Phoenix Flame - Sara Holland Page 0,39

to look more Fiorden. I sit as still as I can at the table, feeling awkward and antsy, like I always do when I get a haircut. But instead of scissors in my hair, it’s hands on my face, a gentle magic playing over my skin, sinking beneath the surface.

There’s no mirror and I keep my eyes closed, so I can’t see what they’re doing to me. It feels strange, but not unpleasant. My skin stretches slightly, heating and tingling. It’s almost like feeling myself get sunburned, but somehow pleasant.

At last, Graylin steps back. “All right. I think that’s about all we can do.”

I open my eyes, blinking as the cabin comes back into focus. I’d kind of zoned out, and I didn’t realize how much time must have passed. The world through the thick windows is dark, and starlight glitters off the snow. My heart speeds. It’s almost time to go to Winterkill.

As Graylin and Kae step back, examining their work critically, Brekken appears in the periphery of my vision. He’s holding something—a hand mirror, I realize, old-looking, the carved wood handle worn smooth and the surface mottled silver.

Brekken’s blue eyes are wide as he looks at me, with a mix of wonder and trepidation. It makes a flush of self-consciousness rise to my cheeks. Caught up as I was in the danger of what we’re about to attempt, I didn’t really feel the wonder of it—my face, my features changed and manipulated by fairy-tale magic, all so I fit in better in this strange world of ice and starlight. Winterkill’s world. Graylin’s world. Brekken’s world.

The whole cabin seems to go still as I reach for the mirror. Ilya, measuring fabric at a desk against the far wall, pauses in her work. Graylin tenses. Kae turns and sweeps from the cabin—maybe she needs fresh air, or maybe the sudden tension and pressure in the air is too much for her. And Brekken is still, his eyes on me.

My reflection slides over the small, aged mirror, and I swallow a gasp—of surprise, a little alarm, and wonder. It’s my face, but not quite. The planes of my face have sharpened, my cheekbones look more blade-like, and the hollows at my cheeks and temples more shadowy. My skin is pale except for roses of color high in my cheeks, like I’ve only just come in from the cold. My ears seem a big longer, and my hair slightly more reddish. I look strange. I look beautiful.

Before I can examine my reflection too long, Ilya rushes in, wielding a wooden case filled with what seems to be Fiorden makeup—powders in bone-carved boxes, mysterious liquids in bottles of colored glass. While Brekken and Graylin head outside to prepare the sleigh, she goes to work, accentuating the changes magic has wrought.

Then she presents me with what she’s been working on—a long green velvet dress, simple but elegant, and a cape of fine black fur with a silk-lined hood. She also hands over leather boots for underneath, with high heels to make me taller. Everything fits perfectly. I guess I know where Brekken got his meticulous nature, but between the heels and the voluminous skirt, I hope everything goes according to plan tonight. That I don’t need to run.

“Well,” Ilya says when I stand. She sounds pleased with herself, and takes up the mirror to angle it my way. She tilts it up and down to give me the full picture. “What say you, Maddie Morrow of Fiordenkill?”

She says it in a joking, teasing way, but it still sets a chill sweeping up my spine. I gaze at the girl in the mirror. Tallish, slender, elegant. Someone who would look at home in this perpetual winter. At home next to Brekken.

All in all, no one who looked closely would mistake me for a Fiorden, but hopefully no one will look twice.

“Thank you,” I tell Ilya, my voice thick with a bit too much emotion. “Thank you so much.”

Then I turn toward the door and turn my mind to the task ahead.

Infiltrate Winterkill.

Find the Solarians.

Free them.

Get the armor.

And through it all, one question gets louder and louder in my head.

How, exactly?

11

That night, we ride the short remaining distance to the Winterkill estate in tense silence. The scenery outside the sleigh is as beautiful as ever, the aurora casting a dappled, multicolored light over the ice road and the pristine snow. But it feels colder, darker, and I don’t take the landscape in, instead letting it rush