I paused to dig into the leather satchel Theon had left with me, and discovered inside a burbling bottle, hot to the touch. Remembering the way that Lethe had been sensitive even to the meager halo of warmth created by the fireplace he had lit for me, I wondered if this volatile-looking liquid would help in disbanding a large group of ice dragons. But what if I was separated from Mrs. Aena? I returned the burbling bottle to the leather satchel and next extracted a small tomahawk with a very heavy blade at its tip; it would be perfect for throwing from a distance. I did not want to be forced into close-range combat with one of those vicious creatures. But being a lowly human and a wounded older woman worked to our benefit: the ice dragons hardly noticed us, as the more dangerous fire dragons held their concentration.
My breath hitched. Emerging from between two heavy furs, the astrolabe clutched to her torso, was Michelle. Her curls were tangled in knots, and she wore no makeup, and the white dress I remembered from the going-away party was stained with ash.
“Michelle!” I cried, relieved, even in spite of our checkered history. “Michelle!”
She looked at me with a glare I had never before seen. Smirking? Sure. Cunning? Most of the time. But I had never seen such spite in her eyes. She hated me.
Theon must have rejected her, and not once, but a million times. I’d never seen her so bitter because she had never lost to me before. I’d never seen Michelle Ballinger lose in my life, and now that I had returned, and Theon was mine again… she had officially lost. I wasn’t even sure why she was here, but I was certain she wouldn’t be staying. She wasn’t going to be anyone’s queen—she was just going to be another neglected trophy wife somewhere in New Hampshire.
Michelle looked at me once—a stare of utter hatred—and then turned toward the largest of the silver dragons, approaching it.
“Michelle!” I begged her, unwilling to race forward and risk both of our lives. What was she doing? Was she so vindictive that she would kill herself in front of me just to try to torture me?
And then, as the large silver dragon fixed her with its unearthly eyes, she lifted the glowing astrolabe into the air and ducked her head, as if… as if making an offering.
Suddenly, I was cold all over again, as if the winter had never left.
She was going to return the crucial element of the cosmos to the other side.
“Michelle, no!” I begged. She didn’t look at me.
The ice and fire dragons sparred in the depository, unaware of the exchange taking place.
“She wouldn’t.” Mrs. Aena didn’t sound like she really believed it herself. “She wouldn’t, would she?”
I shook my head, knowing all too well that she would.
A few of the other ice dragons noticed the exchange taking place in the center of the depository and abandoned their battles, slithering closer in spite of the vulnerability this gave their backsides.
Oh, God, she was going to do it. She was going to sacrifice to the ice dragons the one tool they could use to hold this kingdom indefinitely—and for no reason other than sheer spite. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, they said.
“She would,” I whispered back to Mrs. Aena, digging in the satchel for that bubbling bottle I had earlier discarded. Four ice dragons now stood over Michelle, ceasing their ice shards in honor of her unexpected gift, the traitor.
Perfect.
“Michelle!” I hollered; the girl did not turn to acknowledge me, but her expression was so stiff and set, I knew that she was concentrating very hard on me. No one could ignore someone they hated with such a passion.
I held the bottle overhead. Its color had deepened to a dark red, and the glass was smoldering hot to the touch now. Had the liquid changed in the time it had taken for us to enter the depository?
“I said no!” I bellowed, heaving the bottle end over end into the air.
The glass struck the ground between the circle of dragons and exploded upward in flame. I lost sight of the dragons, the astrolabe, and Michelle immediately; they became nothing but silhouettes in an almost sonic blast, and then became iridescent blurs beneath my closed eyelids. In the next instant, I was battered by heat, and found myself shielded with an unexpected cloak of leathery orange wings: Mrs. Aena had sheltered me from the blast.
But when her wings shuttered away from me, Michelle, the dragons, and the astrolabe were all gone.
Nell
After the astrolabe was recaptured, the ice dragons receded from the caverns with surprising speed. They left their dead and wounded behind. The dead were hauled along the winding stairwell, along with the fallen fire dragons, to be buried at sunset. The wounded were taken to the infirmary. It made no difference; the ice dragons could return at any time, now that they had located the shelter. They had already learned its geography and its capacity. There was nothing left to hide.