Felix smirked. “So what you’re saying is, you’re gonna break the rabbit code.”
“Pretty much.”
Arabella’s voice was soft. “It sounds important.”
Emmy met her gaze and nodded. “If I can figure it out, it will be.”
What she didn’t say was that, eventually, she wanted to figure out where the genetics ended and magic began, but first, she had to figure out the genetics.
The conversation drifted after that, lighter topics floating up as the boat moved through wide-open water. People speculated about orcas, traded stories of past trips, and argued good-naturedly over who’d spotted the whale first. Outside, the horizon shifted — the glacier from before growing closer, clearer, the jagged ice glowing an impossible blue in the sunlight.
The captain’s voice came over the loudspeaker again, pointing their attention forward. This time no one hurried. They all stayed where they were, talking quietly while the boat steered toward the next wonder.
The glacier loomed larger with every passing minute, the jagged wall of ice cutting across the horizon like a frozen barricade. Up close, the colors were sharper and more surreal — deep sapphire veins running through the white, sunlight fracturing across broken edges so bright it hurt her eyes when she tried to look at it without sunglasses.
When they went outside, the air was colder, a flow spilling off the ice and seeping into skin, a reminder this wasn’t just scenery, but a living thing.
Not live like a biological being, but like a fire. The opposite of fire — wet and cold rather than hot and dry.
The captain slowed the engines, letting the boat idle in the chop. People pressed shoulder to shoulder along the rails, cameras clicking. Emmy slipped into a space beside Felix, her hoodie pulled tight against the wind.
The crack came again, louder this time, like a rifle shot magnified through a canyon, and the sound shivered across her bones.
How wonderful would it be to let her dragon loose in this landscape?
A slab of ice sheared free, tumbling with deceptive grace before it slammed into the sea. Water erupted upward, a geyser of spray drenching the lower deck. Emmy flinched as cold drops peppered her face and hands, and Felix whooped like a kid at a theme park.
“Holy hell!” he shouted, dripping and grinning. “That was amazing!”
Even Ajax looked impressed, his gaze steady on the glacier as though measuring its power. Arabella clung to him, his arm around her waist, her eyes open in wonder.
Crew members moved to the side, lowering a long-handled net into the water. With practiced ease, they scooped a chunk of ice the size of a basketball from the waves and hoisted it aboard. The crowd pressed closer, curious, snapping photos of the glistening prize.
“Fresh from the source,” the crewman called cheerfully. “This ice is thousands of years old.”
The slab was lifted and dropped, then passed around in smaller pieces, everyone eager for their moment. When it came to them, Felix snatched a shard first, holding it up like treasure. “Behold, the world’s fanciest ice cube.”
He promptly pressed the ice to the back of his neck, yelping at the shock of cold. “Colder than it looks!”
Arabella cradled it delicately, fingertips pinkening. “It’s beautiful,” she murmured, tilting it to catch the light refracting inside.
Ajax held it without comment, but his hand swallowed it whole. It looked fragile against his bulk.
When Emmy’s turn came, she held the shard up to her eye, peering through the fractured lines like a prism. Light broke into shards of color — faint, pale rainbows that shimmered across her vision. She grinned despite herself.
“Lick it,” Felix dared, eyes gleaming.
“Why?”
“Because then you’ll officially have a glacier in your mouth. Bragging rights for life.”
Rhea groaned. “Don’t encourage him.”
But Emmy raised it, stuck her tongue out, and then touched the ice to it, and held it there a beat longer than necessary. Cold bit into her taste buds, numbing them instantly, but there was something undeniably satisfying about it.
“See?” Felix crowed. “She’s a team player!”
Emmy flipped him off with her free hand, and the group laughed. The moment stretched warm despite the chill rolling off the glacier, a shared ridiculous moment binding them all.
