Before Mather could react, Hollis flew forward and yanked him away. Mather stumbled to his feet as Feige shot up, her shoulders caved, her wild ivory hair reaching around her face.
Mather stepped forward but Hollis shot a hand out, his fingers digging into Mather’s arm. “Feige, you’re done,” Hollis snapped.
“No.” Mather felt everyone around him draw breaths in confusion. “We can’t ignore things because we’re afraid of them—your sister needs to learn to control her anger.”
“I don’t need to do anything,” Feige growled. “I’mfine.”
“You’re not fine. None of us are. And until we admit that—”
He stopped and reached into his pocket, closing his hand around the carving he kept there. When he pulled it out, Feige stayed quiet, staring at her creation.
“Child of the Thaw,” Mather whispered, rolling through his thoughts. He tightened his fingers around the snowflake-wildflower hybrid, tipping his head down to catch Feige’s gaze. When she met his eyes this time, she seemed almost meek, and he couldn’t believe one girl could show such a vast array of emotions in so short a time.
“You were right,” he said. “None of us belong to Winter,do we? Everyone else tries to cling to a Winter they once knew. But such things don’t burden us—the Winter we know has always been one of our own creation, a kingdom we built on dreams. So you’re right, Feige. We’re all”—he paused, rotating the snowflake-wildflower carving to show the script on the back— “Children of the Thaw. Our own hybrid of the past and the future.”
The smallest, most delicate smile fluttered across Feige’s lips. It took Mather as much by surprise as her abrupt mood changes—the girl was a storm of emotion.
Just like the wild girl who had gotten him into all kinds of trouble as a child, a girl whose eyes flickered with the same desperate, blinding drive to succeed.
Someone who had only smiled at him like that once in the past three months—because he had chosen not to make her smile like that again.
He had slammed the door on Meira, locked the bolt tight. All that waited before him now were these people—maybe he could help them where he couldn’t help Meira anymore.
Where he had never been able to help her.
“Children of the Thaw,” Phil echoed, scratching his chin. “Like our own little group?”
Eli’s eyes flashed with eagerness and he turned to Kiefer, still on the table at the edge of the room. Kiefer seemed to be rolling those words through his mind, testing theirstrength, mimicking the hesitation from the other boys. Like they needed to belong to something, but no one wanted to be the first to admit that need.
Finally Trace broke into a smile. “I like it.”
Phil laughed and hooked his arm around Mather’s neck. “The Children of the Thaw, led by the fierce Once-King of Winter! We’ll strike fear into our enemies’ hearts.”
“And hope into the future,” Mather added.
That sobered Phil, and he unwound his arm. “Aye, that we will.”
The rest of the group seemed just as enthralled with the idea, smiling and tossing jokes about it as they went back to training. Even Kiefer moved warily closer to the throwing range and hovered beside his brother and Phil, all of them watching as Trace worked through throwing.
Feige returned to her seat in the corner, where she pulled out her whittling knife and hunched down again. When Mather turned away from her, Hollis waited next to him.
“You are our leader, my lord,” Hollis whispered. “Do not abuse that power.”
Mather swallowed. “I won’t. We need this, Hollis. We need to face what we are.” He motioned to Feige. “All of what we are, especially the parts that hurt.”
Hollis stared at him, uncertainty framing his face. But he nodded and trailed Feige to the corner. Somehow, that silence was more intimidating than if Hollis had threatened him. Feige may have been a storm of emotion, butHollis was the eye of that storm.
They would get through this, though. They had one another now.
Like their newly acquired name, they would all thaw.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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Meira
