“You’re fucking ungrateful.” He uses the tip of his sword to cut me loose. “But my saving your pathetic ass was entirely selfish. I don’t know how you moved us across a great distance like this…but you may be our only way home.”
He doesn’t offer to help me to my feet. I wouldn’t have taken his hand if he did.
“I didn’t do anything,” I huff, dusting the snow off my cloak. “You don’t need me to get home. Just hike back to the city from here and try not to freeze or getting eaten by wild animals.”
“I don’t know if moving us to a different location is all you’ve done. What if you shifted us to a new reality? Or a…”
“A what?”
His piercing gaze meets mine. “A different time.”
I laugh in his stupid fucking face. Cruelly. Coldly. Mockingly.
He raises an eyebrow. “I see you’re still just as unimaginative and dense as when you were a child. Pity.”
My smile falls.
“Great. So, we’re stuck together.” I pluck the sickle from the dead man’s hand. I’m not going to let Niklaus inflate his own ego by saving me again. Besides, sickles hold a weird importance to my family. It’s feels right to take it for myself now.
“Not for long. You still might freeze to death.”
I look down at my exposed legs. “There’s a cave that way.”
He helps me gather the wood, following my lead to the gaping mouth of hollow murkiness. It’s musty, covered in icicles, and pitch black the further in we go.
“At leastthis gets us awayfrom the wind chill,” I say with chattering teeth.
Shit, I really might die. Dropping to the ground, I start rocking back and forth to keep warm. Niklaus attempts to light the fire. He curses several times.
“The wood is wet. It’s not going to work.”
I’m going to die.
My entire body vibrates like a storm is shaking my skeletal system. I can’t get warm. Rocking faster, I clutch my own core, breathing shallowly.
“Spitfire,” Niklaus says with caution.
I can’t answer. Keep rocking.
“Hey.”
I roll onto my side, bringing my bare legs to my chest in the fetal position. My teeth clack together like high heels against a marble floor. Everything aches. Everything is numb.
Where’s DaiSzek when you need him? With his bum leg, he’s not good for much, but at least he’s warm.
“I can’t start the fire,” Niklaus says at a loss for words, standing over me, staring like a fucking idiot.
I clutch my cloak tighter around my body. I used to think this thing was so warm. So thick and good at trapping heat. But right now, it feels like ice is coating my skin, layering over the chills and goose bumps.
Niklaus starts pacing, running his hand through his hair. He’s wearing more clothes than me. It’s not fair. Why did I have to go to that tavern wanting to look hot in a short dress?
Frozen tears leak from the corners of my eyes, dripping onto the cave floor.
His footsteps pause, and I can feel those radiant eyes boring into the side of my head, my quivering, curled up body.
“I’m not doing this because I want to,” he clarifies, then begins taking off his clothes.
Whatis he doing exactly?
