splayed. The ice frosts over beneath his feet. Thick, hard. He stumbles and then catches himself.
Winter laughs, low and deep.
I LIKE WATCHING HIM FALL, she says.
I curse.
“What is it, my lady?”
I shake my head, my eyes on Mars. His shoulders stiffen and he shoots into the air, up and forward, the path beneath him freezing hard and smoky white as he crosses to the other side.
We’re still rolling at a safe clip, the ice cracking somewhere in the distance, the danger still hidden to my eyes. “What is it, Hy? What do they see?”
And then footfalls and a crash as Kyn leaps from the trailer to the cab.
“Go, Sylvi, go!” His boot catches my braid as he drops into the Dragon and throws himself onto the bench seat.
Slowly, steadily, I give the Dragon more gas. “What is it?”
“A rig,” he says.
“Coming this way?” The tread spins on the ice, catches, and spins again. Now we’re moving forward at a slightly faster clip.
“Like a Shiv demon,” Kyn says, reaching forward and slamming his fist into the knob that engages the beacons on top of the rig. Flashing lights to warn oncoming traffic that we’re here. “It’s a small rig, but he’s rounding the bend at breakneck speed. If he hits the ice going that fast—”
I push the gas to the floor. “We’ll all go under.”
Hyla shifts, squints at the rig in the distance. “Is it the Rangers? One of their trucks?”
But there isn’t a squad on Layce that’s stupid enough to be out here just now. Maybe a Majority mining rig? Maybe . . .
And then the telltale yellow of a familiar snow plow comes into view.
“It’s Bristol,” I say, punching the dash.
He and Lenore should have arrived at the rebel camp by now. I know they made it as far as the Cages—I saw evidence of his plow there. But the breakage and tracks were days old. Even if the rebel camp is on the farthest point of the isle, his ugly rig could have made it. At the very least, he should be long past this crossing.
“What is he doing? Why are they here?” I get no answer to my question and it infuriates me.
“Kyn!” I yell.
“I don’t know, Sylvi. I don’t . . .” He leans even farther forward and places his hand on the dash. “Do you see them? Can you see Lenore?”
But the rig is too far away and all I see is a yellow machine growing larger and larger in my windshield.
“Perhaps he left the girl at the camp and is returning to Whistletop,” Hyla offers.
“Not possible,” I say. “He couldn’t make it there and back . . .” But I’m thinking, my mind racing, trying to calculate, to count the hours, the days. “It’s too fast,” I say, but it sounds so much more like a question than I mean it to.
I look to Kyn.
“I’ve never approached the camp by this road,” he says, an apology in his voice.
My hands twist on the wheel as the Dragon trundles toward the far shores of the Serpentine. Bristol’s rig grows large in the distance, large by measures that seem unwise, even for an idiot like Mapes.
“He’s going too fast,” I say. “If he doesn’t slow down . . .”
But he doesn’t slow and my breath hitches.
Bristol’s rig careens off the shore and onto the Serpentine. The weight of the rig and the slight dip force his plow down hard. It smacks the ice. The plow blade catches and the rig pitches around—the tires and brakes both useless as it spins toward the center of the crossing. Toward us.
I curse and push my foot to the brake. Slowly, slowly. I can’t afford to lose control here, but where is the wretched thing going to stop?
And then Bristol’s plow blade catches on the ice and his momentum is slowed. Another two rotations and the rig stops in the dead center of the river crossing. We all push toward the glass as the Dragon rolls closer. The yellow plow’s taken a beating. The hood is dented and the front quarter panel is missing entirely. Bristol’s windshield is worse off than ours, dark flakes shimmering in every crack.
“Flux,” Kyn says. “That’s a lot of kol.”
“The wind off the sea,” I say. “They’ve been out on the Seacliff Road.”
I lean left and right, but I can’t see past the cracks and the kol, can’t find Lenore. And then beneath Bristol’s plow the ice splits. Wide and sudden.
The tires go under and