Stealing Snow (17 page)

I shook my head.

“Gerde, give her another coin.”

I could feel my ire rising.

Gerde shot me a look. “Time to go, Sasha,” Gerde said gently.

“Who’s Sasha?” I began … then realized that of course she could not call me by my real name.

But I couldn’t go. The witch’s cards were telling my story. Maybe they could give me a clue to the rest, to my future, to my next move.

“I am not leaving until she tells me my future.”

“Yes, you are. You both are,” a voice behind us said stormily.

It was Kai. He tossed another coin at the witch and took us both by the elbows, steering us out of the village. His face was a mask of anger behind a tight smile.

When we got back to the boat, Kai laid into us.

“What the hell were you thinking?” he asked as we headed back to the cube. “You could have been caught. Someone could have recognized you. It was foolish and reckless…”

“And you’re never either of those things,” I countered.

Kai stopped talking and stormed off.

My cheeks burned, too.

In the end, Kai was right to be mad. The River Witch burst into the cube, looking as angry as a water creature could possibly look. Her tentacles were flailing, forming puddles in their wake. But it was more than the way she looked. The water outside was roiling—a storm was brewing within it. The current had stopped going downstream. Instead it was beginning a circular motion. And somewhere way too close to the cube, there was lightning over the River. I heard thunder in the distance.

“Your stunt in the village last night was ill advised. People are talking about a girl whose fortune matches the King’s prophecy, and he’s sent the Enforcer to seek you out. No doubt he has tasked the Snow Beasts and every other evil thing under his command to find you. There is no time left. The Lights will be out soon, and you are far from ready,” she said coldly.

I have no intention of being here when the Eclipse happens!
I wanted to shout back. But just as quickly as she had arrived, the River
Witch left. Thankfully, her storm left with her. And the sun and the Lights returned.

I looked at Kai reflexively, grateful for the storm’s end. But then the memory of the kiss returned and along with it a flood of feeling. Embarrassment, mixed with fear, mixed with wonder. He acted as if it had never happened. I waited for some kind of acknowledgment. But I found none. And Gerde had not left us alone for even a moment. So I couldn’t ask and I still didn’t know what I would say if I could.

Kai returned my gaze with a half smile and announced that he needed some supplies. Kai usually did not smile. At least not at me.

Gerde broke our eye lock when she asked, “What about the witch?”

“I don’t think she wants to come with us,” Kai quipped defiantly. Last night he had been all over us for going out. But now that the witch forbade it, he had changed his mind. If the River Witch had said the sky was blue, he’d make an argument for any other color.

Gerde, apparently still undecided, was looking out the cube at the Lights. She said out loud what I was thinking: “Maybe it’s just the fog from the River Witch, but they do look less bright today.”

“We’ll be careful, Gerde,” I said.

Gerde nodded without looking away from the glass. Maybe she was feeling the pressure of the Lights. As much as she said she wanted change, maybe she wanted to lap up the way things were while she still could.

“You know, I haven’t seen her that mad since that time I brought Gray on board the boat.”

“Gray?”

“The lion,” Kai offered.

I remembered him from the menagerie. I laughed a little too hard. I remembered this feeling from the institute. When someone laid down a new rule, the urge to break it was palpable. Something that you had never thought of doing was suddenly all you thought about.

Despite the witch’s warning or maybe because of it, we were going to the market, somewhere I hadn’t been in a city so big we would go unnoticed, via something called a Hopper.

The Hopper turned out to be part motorcycle, part car, and part snowmobile. Gerde and I took the seat beside Kai, and a glass dome covered us like the roof of a convertible sports car. Our seat was meant for one. But Gerde was small, and we fit easily. I wore the River Witch’s cloak again for warmth. I’d left it in my room at the cube after that night with Kai, and the River Witch had never retrieved it. Now its slick surface brushed against Gerde in our tiny seat.

“Just wait till you see the market. They sell magic in Stygian.” Gerde was bouncing with excitement.

I thought back to the vial that Jagger had pulled out of his satchel when we were being chased. Maybe I could buy more of that at the market. That kind of thing could prove useful if Bale and I needed a quick escape.

“Flimflammers,” Kai said in response, not turning around. “That’s what they are. Stay away from them.”

Gerde just rolled her eyes, and I couldn’t help but laugh a little at their comfortable banter. She had an interest in all magic, no matter the size. It was her savior. And Kai made no secret of his complete disapproval of it. Of course, he didn’t make a secret of his disapproval of most things. If Gerde felt slighted, I didn’t see it on her smiling face.

“So you never buy magic?” I asked Kai, trying to make small talk.

I wanted him to look at me. To answer me. I wondered if last night had changed anything, but if it had, he wasn’t showing it. It was as if he had Snow-proof blinders on. He wouldn’t even glance at me.

Perhaps a kiss was just a kiss to him. Even if it was a cold one. But it wasn’t just a kiss to me. Before that kiss, the only person I had ever thought of that way was Bale. Now I didn’t know what to think.

Kai kicked on his machine, and it purred like a cat. We began to accelerate over the ice, speeding away from the cube.

We took the Hopper to the outskirts of the city they called Stygian. Once we got within reach of the city’s border, Kai killed the Hopper’s lights and stopped.

“It’s not much farther, but we should go the rest of the way on foot,” Gerde said brightly as if she were having fun.

Kai shot her a “dial back the enthusiasm” look, but she ignored him.

Gerde brought us to a tunnel that led to the city, and we entered.
She produced a glow-in-the-dark plant from one of the pockets of her dress. Kai brought out a much more effective battery-operated light from the Hopper. I stood close to Kai, feeling a tinge guilty for abandoning Gerde’s little plant light.

“What is this place?” I asked.

“Shh!” Kai said sharply. I was about to slam him for his rudeness, but he pointed the torch toward the low ceiling. I heard the sound of fluttering wings and thought about Gerde’s creepy birds.

“Look up.”

There were bats hanging down from the ceiling of the tunnel. Hundreds of them.

Kai pushed me against the wall and pushed Gerde forward, as if she were supposed to protect us. And even stranger still was Gerde’s reaction.

“Please let us pass,” she said to the bats.

The bats gave a collective shriek as if they were answering her. A week ago I would have thought this was ridiculous. Now I was getting used to magic.

Gerde nodded at Kai and took his hand. He took mine.

The bats were clearly annoyed we had disturbed them, but they just beat their wings together and left us alone.

When we reached the end of the tunnel, it was getting darker out.

“The tunnels are usually used for royalty,” Gerde explained. “Every public space has an exit route for the King.”

When we emerged from the tunnel, we found ourselves just outside the city. Kai didn’t let my hand go right away. He held it
and turned his palm down to show me a deep scar on the back of his hand before he let go.

Gerde raced ahead, not noticing us.

“I got this from Gerde when we were kids. She turned, and I couldn’t get her in the cage in time.”

“Why are you showing me this?” I asked as an image of poor little Gerde came to mind. Behind the bars of the cage in the tree house.

“She didn’t mean it. She didn’t mean to hurt me. Just like you didn’t mean to last night. Gerde, you, and the River Witch believe it’s magic. But it’s also biology. Maybe magic’s just the temporary cure.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because someone should. Because you shouldn’t have to carry this with you wherever you go. Whenever you go. Whoever you kiss. You should know.”

I didn’t know what to say. But Kai didn’t seem to want or need me to say anything. He strode ahead and I followed. I still didn’t know if the kiss mattered to him. Or what it meant to me. But he was right. Freezing him with the kiss was no different from my paralyzing Magpie back at Whittaker. I’d lost control. The kiss with Bale was another story. One I still questioned.

A monolithic gate stood at the entrance to the city. Buildings black and mat as coal were stacked high behind it. The place looked nothing like the quaint frozen village I’d passed or the village I’d visited with Gerde.

The buildings themselves looked like tides, frozen at their crests. Only the glass windows that perforated them made it clear
that they were man-made and not some freak of nature. I remembered that dark colors absorb heat. Maybe they were designed to absorb the heat from the sun? Perhaps the whole city was.

A low wall encircled the city. There were caldrons of fire set about a foot apart atop it. The gate was pushed wide open, and a steady stream of people entered and exited. The men flanking the entrance wore stiff, light-blue uniforms. The city women wore pants and elaborate corsets decorated with circular disks. The city men wore a mesh of the same over their torsos like armor—armor against the cold.

I wondered if the ring of fire around town was to keep everything awful in the woods out.

We crept closer and saw an enormous town square that wasn’t actually a square at all. It was a series of interlocked circles, each devoted to a different sphere of activity. Kids played on a complicated jungle gym made of ice, its slide extending dangerously high in the circle.

The ground inside the gates was free of snow. A shock of red stone formed a circular pattern around a stage.

As we got even closer, I debated whether or not this was a good idea or a terrible one.

And as it turned out, the witch’s cloak hid me well, even though it reeked of river water. No one noticed us. I began to wonder if maybe the cloak had some magic in it, some bit of invisibility.

The town was kinetic. Every person was in motion. They all had places to go. My days had always been structured around one-on-one therapy and group meals and recreation. I had never been around this many people before. They were too close. They
were moving too fast. I suddenly felt dizzy, and a strong desire to shrink to the ground and pull my knees into my chest overtook me.

I began to hum, as quietly as I could. Someone’s elbow made contact with the cloak and then pulled quickly away. There was a mumble of an apology. I was not invisible, after all.

Mercifully, there was a gap in the crowd and I escaped into it, happily reclaiming the air around me.

Maybe it was the weird buildings, but the sounds of the children seemed to be absorbed somehow by the black buildings, too.

Where were these people going? What did they do? Would I be safe here?

A wooden carriage painted black made its way through the circle. A horse decorated in the town’s colors labored under the weight of its load.

Along the side of the square, market stalls offered edibles I had never seen before. I eyed a strange blue-gray fruit in the baskets. They were apple shaped but almost periwinkle in color, like the trees. Next to them were similarly colored banana-like and cherry-like fruits. Gerde looked at the fruit appraisingly. Her nose turned up the tiniest bit. She knew that hers were better.

There were other wares, too. Some stands displayed clothing, while others showed off wrought-iron jewelry.

One of the booths was unlike the others. It was gilded and covered in real jewels. More people were gathered around this booth than any other, and I moved closer to get a better look.

Kai looked down at me and warned, “Ignore them. They’re flimflammers.”

The merchant was handing out small glass bottles of every color in exchange for silver coins.

The girls working the booth wore dresses made out of feathers. I locked eyes with the girl whose face was more painted than her outfit. Her pale-green hair made me want to reach out and touch it and made me want to change my own washed-out shade. I wondered what she thought of me; I had no makeup and wore a witch’s cloak made out of scales. I wondered if a girl who looked like that had any thoughts about me at all.

The girl with the mermaid hair produced a wilted orchid-like flower that looked like it was dying. She took a green bottle and poured a drop from it into the soil. The other girls sighed impatiently. Then suddenly the flower perked up. Its petals looked radiant and fresh. In fact, I could have sworn I could see it growing.

Nobody seemed as taken with the performance as I was. It was magic.