Victoria pulled on the locking bar, which was mostly decoration and had no lock on it, before pushing the handle down, opening the heavy door. Deryn immediately wrapped her leather jacket tighter around herself.
“I keep forgetting how much of a baby you turn into when you’re near anything cold. Remember how Lizzy used to bundle you up ’cause if you were too chilly, your magic just spontaneously set fire to things?”
The moment she finished the sentence, Victoria turned to Deryn, the movement so fast that her braid hit her face.
“I… Der, damn it. It’s been over twenty years, and I still don’t know how to talk to you about her.”
Deryn stared, then simply walked into the freezer, Victoria on her heels. She tried to fight the sudden tears, knowing they’d just freeze right away in the minus eighteen degrees. She heard Victoria close the door behind them and waited for her aunt to speak. When she did, Deryn was grateful that Victoria understood her silence. There was a time and place for this conversation—one that was likely about twenty years too late—but not when they were hurrying to a party.
“Okay, so…” Her aunt motioned to one of the shelves. “This is it.”
Deryn took a step closer to where Victoria was pointing. It was allmise en place. She could maybe see what it was supposed to be—puffs of some sort, but they were far from the finished product. She turned to face her aunt.
“No way?—”
“Deryn, listen, this just needs a little assembling?—”
“I see why you didn’t ask for Seren’s help.”
“I mean, Seren is a decent cook. But you’re the chef!” Victoria made an exaggerated gesture with her arms.
“So are you! Don’t suck up to me. This is so underhanded. So sneaky. And underhanded. Yes, I’m aware I said it twice.”
Victoria grimaced, clearly aiming for sheepishness.
“Can we just… Pretty please? I confess the entire ‘getting caught going down on Renee Moss’ thing was not in my plans for today. And that it made the front page of the paper wasn’t something I signed up for either. I mean, it’s Election Day, and the man lost by over forty points and then ran into my house to see my head between his wife’s legs?—”
Deryn felt her jaw drop.
“OH MY GOD! I don’t want to know any of that! Why are you telling me this? Stop, stop, stop! Get the damn puffs, I’ll assemble them, and for the love of everything, can you not speak?”
Victoria cackled—actually cackled—and Deryn knew she had been played. She was about to say so when something clanged outside the door. Something distinctly metallic. Something like the steel bar that locked the freezer from the outside.
If Deryn hadn’t known from the sound exactly what had just happened, the lights going off the moment the door was locked gave it away. The red illuminating the exit painted everything in the freezer in an otherworldly, bloody hue.
Victoria stilled. Then took a deep breath.
“There’s an opening safety doodad by the door. Right beneath the bulb.” Her voice was very quiet, very level. “The bar must’ve fallen. The mechanism activates the thingamabob to trigger the whatsit to open it back up. OSHA regulations. And there’s no lock in sight, I don’t have one, so it’s not like we’re trapped.”
Deryn knew all that. Deryn had worked in plenty of restaurants and had been around enough professional kitchens to know all that. Her hands still went numb, and her breath was coming out in short, cloudy huffs.
“You’re not claustrophobic, baby.” Victoria laid a hand on her shoulder, and they walked the few steps back to the entrance together.
“No, not claustrophobic. Just…” Deryn didn’t finish her thought. She reached for the little lever to release the door and turned it. She did not know what she was expecting. Perhaps the same sound as the bar made when it closed, signaling the opening. But nothing happened. No sound came. Victoria leaned on the handle that unlocked the door from the inside and found it impossible to move. Which meant only one thing. The bar was down for certain. The door was locked.
“Okay,” Victoria whispered. “What did you want to say earlier about not being claustrophobic? Just…what?”
Deryn tried pushing the handle herself. There was no give.
“Just that if this was not simply the bar closing due to some scientific thingy happening, then it’s sabotage. Which means someone is out there right now.”
“Oh.” Victoria had clearly not considered that possibility.
Deryn touched the door, patted the immense hinges, and gave the entire thing a shove. Nothing. Well, short of setting off a bomb, there was not much she could do.
She turned and found a nearly empty box, turned it over, letting the contents fall, and sat down on top of it. Victoria huddled up to her.
After a second and already cold enough to steam, Deryn took Victoria’s hand and let her power warm both of them.
