Winter, White and Wicked - Shannon Dittemore Page 0,96

has me worried,” I say. “It’s the smell.”

“Not mine,” he says. “I just bathed.”

“Clearly.”

“Melting snow has its upside. I can show you where the pool is, Hy, if you want to rinse off that grime.”

Hyla arches away from Kyn’s hand. “I’d rather smell,” she says, collecting the welder and traipsing away.

Kyn throws me a wink and follows.

“We should take a look at the engine,” I say.

“I’ll be along.” He doesn’t turn back and I consider asking him what could be more important than the engine, but despite the grin on his face, there’s something somber fighting for his attention.

When I hear the turn of the key and the rattle of metal, I understand. He’s checking the load.

“I could use some help with this door,” Kyn calls.

The hole in the door—the one the Rangers made with their harpoon—will have to be repaired before we get out on the Seacliff Road. Even without Winter’s influence, the kol and salt blowing in off the sea has the capacity to damage most anything.

“Hyla has the welder,” I say, walking fast in the opposite direction. Curiosity be damned, there’s still value in claiming I knew nothing of the haul. Be it kol or twyl or fuzzy woolen sweaters for the rebels. I can’t imagine any of it is worth all this.

“But Hyla smells,” Kyn calls.

I can’t fight the smile that breaks out across my face.

“I felt that,” he says.

Silence as we both process the consequences of that admission.

And then, as though he’s made peace with it, he softly whispers, “You smiled. I felt it.”

The Sylver Dragon is buttoned up and I’ve scrubbed myself clean by the time Mars returns with a small burlap sack flung over his shoulder.

“Twyl,” he says.

Sweat pours down his face and neck, drenches the front of his shirt. Kol lines the creases of his face and hands, his knuckles bleed, and the knees of his black trousers are caked with mud.

“You went on foot,” I say.

“Yes, Miss Quine, I did. An ice bike would have been helpful, but we seem to have misplaced ours.”

The loss of Drypp’s bike is more painful than inconvenient, but what’s done is done. “I don’t imagine you’d know what to do with one if we hadn’t.”

Mars snorts. “Well, there is that.”

“The trailer door’s been fixed,” Kyn says, handing the key back to Mars.

Mars drops the sack and takes the key from Kyn’s hand, then slides it into the medicine bag hanging around his neck.

“Come, Hyla,” he says, grabbing the woman’s arm. “It’s time for a bath.”

“I don’t mind the smell,” Hyla protests.

But Mars is hauling her out into the light. “You train Paradyian warriors for battle. You can brave a cold bath.”

“We need to go,” I yell, though my eyes are still on the burlap sack. It’s a small bag, but the hike would have been treacherous.

“He’s saving the kol in his blood for the road,” Kyn says.

I’m not sure what to do with the appreciation growing in my chest. Mars is the only one of us who could have done what he did. The rest of us are vulnerable to the kol blowing in wildly off the sea.

Kyn shoves at the bag with the toe of his boot. “Will this be enough?”

“If we can make it past the danger in half a day? Maybe.”

“And if it takes us longer?”

I squat and tip the contents of the bag onto the cave floor.

“I don’t know,” I say, the meager collection disheartening. “If the monsters swarm, if the rig takes any damage, if our welds break, or the plastic sheeting on the windows tears free—” I shrug. “We’ll have to draw straws or something.”

“Short straw gets strapped to the hood, yeah?”

I can’t help but smile. “Something like that.”

CHAPTER 24

Seacliff Road is everything I promised Kyn it would be. Shifting, wet rock on the rough-cut byway, kol flecks sparkling in gray sunlight. And wind so fierce it threatens to dislodge the newly fired welds on the door latches. Kyn leans forward as he reaches for the instrument panel, his elbow knocking mine.

I grab his wrist before he can mess with my switches, but his fingers are long and he’s disengaged the heater before I can stop him. His expression is careful, his brows doing most of the talking as he tips his chin to the sight beyond the windshield.

“Best keep the kol outside, yeah?”

He’s right, of course. The kol swirls on the wind, black streaks against the white sky.

I release his wrist but not before my stomach soars at