Drew tugs my arm for attention.
“What?” I try to ask, but my mouth won’t cooperate. Then I’m blinking awake as the restaurant dissolves into a dream.
Instead, I’m surrounded by endless white.
“Devochka!”
I blink against the blinding brightness, struggling to remember where I am. “What’s happening?”Is this what hypothermia hallucinations feel like?
The voice comes again. “Devochka!” Followed by a stream of unfamiliar words. I force my eyes to open despite being so frozen I can barely comprehend what’s occurring.
Then I see boots.
Large boots crusted with snow.
Where am I?I’m so exhausted. Did I actually fall asleep in arctic conditions? How am I still alive?
A face appears above me. Not Beast’s leonine features or another terrifying creature.
Just a man—an elderly man with a beard encrusted in ice and snow. His eyes widen as he looks down at me, releasing another stream of words I can’t understand except for something that sounds like “angel.”
Which makes me laugh weakly.
The sound hurts. My entire chest aches.
The man lifts me in his arms. I must be quite small to him. Maybe he’s not as ancient as I first thought—it’s just that hisbeard reaches halfway down his chest and has gone completely white.
I giggle again, delirious.Have I found Santa? Am I at the North Pole?
I scan the sky, searching for Beast. It would be just my luck if he swooped down now, killed my rescuer, and dragged me back anyway.
But the sky remains clear.
When I focus on the ground ahead, my heart leaps. There, partially buried in ice and snow, is an actual house!
Fresh tears come, though I didn’t think I had any moisture left.
I didn’t imagine it. I really did see something.
This light in the darkness. My salvation.
The man kicks open his door and heads straight for a roaring fire. I nearly weep at the sight. The air is already so much warmer here.
He carries me to the fire and places me on a couch-like futon, then pushes it closer to the flames, all the while muttering in his language. Immediately, he grabs several blankets from a pile beside the hearth—clearly warming there for his return—and covers me with layer after layer, concealing my nakedness while providing desperately needed warmth.
I blink as ice on my lashes melts and turns liquid, along with the frozen tears on my face. Finally, real tears slide down my cheeks again.
He continues piling blankets until their weight presses down on me completely. They smell musty and comforting, like my grandmother’s attic.
Only then does he begin removing his own snow gear.
He’s elderly but not as ancient as I initially thought. Maybe sixties? Thin as a rail, though. If this is Santa, he needs to work on that jolly belly.
God, I feel completely delirious.
And desperately tired.
My eyes start closing, but he snaps gnarled fingers in front of my face. “Nyet, doch’. Nyet.”
