Billowy white flakes whipped at us with a vengeance. We trudged through the snow, not even remotely dressed for winterweather. I wasn’t even sure there was a heavy parka anywhere on the island. There were probably spells we could’ve used to protect ourselves and keep warm, but I was too tired to worry about that. Plus, something about the nippy, biting wind cut at me with a sharpness that felt real and grounding, like the pain of the cold sharpened my senses and cleared my mind.
I pulled up the hood of my cloak after walking at some length. Silas put an arm around me as we approached the castle. In some places the drifts were almost knee-deep. When we reached edge of the river, I glanced down, noting the edges were starting to freeze. The spirits hovered over the surface, impervious to the cold.
I paused, tense. As far as I could tell, they hadn’t moved. They were waiting: tense, at the ready. Waiting forwhat?
“They must be waiting on a signal of some sort,” Silas said. “I imagine the Darkest Lord has a plan. He’s posturing now, preparing something, letting us know he will be here soon.”
“The flesh-weaving,” I said. “Is it a physical thing, or is it a spell? Can he activate it from the underworld?”
Silas shook his head. “I really don’t know. I don’t think it’s ever been successfully done. At this point, I’d have to guess it was a spell that needed to be completed. The spell using the fishermen’s blood. Once it’s complete, I imagine…it will simply go into effect.”
I shivered. “We should get inside before they become solid.”
Even the words tasted foul. To imagine these monsters turning solid—spirits manipulated by the whims of a power-hungry magical scientist—was terrifying. It had seemed to me in my journey through the underworld these spirits didn’t have much of a soul left…not after spending years or decades or centuries under the Darkest Lord’s rule. They had nothing to lose.
fourteen
Fortunately,Milliehadhadthe foresight to have all the medical equipment removed from the bedroom in the castle where I’d spent the last six days monitored by the Rangers and Healers and medics. When I climbed onto my bed and pulled my Fae textbooks toward me, the room looked just as it had the night I’d prepared for my coronation ceremony.
Next to the bed sat a platter with tea and toast. I happily warmed my hands on the mug of minty tea while nibbling on the edge of a piece of bread. For not having eaten anything for six days, I was shockingly less hungry than I would’ve expected. Then again, I had a few pressing items that needed to be dealt with, and the stress of it all was something of a distraction from the way I was feeling—weary, run down, and depleted. All that would need to wait.
I flipped through the books, focusing on any pages that mentioned wards. By now, the language of the ancient Fae texts was becoming clear. I could comprehend a significant amount of the pages I found myself wanting to study.
While that made things significantly easier, there were still hurdles to understanding texts that were centuries old. Like someone who could read English trying to understand a textbook written by a famous physicist: just because I could read the words, didn’t always mean they made sense.
Hours later, after my tea and toast were long gone, I rubbed my weary eyes and glanced at Silas. “I can’t extract much helpful information from this stuff. My mom did say that setting the wards is unique to an individual queen, so I guess that is very literal. There are almost no technical instructions whatsoever.”
Silas came over and silently worked the knots in my back. I felt the tension release as his thumbs dug into the taut muscles. He didn’t offer any words of wisdom, just the comfort of his support.
“Not to mention, it’s snowing worse than ever now.” I glanced toward where the wind was now howling, and the snowflakes were descending on the island in hordes so thick I could barely see the spirits waiting on the river. “I take that as a sign to mean the wards are weaker than ever, being that it’s the wards that keep this place balmy in the first place.”
Silas moved to crack open the window to look out, and as he did, a rush of snow hurtled into the room. Instinctively, I raised my hands and blasted the snowflakes back out into the cold. Snowflakes were really nothing but particles of water, but even I was surprised by how easily I’d been able to manipulate the flakes. Like I hadn’t even had to think about it.
Silas slammed the window shut, turning in awe to look at me. “You can wield snow?”
“I mean, it’s water, I guess,” I said. “I didn’t really think about it. But I guess so.”
“Think how powerful that could be,” Silas said. “The entire island is covered in snow. If you could somehow figure out a way to weaponize it…?”
The way he said it—the entire island is covered in snow—niggled at something deeper in my mind. But where Silas’s thought immediately went to weaponizing the snow, my mind went in the direction of Fae—the direction of healing.
I’d been stuck on the map that Dr. Lewis had drawn on the back of the napkin. The way he’d sketched out the deadened lands as something completely separate from the lands of the living had struck me as interesting and odd. I understood why he’d done it, but I’d never thought of the island like that—as separate pieces. The living and the dead.
But Silas had a point. One thing united it all: snow.
He was right. The snow reached every part of this island, a thick quilt smothering both the greenery and the ashen soil alike.
“Silas, that’s it. I could use the snow,” I said urgently. “If I can figure out a way to enchant thesnowto heal the island, it’s possible I could heal the island en masse.”
“You mean the deadened lands?” Silas’s eyes flicked toward me, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was very likely thinking about the same map, that separation between life and death sketched so black and white on paper. “What makes you think that’s possible?”
“It’s a long shot, but it’s one way I could reach the entire island and quickly. If I could somehow enchant the snow, and then force the snow to melt, it just might work. Before, I struggled with touching the entire island at once.”
“Like you were explaining to Ranger X,” Silas said. “How you can’t feel the dead lands like you can the living.”
“Exactly. I wasn’t sure how to reach it with my powers. But this wouldn’t require me to feel the dead lands at all, or even touch them. I am, however, connected to water as one of my Triune Queen elements, my strongest connection, and snow is just frozen water. If anything, it’s easier to connect with thanwater. More solid. I’m used to healing the island one tiny patch at a time because touching those dead lands with my magic took so much out of me. But working with water doesn’t take much exertion at all.”
“What do you need?” Silas’s tone was determined. “Anything.”
