Blaze quirks a brow my way. “So you froze him from the inside out?”
“Obviously,” I answer. “Now, our sprite friends… Two didn’t seem so loyal toMommy Dearest. That or they just wanted to live.”
“Too bad,” Blaze mutters.
“Unlike you, I actually remembered gloves,” I say, holding up my clean hands.
“Only because I forgot first. What did they say?” he asks.
“That Mother knows you’re seeing a mortal girl, and then it begged to go back to her and lie. Said it would tell her you’d stopped after you realized she was watching.”
“It wanted to be our messenger?” Blaze scoffs. “Why the hell would we trust a sprite?”
“Like I said. Self-preservation.”
A long sigh leaves him as he glances back into Juniper’s window. “Without her messengers reporting back, we’ll be hearing from her soon.”
“Did you find anything in the Codex?”
The way his mouth curves just so at the corner makes me squint.
“I know that look.”
“I don’t have a look.”
“You do. You have a ‘I found a loophole that’s going to piss Mother off’ look. I remember it. It’s one of my favorites.”
“It isn’t a loophole,” he says, smiling.
“What is it?”
“A way to give us time. Time to hide her, run. At least until we’re supposed to go back.”
“This would give us until March?” I ask as we typically return to the Nether Realm at the spring equinox.
Blaze nods.
“And what happens after that?”
His gaze moves to mine. “After that, my magic will be strong enough to take them. And I’ll have figured out a way to rewrite the Codex.”
Something about his plan makes my insides swell. Centuries, I’ve waited for this. For true freedom from their rules and punishments. To go wherever and live however I want to without someone breathing down my neck.
“You can do that?” I ask, hesitant to get my hopes up.
Blaze regards me, the tension in his shoulders sharper than my ice. “You told me yesterday that I’d forgotten what it was like to want it. I wantthis. I want her. Us. Everything.”
There’s magic and promise in his words. A vision like he can already see it. Taste it.
“What do you need from me?” I ask.
His crooked smirk is back, devious delight in his eyes. “I don’t need to push you, brother. You’re already falling for her.”
I scoff and shake my head, giving him a look of disbelief. “What? A mortal girl? No. No, you have that wrong?—”
“North.”
“Okay, fine. I really fucking like her, and you have no idea how punishing last night was. That was goddamnexcruciating. How do you live like this?”
