The spell radiated a blistering heat as it lunged closer. Her magic raged in her, howling to be let out, but as Angelique tried to spin it into a defensive spell, she realized it wasn’t coming fast enough. She tried to move but found her feet werestuck.
“Angel!”
Evariste yanked her back by the collar of her dress and shoved her through the portal. The magic transported her so quickly that for a moment she couldn’t tell the sky from the ground, until she fell backwards and landed in a pile ofsnow.
She sat upright just in time to see the end of thebattle.
Chapter 30
Evariste startedto step through the portal, but the red magic grazed his back, and he fell to his knees, his face lined withpain.
He looked up, and his eyes metAngelique’s.
“No,” Angelique said. She tried to scramble to her feet and flung herself at the portal, but she was tooslow.
Evariste said something, and the portal starteddismantling.
Vermillion magic exploded behind him, and the doorwayshut.
“No!” Angelique screamed as she reached out a moment too slow. The portal was gone, leaving her on the rounded top of Fresler’s Helm, a snow-covered mountain in northern Verglas…on the opposite pole of thecontinent.
“That idiot!” She cried—tears of fear and frustration. “Why didn’t he go throughfirst?”
The wind shrieked and yanked on Angelique’s clothes. It wasn’t until her teeth started chattering that she thought to make a quick heat charm and use magic to slightly nudge the weather pattern to make it a little morebearable.
She shook her hand, making the bracelet Evariste had given her years ago jangle. “Evariste!” she shouted. “Evariste!”
Nothingresponded.
I have to get back. Evariste made it—he must have! But after he fights them off, he might be hurt, orinjured…
Angelique shut the thought off and gazed across the snowy landscape that surrounded her, orientating herself in the craggy mountains that surroundedVerglas.
Ice cold magic—remnants of the Snow Queen’s ancient power—brushed against Angelique. Angelique held her breath for a moment—even if she didn’tmeanto be evil, there was a part of her that would always fear—but the magic prodded her like a dog looking for a bellyscratch.
Angelique brushed it off and took in a deep breath as she tried to combat shock and stayfocused.
The capital, Ostfold, it’s east. I’ll go there first—Evariste has a few horses kept there. Hopefully he’ll have a sleigh, aswell.
Her muscles ached and her temples throbbed, but Angelique started picking her way down the precarious mountainside, trying to rein in her fear and the worry that Evariste had just sacrificed himself forher.
* * *
Usingmagic and traveling at a merciless speed, it took Angelique over three weeks to travel south, through Loire, a corner of Erlauf, and finally reach Torrens. During the entire journey, she tried to call Evariste with her trackingbracelet.
He nevercame.
By the time she rode into the house clearing on a fresh mare borrowed from a nearby inn, her body shook with exhaustion. She had ridden through the night and stopped at the inn only long enough to swaphorses.
As Angelique stared at her home—Evariste’s home—she mentally berated herself for taking solong.
“Evariste? Roland?” Angelique slid off the mare’s back, staggering when she hit theground.
The house wasstill.
Angelique ran across the yard, almost wiping out in a slushy pile of melted snow. The salon windows were still broken, and the front door was missing, but when Angelique staggered across the house’s threshold, the lights burst tolife.
They have to be here. They MUST behere!
