Winter, White and Wicked - Shannon Dittemore Page 0,67

around my neck. And yet—

“Winter can be blamed for many disasters . . .”

“But?”

“I’m not sure it’s fair to hold her responsible for the Abaki.”

“Explain yourself, Miss Quine.”

I attempt to press my back into the seat as the road tips us forward. It’s dark now—like driving into the black sea. I flick the headlamps on and find we’re still some distance from the fog.

“It’s been argued that the Abaki are a consequence of the raw kol mingling with the ice and snow.”

“Oh yes,” Mars says, his eyebrow hitching. “I’ve heard that as well.”

“Mars—” Kyn says.

“The kol makes the snow more than what it is,” I say. “Gives it the . . . visage of life.”

Visage. It’s the word Drypp used to explain the encounter.

“Lazy reasoning, Miss Quine. The kol is ubiquitous. If every flake of snow it touched sprouted into a monster, the island would be overrun. But it’s not. The Abaki crawl out of the sea and never venture south of the Serpentine.”

“Not never,” I say.

I can hear his eyes widening in the tone of his voice. “You’ve seen one then? Where?”

“Three miles north of Lake Road.” I fight to keep my voice even. “Give or take.”

“Halfway between Hex Landing and Whistletop, then? A rare sighting. Did your rig take much damage?”

“My rig?”

“When you hit it? I imagine you—”

“We didn’t have the rig.” Though that could have made all the difference. Drypp and I had snowshoed in.

“What did you have?” Kyn asks.

“Fishing poles,” I say, mustering a smile. I try to continue, but my throat is closing up. Knotted hard. And this time it’s not Mars’s doing. It’s recollection and sentiment; it’s the past.

There is no yesterday . . .

But there is. And it hurts.

“Miss Quine—”

“We made it out,” I manage. “Just.”

Kyn places a hand on my shoulder, squeezes. “Winter does favor you, little ice witch.”

“I don’t know,” I say, shaking my head, “but if it is true, if she favors me as you say, why would she have set her monsters on us? On Drypp and me.” It’s a question I’ve avoided thinking about. The likely answers take me down roads I’ve never wanted to travel. But in light of Mars’s claims about kol and snow mingling, in light of his accusations, I can’t help the question forming on my lips. “Why?”

“Miss Quine—”

“I’m not asking. Not really. I’m just trying to show you how flawed your logic is. If Winter controls the monsters, if she favors me, I would never have been attacked. And we were. Drypp was.”

Kyn squeezes my shoulder again. “I’m sorry, Sylvi. Is that how you lost the old man?”

I clear my throat, blink away images of Drypp. “He hung on for a while. Better some days and then bad again. He never fully recovered.”

Fog now, creeping into the beams of the headlamps. The road tips harshly and the bucket strikes the mud just as a tree swipes hard at my door. Curses fill the cab, but the moment passes. Mars waits a total of two seconds before he starts in again.

“Did you know, Miss Quine, that the Abaki were Winter’s first attempts at companionship?”

Kyn groans. “Mars—”

But the conversation is cut short by a battering of trees. The limbs here are spindly, snapping off as we strike them, some of them bending to give way. I’m not inclined to engage the saws. Not if I don’t have to.

We’re near the bottom of the second cage when the fog thickens. I hate giving up the light, but finally, when the windshield is nothing but a vast white blur, I switch off the headlamps and we’re swallowed by darkness.

“How the—” Kyn says. “Can you even see?”

I can see the road if I lean forward and place my chin on top of the wheel, but I can’t watch for trees and highway at the same time. It’s like wearing a blindfold and sprinting through a field of children swinging butterfly nets. I know I’ll take one to the face eventually—I just have no idea which direction it’ll come from.

I’m on the verge of asking Hyla to engage the saw blades when the road bottoms out and we start the climb up and out of the second cage. I twist my boot, ensuring the gas pedal is touching the floor. The Dragon complains and creaks, but she pushes hard, taking a beating as she fights her way through the fog and out of the forest.

It’s only when we clear the trees and I flip the headlamps back on that