you back online.”
I touch the place where her knife pierced me.
I’d nearly bled out. As weak as I was, my death—my permanent death—should have been quick. Without a connection to Chill—without a leash to the ley lines—there would have been no way to bring me back. Chill’s right. My particles should have dissolved into the ether, lost in the wind, adrift somewhere high over the mountains of Appalachia long before three minutes were up.
“Why . . . ?” I rub at the soft spray of pollen inside my palm. Fleur must have realized my mistake. She must have turned my transmitter back on for me. Even so, it shouldn’t have taken three minutes to locate my signal, if Chill already had a lock on hers. “Why’d it take so long to find us?” But I know. Somehow, I already know the answer.
“Because Fleur turned off her transmitter, too.”
I’m still rooted to the spot beside the stasis chamber, processing Chill’s last words, when the monitor over his desk lights up.
“Turn on your camera, Chill. I know you’re in there.” Poppy Withers’s face fills the screen. She taps the lens of her video cam and drums her desk impatiently.
Chill heaves a sigh. “Every. Damn. Day,” he whispers.
“I heard that,” Poppy answers. “You do realize your microphone’s on.”
Chill mumbles to himself. I scrape the lilies off the stasis bed, hiding them in my fist as he switches on the camera.
Poppy leans closer to her monitor, her nosy blue eyes scanning the contents of our dorm room. They open wide at the sight of my open chamber.
“Thank Gaia!” she says through an impatient huff. “You’re finally awake.” Poppy’s prone to theatrics. Probably because her childhood was spent confined to a hospital bed and she missed all the drama in high school. She’s the most annoying sixteen-year-old I’ve ever met. And down here, that’s really saying something. “Is anyone going to tell me what in Chronos’s name happened up there? Why was Fleur’s transmitter off?”
“You’re her Handler,” I mutter. “Why don’t you ask Fleur?”
“I did! She won’t tell me.” She points a finger at the camera. “If you hurt her—”
“Ha!” I tear the adhesive pads from my chest, shoving the tangled pile of wires to the floor. “If I hurt her? This is earth science, not rocket science! She’s a Spring. I’m a Winter, Poppy! I couldn’t hurt her if I tried!”
She bites her lip, probably because I’m right. A rising Season is nearly impossible to kill. By the time they find the waning Season, we’re far too weak, and they’re far too powerful. Even if it was as simple as luck or circumstance, the punishment for breaking the cycle is enough of a deterrent to keep us from trying. We run, we hide, and eventually we die. Exactly as natural law commands us to.
“Back off,” Chill barks. “He just woke up, and you’re jacking up his vitals.”
Poppy’s eyebrows disappear under her white-blond bangs. “Or what? You’ll break down my door and make me?” Chill grumbles something unintelligible. Poppy knows this is as close as they’ll ever come to being in the same room together. “Exactly what I thought,” she says, leaning back from the camera. Behind Poppy, Fleur’s stasis chamber is dark, still empty, and my thoughts leap to the last moments I spent with her. To the things she confessed to me.
“Don’t you have someplace you need to be?” Chill snaps.
Poppy drums her chewed-up nails on her desk. Checks her tablet. She pushes her chair back from the camera with a sigh. “I have to go keep an eye on Fleur,” she says with a hint of aggravation. “Julio was scheduled for release this morning. She’ll be ready for transport soon.”
Meaning Fleur will be dead soon.
Something doesn’t add up. “Wait,” I say, my stasis-addled brain struggling through the math. “You said it’s been fifty-five days. It’s only the beginning of May. Why would Fleur be ready for transport?” Chill blinks at me, clearly as confused as I am. Fleur was strong on that mountain. As strong as I’ve ever seen her. There’s no way Julio could take her down so fast. She should have at least two, maybe even three more weeks out there before Poppy should have to bring her in.
“It’s Julio,” Poppy says, rolling her eyes. “She makes it far too easy for him.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t look at me,” Poppy says defensively. “I don’t like Julio any more than you do. How do I know what she sees in