them, remembering the sensation of being merely cold had been like remembering summer. But Nate had hidden those darker memories behind the locked door, because to explain why the three travelers were willing to suffer so would require explaining why they were here, and Judah wasn’t ready to hear that yet. To her, the Barriers were merely dark and lovely and wild.
I suppose I am, he said. A friend died.
The snow settled on her hair like diamonds and didn’t melt. I know how that feels.
You do, don’t you? Nate changed the scene: showed her the stableman as he’d seen him that first time, in Firo’s room. Wary and pale, but unafraid. Like a cow going to slaughter was unafraid. He could feel the stab of pain the dull face brought her. The empty spaces the stableman had left in her were the empty spaces Charles had left in him. It was dreadful to lose someone. He’s not dead, though.
He might as well be, she said curtly. He could feel her sadness as keenly as he felt his own.
Watch the snow, he told Judah, and set the silver crystals of snow spinning and whirling in the air. Her eyes grew wide, as he’d known they would. Snow never danced that way in reality. While she was distracted, he reached into her, felt for the jagged places the stableman’s absence had left. He pressed the broken edges together and smoothed the seam over. It was complicated Work and he was almost frightened by how quickly and easily he could do it. It was true that the more you Worked in someone’s mind, the more malleable that mind became, but this was something he’d never been able to do before. He knew he wouldn’t be able to do it now were they not in the tower.
Even so, she gasped, and pressed a hand to her chest. What did you do?
A kind of Work. The faintest smugness colored his voice. The smoothing was the sort of talent he had long envied in Caterina, who did it as a treatment for grief or anger. But now Judah’s lips were pressed tight together, her eyes flinty.
Undo it.
But I took away your pain.
It’s my pain. The ice crystals near her seemed to darken from diamond to onyx and the wind began to snatch at Nate—nowhere near as cold as reality had been, but worrisome, nonetheless. I want to feel it.
The sky was beginning to tilt sideways and slide away. He wasn’t even sure she knew she was doing it. Unsettled, he said, I’ve given you a gift. You’re better off without him.
With a sound like shattering glass, the crystals of black ice snapped together into a long, sharp wedge. For a bare instant it hovered in the air between them—then it flew straight toward his heart. He felt the merciless point tearing into his skin, splintering his ribs like kindling—
And he lay on the floor of the tower, out of the Work, gritty stone beneath his hands. He tried to take a breath, but something was wrong with his lungs. Something was wrong with all of him. His arms and legs flailed against the floor, his back straining in an agonizing arc, but his mind was clear—as clear as it ever was, anyway—watching his body twist and spasm. The pain was very real, the pain was brutal. The back of his skull rammed three times, hard, against the stone floor, and the world was full of flinty ice again and everything went gray.
When he became aware of himself once more, his body was mercifully still. The side of his face pressed against cold stone. A pebble dug into his cheek. Faintly, he heard somebody gasping. He didn’t think it was him. Carefully, he moved one arm, then another. Braced them beneath his body and pushed himself upright.
Judah sat a few feet away, her back pressed against the curved wall. She was only inches from the place the floor stopped. It terrified him to see her so close to the edge. Her arms were wrapped tight around her body. She was the one who was gasping. Her eyes were wild, like a panicked horse. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s all right. I’m all right,” he said, although something in his head was damaged. He saw everything in multiples: Judah here, Judah on the mountain, Judah a year from now. Infinite Judahs observed by infinite Nathaniels. The ends of himself flapped loose and he knew that Derie would not be