But she didn’t answer that question. Instead, she pantomimed that she loved me.
My jaw clenched, and the hearth at my back roared again.
Did she love me? Did she, truly? Or had the Oracle been right all along? Was my destined mate beside me now, however vain, however petty? Was Michelle not also strong? Was she not also clever?
Penelope went on to pantomime her location within the castle, and finished with a ridiculous and nigh insulting question: Why is she here? directed at Michelle.
Michelle caught it, too, and sprang forward to defend her dignity.
“I’m not the one cheating on my dead-sexy, crazy-famous boyfriend, Nell!” she said, pointing into the mirror. Before my eyes, I saw the both of them transform into children. I imagined them as best friends in their earlier years: vindictive, back-handed, jealous, and childish.
Behind Nell, the door to her chamber swung open, and Lethe stood framed in the light of the hall.
Thinking fast, I whipped the cloak from off my shoulders and tossed it across the mirror, blanketing the room from view. I could not allow him to see the quarters we kept lest he recognize them, nor could I afford his realization that Penelope was communicating with us. In spite of everything… I would never want harm to befall her. It would be better if he saw her holding a dark and empty crystal, and knew nothing of this brief exchange—even if he, Lethe Eraeus, enemy of the Aena dynasty and abductor of my beloved—even if he had been the one with whom her face had entertained such an elated expression…
I glanced to Michelle at my side. For as thick as she could be, there was a thoughtfulness to her now, even while still drunk.
“What should we do now?” she asked me.
“It is wise to find shelter elsewhere, lest our location is compromised.” I hated to go so far, but it was possible that Penelope could not be trusted anymore. “Wake Khem and Einhen; I will prepare the bag, and we will go.”
“But it’s freezing out there—”
“Michelle, we haven’t any other choice,” I rebuked her, allowing my stress to spill into our conversation. “You were the one who wanted to come. You were the one who used my own honor against me in order to secure yourself a position in this troop. And now you must face the harsh environment we have all agreed to travel in. Yes, it is freezing out there. It is freezing out there because the ice people are cold, and wicked, and without a single heart amongst them! My father is imprisoned within the castle walls. Your best friend—”
“Ex-best friend,” she corrected quietly.
“—has been abducted by their prince, never mind the semantics. And my own brother has been lost, and is likely dead.”
As if to punctuate every proclamation, the fireplace behind us burst into life again and again.
“If you want to go home now, believe me, I will take you,” I whispered, my tone as dark and dangerous as any ice dragon could manage. “I will happily be rid of you, back to that young man who is so proud of the alcohol in his system, and the palaces of the Ballinger house, the world of inheritance awaiting you.” I loomed over her. “Shops, shops, and more shops, Michelle; that is your world. And I will gladly return you from whence you came.”
There was a bang on the door, and the signage—Gordon’s Instruments—shuddered from the impact.
The ice dragons.
“Wake the men!” I hissed to Michelle, snatching my cloak from off the darkened mirror. I pulled on the garment and moved to fill the leather satchel with our few and crucial rations. I didn’t glance over my shoulder. She would not stray from orders. There was something about her which spoke of a soldier.
But it didn’t matter.
With the crunch of splintering wood, the sign gave way to the force of the dragon’s weight, and the door blew inward, the night beyond spewing into the room with the fragments of shattered wood.
Ice and the fire were pressed against each other now. Even if our fire was nothing but a spark, it was a weapon. I couldn’t shift in this environment and lose my clothing, but I could still use the element to my advantage: I opened my mouth and sent a swath of flame against the front entrance of Gordon’s—which caught as easily as kindling.
“What the hell!” Michelle cried behind me.
The ice dragons hesitated, and I unleashed another fireball in their direction. The fire would not hold against the storm outside. I only hoped to allow us enough time to escape. I glanced over my shoulder—Einhen was still groggy-eyed, Michelle was holding a broken bottle of mead at the ready, and Khem joined me with his own orange tongue of flame—but when I turned back to face the entrance of the instrument shop, the ice dragons were spilling inside, extinguishing our heat as they entered.