving me crazy.”
Ella doesn’t look happy as she puts down her book. “We can’t get in the way.”
“We won’t. I just have to—”
“I know. Trust me. I’ve been there.” She shakes her head and laughs a little. “You remind me of me, and I’m not entirely sure that’s a compliment.”
“I’ll take it as one anyway,” I say, smiling.
She nods, rising. “Come on. We should take your car—Lucas’ll recognize all of ours.”
I wonder if Ella wishes she hadn’t said that when she climbs into the station wagon. It takes a few moments for the engine to get going, during which time we beat the caked-on ice and snow off the windshield. It breaks apart in big sheets, as if it’s made of ceramic instead of water. The cold is, however, notably different today. It touches my skin but fails to kiss my bones, fails to make me feel I’ll never, ever be warm again.
I wonder if it means she’s already left.
“Does the engine always sound like that?” Ella asks, looking at me warily. “It sounds like one of your belts is bad.” I back up; something under the hood knocks. “And it needs an oil change. How long has the back window been broken?”
“Since a Fenris smashed it. Do you want to take one of yours?” I ask, exasperated.
“No…” Ella says, though I see her look a little wistfully at the garage that, if memory serves, holds a gold convertible.
Ella guides me down the road, toward town; we pass someone riding on a tractor, and I’m a little envious of how well his tires seem to be gripping the road. I have to give myself a few dozen yards to brake, and we end up almost sliding into a ditch twice. Something about it is less scary than driving alone, like when I first set out—maybe it’s Ella, or the end of that oppressive cold. Or maybe it’s the simple fact that even when you slide off the road here, the worst thing that can happen is you end up in a cow pasture. It’s an hour before we reach Nashville proper; Ella instructs me to pull over at an open McDonald’s.
“There’s no way Lucas would pass this without eating, not after three days snowed in without red meat,” she says, jumping from the car. She wobbles on the ice for a moment and runs inside, and I see her talking to the cashier. Ella returns and points to the left. “The cashier says he went that way. Good thing Lucas took the world’s most conspicuous car.”
“Isn’t that going to make it hard for him to follow Mora and Kai, though?”
“Only if they suspect Barbie is hunting them down,” Ella says, rolling her eyes. “Seriously, Ginny, what was I thinking? It even has pink washer fluid. I don’t know. It was a weird phase.”
We ease along through town; it feels a little like the apocalypse happened while we slept. There are few people in the streets, and most are bundled up so much that we can’t see their genders, much less their faces. We pass parks and little shops that are still closed because of the storm, and an enormous park crowned with a replica of the Parthenon—it’s the liveliest place we’ve seen so far, dotted with kids building snowmen on the lawn.
A
few more blocks, back to mostly desolate streets—“There!” Ella yells, so sharp that I almost slam on the brakes and send us skidding into a Starbucks. I whip my head around to see a flash of pink at the end of a cross street. I struggle to turn the car around, tossing snow up behind me, and hurry forward. “Slow down, slow down,” Ella says. “He’ll be pissed if he knows we’re tracking him tracking them.”
“Do you think he’s close?” I ask, and there’s an edge to my voice that surprises me, a hardness that feels stronger than the fear bubbling up in my stomach.
“I don’t know—stop here, he’s parking,” she says, pointing. The pink Hummer slows to a stop in an empty public lot. Lucas jumps out, and for a moment, I think he’s seen us. But no, not yet. He goes into a restaurant, the only one open on this street. Ella and I are perfectly silent as we wait…. He emerges but leaves the Hummer, opting to walk down the street.
“Do I follow him?” I ask, though I’m already putting the car in drive.
“Maybe we should walk,” Ella answers. “I think he’ll notice the car. This place is like a desert.”
I step out into the snow, gritting my teeth in case it’s somehow become the bone-crumbling, painful type of cold again while we were in the car. But no, it’s… it’s just snow. Ella and I trudge along silently. Every now and then we pass an open restaurant, and the patrons stare at us, as if we’re brave for walking in the weather. I want to tell them that this is nothing compared with the cold that Mora can create.
We pause under a covered bus stop, and I notice it’s snowing again—just a little, flurries at the most. Ella narrows her eyes at the street. Lucas is at the far end, walking slowly, with his hands in his pockets. He pauses for a moment, though he doesn’t turn or look around, and then changes directions suddenly, cutting between buildings. Ella and I step out of the bus stop—
Wind, sharp wind—wind I know. Wind I felt on the roof when it first started to snow three days ago, when Kai and I ran for the door. Wind that I felt as Grandma Dalia lay dying a few floors below. Ella meets my eyes—this is different from a normal cold. It’s oddly helpful to know I’m not the only one who feels the hate, the ice, the darkness in each gust. She shivers and, without speaking, we hurry forward.
It’s nearly impossible to run, and as we move the wind grows stronger. The snow turns sharp, little needles from the sky, and we’re forced to bow our heads to it. We find the alley Lucas vanished into, abandoning the desire to stay out of his sight. It wouldn’t matter, though; he’s gone. The alley is empty, the lids of trash cans being blown off and tossed around as the storm picks up. The snow thickens, and I glance back—we’re far from the car now, and most of the businesses we pass are either closed for the day or boarded up permanently.
Ella charges forward, and I see something in her eyes—panic. She runs, sliding, down the alley to the next cross street. I follow behind, my eyes darting to the roofs, the windows, behind the Dumpsters, certain that I’ll see Kai or…
“Lucas!” Ella shrieks, but it’s almost immediately lost in the air. I look up, but everything is white, as if our world is shrinking down to the size of an alley. She slides into the next cross street and stops so short I almost crash into her. I arrange my limbs, then follow her gaze to the storefront of an out-of-business deli.
It’s Lucas. His hair is slicked back by the wind, his eyes narrow and his back pressed against the plywood covering the deli’s door. And in the middle of the street, taking slow, deliberate steps, is a dark gray wolf.
It stares at him, ears pricked forward—there’s something less monster-like, more wolflike about it than the things I saw at the rest stop, and yet for that it’s all the more terrifying. The snow swirls around us as the wolf gets closer, closer—and I see someone is standing behind it.
It’s Mora.
There’s another wolf beside her, this one black, a total contrast to the way Mora herself looks. She’s wearing a sleek gown, silk and cornflower blue—I notice not only because she’s so beautiful, but because it doesn’t have sleeves; her skin, only a few shades pinker than the snow, is exposed. Yet Mora doesn’t seem fazed by the cold; her hair spirals in the wind, her eyes are hard like jewels, and for the first time, I’m completely, undeniably certain that Grandma Dalia got it right. That Mora is the Snow Queen.
A shot—a gunshot. I whirl around and see Ella holding a pink handgun in both hands, her head tilted to the side to aim. She’s not shaking; she’s angry. Mora spins to face us. Her face darkens when she sees me, and the wind grows even stronger as her mouth twists into a cruel sort of smile. I’m not sure what Ella was aiming at—one of the wolves or Mora?—but she missed, and a heavy stillness sweeps across all of us, a stall before chaos.
Ella fires again.
Everything happens at once. The gray wolf, the one nearest to Lucas, lifts up on its back legs and falls—Ella hit it. Mora roars, her fingers tightening into icy fists. Lucas is running; Ella is aiming at the black wolf, and something new, something dark is stumbling toward Mora. I don’t need to see his eyes to recognize the newcomer’s posture, the way he carries his hands, the way his head bows into the wind. I whisper his name. Kai’s chin lifts, and I see a sparkle of gold underneath his hooded sweatshirt as his eyes find mine.
Everything stops—at least, for me. Because for a moment, a small moment, he’s just Kai, and I’m just Ginny, and we’re in love forever. I know it with the kind of certainty that I know who my mother is, or where I live. I extend my hand toward him, certain love will break the spell, will draw him toward me.
He jolts backward. Mora—she’s beside him and has wrapped her fingers around his wrist. She’s yanking him away from me as if he’s a child, while the world grows colder. I lunge forward, but the wind is too strong—all I can do is bend over and march through the gale. I yell his name this time, scream it. My eyes are hot and my lungs feel as if they’re cracking with each breath, but he’s here, he’s alive, she—
The wind stops.
I fall forward, looking up just in time to see a silver car ease away down the street. Lucas is hacking, pounding against his chest as if he can’t breathe; Ella runs to him and falls into the snow beside him. I drop to my knees and bury my face in my gloved hands. He was here.
He was here, and I wasn’t strong enough to stop her.
“Ginny,” Ella says. I don’t look up. “Ginny,” Ella says, this time louder. “Ginny, go to the car and go back to our house. You know the way?”
“Yes, why—” I inhale sharply, stomach twisting. The gray wolf that Ella shot is dead, lying in the snow among an ever-growing plume of blood. But he’s also not a wolf anymore.
He’s a man.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Kai and I loved this book that we read in third grade, about a boy who befriended an Indian. One part in particular delighted us—when they became blood brothers. They cut themselves and touched the open wounds together so that their blood mingled, bonding them forever.
Of course, the idea of blood brothers was a lot more exciting before we were sitting in my bedroom, a pocketknife between us, looking equally green.
“Maybe you should cut my finger,” I said, “and I’ll cut yours.”
“I’m not sticking you with a knife!”
“How is it any different than me sticking myself with a knife?” I asked.
Kai didn’t answer but shifted uncomfortably. He looked from me to the knife and back again, then finally reached down and picked it up. “Maybe we shouldn’t do our palms,” he said. “Maybe something less… painful.”
“Like what?”
“Maybe…” He twisted his palm around, finally pointing to the soft spot on the back side of his hand between his thumb and forefinger. “What about there?”
I shrugged. “Okay. Wherever.”
Kai glared at me, held his breath, and then pushed the knife blade against his skin.
Six hours later, we finally left the emergency room. Kai had to get eight stitches, and I never go
t the chance to cut myself and complete the ceremony, since I was too busy screaming for Grandma Dalia. She blamed me, of course, and made Kai pudding for dinner.
The cut healed and turned into a thick scar with bumps along either side from the stitches. “All that,” Kai said, regarding it a few weeks later in the rose garden, “and we didn’t even finish the ceremony.”
“I should have cut myself,” I said, disappointed. “Before you went to the hospital.”
“No. Then we’d both have dumb scars,” he said, shrugging. But then his eyes met mine and sparkled, and I could tell we had the same idea.
Our blood never mingled, exactly, and we didn’t get to say “now we’re blood brothers for life” like the characters in the book. But I did drag a knife along my hand, cutting just enough to give me a scar that matched his—save the stitch marks. It hurt; when I cried, Kai ran home and got me a pudding cup.
“I’m so stupid,” I said when he got back. “Look.” I grabbed his hand and pulled it toward me—I’d cut my left hand; his scar was on his right. “They don’t match.”
“No,” he said quickly. “See?” He took my left hand with his right, interlacing our fingers. “They match perfectly.”
Kai was right—the line from his scar matched up to my cut, like a string wrapped around our hands, tying us together for life.
I feel numb, sitting in the house alone, staring at the flames in the fireplace. I’m not sure what weighs me down more—the fact that Kai got away, or seeing a man, bleeding, naked, and innocent-looking, where a monster had been.
And not just any man. I recognized him, his red hair, his cheekbones. He’s the one from Grandma Dalia’s photo, the one who was at her funeral. I’m so sorry, Grandma Dalia, I think over and over, as if she’ll hear me, forgive me. I didn’t even know his name. Losing him changed Grandma Dalia forever, made her afraid forever, and I don’t even know his name. Did she hide his picture in the back of the book because she wanted to forget him, or because the image was just another reminder that she’d never be able to?