Of Sorcery and Snow (21 page)

or anyone planning to escape from a dwarf city, I totally recommend recruiting their princess.

She led us farther into the building. A very large hole had been cut out of one hallway, revealing a dark sky and a moon blasting the city with silver light. A ladder leaned against it, and waiting at the bottom were six saddled reindeer.

It took me forever to climb down the ladder and mount up, but we didn't see anyone. No one even came out when the reindeers carried us to the city wall. In fact, the only problem we had was the princess and her second-in-command arguing the whole way out of town.

“You shouldn't risk this, Haddy.” No more smiles from Forrel. He hated this plan, and he made sure everybody knew it.

“That's not your choice to make,” Hadriane whispered back.

“You could lose your father's trust, your
people's
trust.”

“I could lose Ima and Iggy. I
will
lose them unless you help me rescue them.”

“I'll always help you, but this is not the way. You are the Princess of Living Stone—you shouldn't be sneaking prisoners out of your own kingdom, especially not me.”

“This isn't about you, Forrel. And I tried reasoning with Father—you know I did.”

We reached the wall, but there wasn't a gate at the end of the lane, just an ice sculptor's studio. A cluster of ice blocks—some as low as a coffee table and some as tall as a train car—were pushed up against the wall, in order of size. Hadriane urged her mount forward. It was apparently used to this routine. It leaped from the shortest block and up to the next tallest one with ease.

Oh no. A reindeer-friendly staircase.

I was still recovering from the ladder. My stomach couldn't handle more heights, and my mount didn't exactly come equipped with barf bags.

I guess my face was looking pretty green, even in the moonlight, because Lena said, “It's okay, Rory. Just close your eyes. Chase and I will watch out for you.”

“You're afraid of heights?” asked Forrel. “I thought you jumped off a beanstalk.”

“We did. Which means I've had enough of heights for
life,
” I snapped, but then my reindeer decided to follow Hadriane's. I had to shut my mouth, afraid I really would hurl. I squeezed my eyes shut and clutched the reins.

“If you don't like heights, you might not want to watch this part either,” I heard Hadriane say gently. Then my reindeer and I were rushing down. We landed on something, so hard I bit my tongue, and we rushed down again. “It's safe to look now.”

I did and immediately turned away from the wall. I definitely didn't need to see
everyone
jump.

Dismounting, the princess pointed at a red line in the ice, half hidden under a dusting of snow. “This is the boundary of the city's protective enchantment. Take care not to cross it before you have cast the necessary spells.”

As the others landed behind me, I pulled out a dragon scale, but
Lena was distracted as soon as her reindeer touched down. “Oh my gumdrops,” she breathed, sliding off her mount and staring at the enormous bell attached to the wall. “Is that what I think it is?”

“The origin of the stasis spell, yes,” said the princess. “You will examine it and remove any device that allows General Searcaster to control it from a distance.”

Chase glanced up from his scale. “You want us to wait outside the city we just escaped from? So we can get captured again?”

I shot him a look. “We don't question the nice princess who just masterminded our escape.”

Hadriane apparently thought so too. “This is a condition of Forrel's and my involvement. I've arranged for its guard to be absent for this purpose.”

Lena paused, suddenly looking a lot less excited. “Okay. Let me see what I can do.” She took a deep breath and ducked under the bell's lip.

“You could have just asked,” Miriam said, watching Hadriane's stony face. “Lena has a thing for this stuff—she wanted to look at it anyway.”

“Plus, we're not big fans of General Searcaster either,” I agreed.

“We thought she might eat us this one time,” Chase added.

Hadriane looked a little less haughty.

Lena stuck her head out, in full-on magic mechanic mode. “I think I figured it out. But I need someone to come in here and hold the light for me while I dismantle it. Probably one of you guys,” she added, pointing at the dwarves, “so I can explain how you refuel the enchantment. Searcaster has left you enough juice for about a month, but after that runs out, you'll need about twenty dragon scales, phoenix feathers, or cockatrice teeth a week to keep it going.”

“I'll go,” Hadriane said, and she slipped inside the bell with Lena.

Either Forrel was determined not to trust us, or he was upset that his princess had somehow gotten demoted to Lena's flashlight-holding assistant. “If that girl harms one hair on my captain's head—” he started.

“Dude,
chill,
” Chase said. “Lena is not the type. Go back inside and recruit a couple of your buddies if you're so worried.” Wow, the EASer-dwarf alliance was off to a great start. I was busy trying to think of a way to smooth things over when Chase nudged his reindeer closer to mine. “You never told me what do you think of Lena and Kyle.”

“What?” I said, startled.

“The way Characters start pairing off in eighth grade,” he said. “Any thoughts?”

I couldn't believe he'd bring this up again, especially now. A few minutes ago he'd told Hadriane off just for stopping. “I think we have a lot of other stuff to deal with right now. None of the other eighth graders have to worry about a bunch of kidnapped kids.”

After a pause, Chase said, very quietly, “Okay.”

It wasn't like him to keep asking me weird questions. He wasn't telling me something.
“Why?”

He shrugged. “No reason.”

But he was lying. He only sounded that casual and matter-of-fact when he was trying to hide the truth. Then he flashed a grin. “Well, Lena could start gushing about Kyle any second. Now I know what to say to make her stop.”

He was just joking, I was pretty sure.

Before I could tell him that he better not try, Hadriane and Lena crawled out from under the bell. Lena gave Hadriane a hazel stick wrapped with thick strands of Searcaster's ugly gray hair—the
icky-looking long-distance device. The princess dropped it into the snow and cheerfully chopped it into tiny pieces with her axe.

After we returned to the trail, the dwarves grinned for a whole mile. The princess even promised to let Lena examine her bear cloak, which apparently had been prepared with an enchantment to keep her warm. Hadriane explained it was standard procedure in Kiivinsh. Forrel's fur jacket had it too. Of course, when Chase asked Forrel whether or not our mounts were
war
reindeer, and if they were trained to charge at enemies with their antlers lowered, the dwarf just gave him a tiny smile that said,
Do you really expect me to give away all our secrets?

We skirted around the bay until the footprints headed away from the water, down an empty field of white. Huge craterlike tracks stretched out beside them. Those
had
to belong to General Searcaster.

After another mile, our quest grew kind of quiet, but a companionable kind of quiet. And I have to say—it was really
awesome
to have reindeer. We covered a lot more ground than we would have on foot, and it was nice to let our mounts do all the work for a change. All we had to do was relax and enjoy the ride.

And apparently stay awake.

I totally blame Lena's heating spell. It kept me extra toasty, just as warm as I would have been tucked in bed.

One minute I was riding along, staring at the moon and trying to gauge how long until it set. The next thing I knew, I was flat on my back in the snow, my side stinging, my reindeer snorting at me.

Lena turned her mount back toward me. “Rory!”

“I'm okay,” I wheezed, rolling to my feet. And I was, except the breath had been knocked out of me. “What happened?”

“You started snoring, and then you fell off your reindeer,” said
Chase, laughing, “and you're still dreaming if you think I'm ever gonna let you forget it.”

“I wasn't snoring,” I said automatically. I wouldn't have been embarrassed if it was just me, Chase, and Lena, but Miriam and the dwarves were smirking. The princess was at least polite enough to try and hide it.

“We should stop and make camp,” Hadriane said, and I resisted the urge to cheer. I had the feeling that Miriam would listen to the dwarf princess. “If she's that tired, then she'll be useless in a fight.”

That was true—I was having enough trouble grabbing my reindeer's bridle.

“Not here, though. At least a quarter mile from the trail,” added Forrel.

“
More
riding?” I said, hating how whiny I sounded.

“It is necessary to camp out of sight of the footprints.” The princess raised an eyebrow. “This morning it was easy to find you beside them.”

Oops.

So the princess led us away from the trail. Forrel tied a bunch of rags and leather skins to the top of his spear and used it to cover our tracks, and when we were far enough away, Lena set up the tile of the snow-hut-building servants, which fascinated both dwarves.

Forrel taught the rest of us how to groom the reindeer—removing their saddles, attaching their lead ropes to a stake in the ground, brushing down their thick coats, and finding out if Lena's Lunch Box of Plenty could supply reindeer food.

It did.
Big
buckets of thin, dry grass.

Then the snow hut was finished. When we could
finally
crawl inside, I wasted no time unrolling my sleeping bag.

Forrel slipped inside after me. “I may decide to drag my captain home to her father before dawn.”

“Try, and I will show no mercy,” promised Hadriane, who clearly wasn't too pleased with him either.

Geez, these dwarves were intense. At least the Fey sounded like they were joking half the time. But my last thought before drifting off was that I was glad they had come. At least I wouldn't have that dream again. With the dwarves as our allies, we couldn't get dragged off to the Snow Queen in chains.

I was wrong.

Again the Snow Queen smirked, triumphant, as a troll held Chase's arms behind his back, and Lena tried to smile. I hated the way they watched me, hopeful, like I could do something to save us.

Just me and my sword against the grinning Torlauth.

“Isn't this what you've always wanted?” said the Snow Queen.

I couldn't stop thinking about it during my breakfast the next morning. I was so freaked out that I could barely swallow my bagel.

I jumped when Forrel popped his head into the snow hut's entrance. “Captain,” he said.

The dwarf princess grabbed her spear, pulled up her bear hood, and slid out the door before I had a chance to ask what was up.