“Go!”River shouted.
He released Maeve, and a moment later, the thud of bodies echoed up out of the dark.
“Good!”River shouted.
Below, Maeve was crying again.
“Milo,” Tean said.
The boy was lighter.In fact, he felt like he weighed almost nothing.He stared up at Tean with huge eyes as Tean dangled him out over all that empty space.
“Go!”
Milo fell into the dark, and then came the thud, and River shouted, “Hurry!”
Another of those rattling booms came from the ironing board, and then a metallic skittering noise came, and the door flew open.The glow of the emergency lights filtered into the room and backlit the first figure—a wolf, Tean’s brain said—as it stepped inside.There were no details, only the shape of it: a man’s body, the outline of the muzzle, tufts of fur picked out by that distant light.In one hand, it carried an axe.In the other, a tool Tean didn’t recognize—one that ended in two metal forks.
He howled.And then he passed out of the light and into the dark.
Another wolf stepped into the room behind him.
Tean didn’t wait to watch.He gripped the window frame, swung himself out, and let himself fall.
Darkness.
Air whistling against his face.
And then the gritty fluff of snow—up the back of his sweatshirt, on his neck, in his face.
He hit the ground, but not as hard as he’d been expecting.The snow spilled in on top of him, cold on his face, then wet as it began to melt.He shot upright, shaking his head, wiping his glasses as best he could.
“This way!This way!”River was already taking off, wading through the snow without looking back.
For Maeve and Milo, the drifts came almost up to their chests.They didn’t have coats.They didn’t have heavy clothes.They were both shivering, and Tean knew he had to get them—and himself—inside in a matter of minutes.
“Here we go,” Tean said as gently as he could.“Follow the path she made.It’ll get easier once we’re out of this deep snow.Maeve, you first, then Milo.I’m going to come behind you.”
Maeve didn’t say anything; the girl seemed to have passed beyond fear and into some sort of dissociative state, and she stumbled along the trail River had plowed through the snow.Milo trudged after her.Tean shot a glance up, but there was nothing to see.No wolves clambering out after them.No one jumping down to follow.
The moon and stars weren’t bright, but there was enough light that Tean could make out the darkened bulk of the lodge, the ground sloping down toward the pool, the lines of the observation deck, even the plastic arc of a few of the alpenglobes.River was still forcing a path through the snow, angling away from the deeper drifts against the side of the lodge and—Tean hoped—aiming for the relatively shallower snow that marked a buried footpath.If they could get back inside the lodge, they’d be safe.
Of course, the part of Tean that was never quiet pointed out that they’d already been inside the lodge.And that hadn’t stopped the wolves.
The level of the snow did seem to get lower after the first few yards.Tean kept glancing over his shoulder.Still nothing at the window.And no one following them, either.Maybe the wolves were afraid of heights.Or maybe they were cutting through the lodge, trying to catch them when they re-entered.But something didn’t make sense—
Maeve let out a cry, and Tean turned forward again to see the girl face-first in the snow, trying to pick herself up.Milo hunkered down, shivering and huddling, his little face blank.
“It’s okay,” Tean said, as he kicked a path around Milo.He bent to help Maeve.“It’s hard to walk through the snow like this.You’re doing great.You’re doing such a good job.We’re almost there—just a little farther now.”
He was standing, his hands under Maeve’s arms, when he saw the wolf come around the corner of the building.
River never saw him.She was watching the ground as she fought her way through the snow.
Light gleamed on steel.
A dark spray dappled the snow.
River fell sideways and didn’t get up.
