Winter, White and Wicked - Shannon Dittemore Page 0,79

I’ve not a drop of kol in my blood, a smoky fog rises off the ice.

“It’s working, snowflake!”

My block of ice steadies, suddenly stiller than it had been a moment before. I turn to Mars and his back straightens. He’s so far away now, but I imagine surprise on his face and something like relief. The river beneath us is not frozen through, but it stands still. Utterly and completely. Winter’s stopped the Flux just as I had asked, but a mutinous shriek across the sky and I know: She will not hold it long.

Mars lifts his gaze to mine and he nods, his mouth still moving, still working. I follow his lead, a blister rubbing on the side of my tongue. Winter sets Mars gently on the frozen surface, his steps confident on the ice as he strides to the driver’s side window.

My heart sinks and the magic freezes on my tongue. There’s water inside. Even from here, I see it sloshing against the useless windows.

“Here!” Kyn calls. “Sylvi, turn around!”

But I can’t wrench my attention from Mars. He kicks out at the glass with his steel-toed boots and the window shatters.

“Sylvi. Jump! Jump.”

Kyn’s so close now I can reach out and touch him. I’d drifted his way without realizing. He reaches across the thin expanse and grabs my collar. I jump. My boots slip as I land, but I right myself when I start to run, making my way toward Mars and Bristol’s plow.

Toward Lenore.

She’s there, sprawled at his feet.

My legs give out and I collapse, gracelessly, elbows and knees smacking ice.

“On your feet, Miss Quine.” Mars’s words are gentle, but he grabs my arm as he walks past, dragging me with him away from Lenore.

Away.

From.

Lenore.

I scream and flail and bite.

And then Kyn is there, pulling me from Mars’s hold, turning my face to his. “It’s not her,” he says, his grip tight on my chin. “It’s not Lenore.”

“What?”

He steps out of my way, gives me a clear view.

“It’s not her.”

CHAPTER 20

Whoever this girl is, she’s young. Younger than I am. Relief washes over me followed by guilt. Her eyes are open and vacant. She has a fresh gash on her forehead. Water mixes with blood and turns it to pink rivulets that rush toward the ice.

“But where’s Lenore?” I crawl to the rig’s smashed window, my arms and knees wobbly, tears freezing on my lashes.

“She was the only one inside, Miss Quine, and she was dead as soon as the plow slammed onto the ice.”

I stare into the empty rig. It’s slowly filling with water, but Mars’s fix is holding for now. And mine too, it seems. The plow is steady. Inside, there’s little to indicate any other presence in the rig—a floating satchel, soaked mittens caught on the gear shift, scraps of garbage swirling in the frigid eddies—but it’s Bristol’s. There isn’t another plow this ugly anywhere in the Kol Mountains.

“If I had to guess,” Mars says. “This rig made it safely to the camp.”

I swallow back a sob. “How can you know that?”

“Her name is Rayna,” Hyla says, her boots quiet as she approaches, her movements ginger. She crouches next to me and scoops up the satchel floating just inside the cab. “I met her at the rebel camp. She had a fire in her chest. Passion or desire, I couldn’t tell.”

Hyla unzips the satchel and peers inside. Her shoulders fall and she shakes her head. “Mars,” she says. “Look.”

Carefully, she lifts out the pulpy remains of what appears to be a stack of letters. The river has scrubbed the pages clean of words, but a circle of wax dangles from the mess, half the Paradyian seal just visible.

“A rebel then,” I say. No one else would dare writing to the golden isle.

Mars takes the wad of paper from Hyla, attempts to separate the pages. “I don’t think we could reasonably call her a rebel,” he says. “But she was in camp with her brother. I assume that’s how she got ahold of Bristol’s rig.”

I’m trembling now, my hand reaching for the roof of the plow. It’s just nerves, the shock of thinking Lenore dead. “Do your rebels usually defect, Dresden?”

“No, Miss Quine. They do not. Rayna was young and she’d already developed a taste for kol. She resented what her brother had done for her.”

“And what was that?” I know better than to ask for a story but I do it anyway. To cover my shaking hands, to give me a moment to collect