My hand left a red mark across his cheek, but it did the trick. The boy opened his eyes, although they seemed rather glassy and unfocused. “Where’m I?” he muttered.
“All right,” Freya said, pulling him from the table. “Up you go.”
He slid from the table and teetered on his feet for a moment, but righted himself in the end, looking around groggily.
“She’s coming!” the prisoner in the other room shouted.
Frost quickly ran down the sides of the staircase. The shadow of a figure descending was thrown across the stairs, and aclick-clacksounded loudly with each step.
“We have to go,” Freya said, pulling the boy after her.
We flew out of the cell and ran up the center aisle back the way we’d come, the boy seeming to grow faster with each step.
“Take me with you!” the frostbitten man screamed after us. “Please, don’t leave me behind!”
I gritted my teeth, trying to block out his cries as we sprinted past one door, then the other, on our way out of the dungeon, locking each behind us in a wild bid that it would buy us some time.
“We should have taken him with us,” Therese wailed as we stumbled out of the cave. “Lexi could have healed him.”
One of Freya’s cheeks twitched. “I should have ended his suffering is what I should have done,” she murmured.
The prisoner with us laid eyes on Therese for a moment, then with a firm jaw, looked ahead, into the white snow that we plowed through. There was nowhere to hide out here, in the open.
Bells suddenly sounded behind us, some loud and solid, like bells from a church tower, and others tinny and high-pitched like sleigh bells.
“That will be the Ice Queen sending out her owls and foxes,” the boy said. “It’s how she caught up to me the last time.”
I heard Freya’s breathing becoming labored. “I don’t suppose you can manage a portal?”
Freya seemed unsure but nodded. “I’ll need to stop a moment, but I think I can manage.”
“Youthink?”
Freya looked back and cursed.
I glanced over her shoulder as well and was shocked to see dozens of animals already at our heels. The white foxes blended into the snow so flawlessly that it was hard to pick them out against the landscape. It almost appeared as if the land itself was after us, rippling and flashing fangs in its pursuit.
White owls descended on us, soaring ever lower. They watched us with large dark eyes, talons at the ready.
“Gods above,” I cursed. “Freya?”
Freya suddenly came to a dead stop and turned to face our pursuers. I slowed along with the prisoner, shifting to also face the barrage of beasts. All the bared teeth and deadly-looking claws made my mouth go dry. I hoped Freya had the strength to teleport us out of here, even just a mile or so to get a head start. She closed her eyes to concentrate and lifted her hands, drawing runes quickly in the air.
“Now would be good!” I cried. The creatures were only a dozen or so feet from us. Foxes crouched, ready to leap, and the owls continued dive-bombing. My heart thudded loudly in my chest.
And then a pinkish, circular portal appeared before us, a wall between us and the attacking creatures.
I frowned as the creatures, too late to stop themselves, disappeared through the portal, before the portal itself disappeared. And then we were alone again.
“Huh,” I said, crossing my arms. “That works, I suppose.”
“I sent them into the prison cells,” Freya said, breathing hard. “It’ll take them a while to get back out here. Especially since you have those.” She nodded to the ring of keys for the cells I’d attached to my belt.
“I didn’t have the strength for a long-distance portal,” Freya explained. “It was the best I could do.”
“Thank you for the assist,” the boy said, turning and beginning to jog south. “I’ll leave you to it then.”
I exchanged looks with Freya, then smiled politely at him. “Since you know the area, maybe you could help us find shelter for the night?”
