“Good.”
With that, he wrenched the door open and stepped out into the hallway, slamming it behind him.
Next, a key turned in a lock, and I flung myself toward the door, jiggling its frozen handle.
Dammit.
Trapped.
Nell
I wrapped my arms around myself and curled up near the fire, rocking back and forth. It had been hours since Lethe had disappeared, locking the door behind him. I’d tried screaming and pounding on the door, even though I’d known it would do nothing. This was a castle. Entire wings stood vacant of all life in the wake of this insurgency. I’d pressed my ear to the door and listened for footsteps, voices, anything. But there was nothing.
Bedraggled with exhaustion and hunger, I collected the quilt off of the mattress and trudged back to the meager halo of heat produced by the dying embers of the hearth. It was becoming colder… and colder… and colder. Even inside the blankets, I rubbed my hands together and blew warm breath into them.
My eyes wandered to the northern windows.
In their lowest corner, the wavering sun descended.
It was almost nightfall.
I wondered about the time. Was it, like on Earth, almost five o’clock, or six, when the sun was low in the winter season? Had it been almost an entire twenty-four hours, and on Earth, had a day passed as well? Had my mother gone to Dulles, anticipating my flight from Portland International to DC, and found I had never boarded? Had my father already called her in a panic when I had never returned from the going-away party the night before? Had Michelle’s family, the Boston Ballingers, realized that she, too, was missing? Did the evening news blaze with our images, information as to when we were last seen, tearful interviews with our friends and family?
Footsteps in the hall, muffled by the heavy oak door, distracted me from my thoughts.
“Hello?” I called, climbing to my feet and hurrying to the door. I banged at its frame until my fists ached. “Hello, is anyone there?”
The sound of a key turning in a lock made me pause.
It was Lethe.
The door fell open, and with it came a warm, lemony scent which caused my mouth to water. I moved back a step and allowed him to enter. He held a large, steaming bowl. My eyes followed it, ignoring the door, which he shut behind him with his foot.
“I have brought you a stew for dinner,” he informed me. “Please, have a seat. There is a small table near the window—”
“No,” I said. He cast a glare at me and I shrank back. “It’s so cold,” I explained, and his icy stare relented.
“The fire, then,” he said. “I will rekindle it. Have a seat.”
I settled by the fire, and he rested the meal in front of me. I didn’t wait as he stuffed the fireplace with kindling. I only heard an occasional exclamation of pain; it seemed that the ice people could not withstand fire, as the fire people could not withstand ice. Still, he built the fire for me as I shoveled the stew into my eager mouth. It was almost entirely gone, spoon scraping the porcelain bottom of the dish, when I finally raised my head and saw the roaring hearth now between us, throwing its warm orange light into the chamber.
The fire bothered him, and it was purely for me that he entertained its presence. I remembered Theon with a pang of gratitude: the day we’d been at the ice rink near the mall in Beggar’s Hole. He’d told me he detested the ice, but agreed to skate on it only to please me. Heart swollen with appreciation of Theon, I looked to Lethe, thought of him, and smiled.
Somehow… somewhere in that icy cavern of this self-proclaimed prince’s heart… there burned a small fire, maybe even only a pit of embers, for the welfare of others.
I cocked my head, intrigued.
“Thank you,” I said again.
Why did he imprison me, if he seemed to not care much for the needless cruelty of his compatriots? What was I to him—some sort of pet? A bargaining chip? What did he want?
“Does it hurt terribly?” he asked, turning from the fire and treading deeper into the room, away from its heat. He stood silhouetted against the frost-encrusted window, all color bleached away by the dying of the sun. “Your burns? Do they still ache, or is the way of fire inoffensive to you? Do you, perhaps, lover of fire, treasure the pain?”
I hesitated. “It hurts,” I admitted.
He nodded and turned toward me again. “I have brought a salve,” he said. “Come to me. I cannot stand to be near the fire.”
I stood and trod toward him, still enshrouded in the blanket. He held a glass disc, brimming with a dark orange cream, and I saw that his hands were scarred from their fleeting contact with the flames. I cracked the blanket open and allowed him to see the marks on my body again. Did he wince at the sight of them—or was that only my imagination?