Ice Country(92)

“If you say so,” I say, laughing. I cut off short, however, when I realize it. I can’t laugh, not when Jolie might be dying beside me.

Can I really leave her like this?

“I do say so,” she says, getting that look in her eyes, the one where she narrows them and you know there’s no way you can change her mind, so it isn’t even worth trying.

So I try anyway. “You helped save my sister, so I’ll help save yours. This has nothing to do with us.”

She punches me lightly on the shoulder and gets that other look in her eyes, the one where her eyebrows raise, pulling her big brown eyes open a little wider than usual, and you know, just know, she’s about to say something that’ll surprise you, because it’ll be so honest, so straight to the heart that you wonder where she came from, how she can wear her emotions on the outside like that, when most people are hiding them deep inside, locking them in a box, throwing away the key.

“Dazz,” she says, and I wait for it breathlessly.

“Yer a real icin’ fool sometimes,” she says, and I burst out laughing, both because she’s right and because she used one of our words, the one that I think means the same thing as searin’ in her language.





~~~





After Skye leaves I feel that hole in my soul that always seems to appear when she’s not around. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but maybe Skye is right, that I’m a real icin’ fool for thinking I should leave the side of my unconscious sister to go on some wild hunt for a Heater girl I don’t even know, who’s probably not alive anyway.

Call it foolishness, call it the need to pay the Heaters back for what they did for me, call it a hot desire for revenge, call it bear crap for all I care, but that’s what I know I need to do.

The Stormers can’t get away with stealing children, not from ice country, not from fire country, not from anywhere. We’ll make them stop.

I’m staring at the floor thinking about it all when there’s a heavy knock at the door, so heavy I think the guards are back with their battering ram, trying to smash straight through our hut. “Ice it all to chill!” I hiss under my breath, striding to the door with snow water in my veins.

I throw the door open, ready to knock whoever’s disturbing my thoughts and my sister’s peaceful slumber all the way into fire country.

I suck in a quick breath when I find myself staring into the chest of a giant.

He grunts and I look up. Hightower stands over me, a foot taller and twice as wide.

Abe steps around him, leaning on a stick and smiling the nastiest smile I’ve ever seen, all bite and no warmth. A smile that makes me smile back. “Hey, kid, mind if we come in?”

I chuckle. These are the last two people I expected to show up on my doorstep. “It’s not like I can stop you when you got him leading the charge,” I say, motioning to his Yag-sized brother.

“Icin’ right,” he says, pushing past me. I step aside and let Hightower grunt his way inside, having to duck and turn sorta sideways to get through the narrow entrance.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” I say when I close the door.

Abe smiles wickedly. “Tell ’im, Tower.”

I frown and look at Tower, who I’ve never heard speak even a single word. The monstrous man reaches a big ol’ hand into a deep pocket in his bearskin coat. There’s a jingle when he pulls out a fistful of bright, gleaming silver.

I gawk at the sickles, more wealth than I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

“But where…how…what…” I say, unable to pull my eyes off the shiny coins.

“Exactly,” Abe says. “All of that. This ’ere, kid, is yer share.”

I keep on staring, wondering when I’m gonna wake up. “Share of what?” I finally say.

“The silver!” Abe says. “Ain’t you been payin’ attention?”

I manage to tear my eyes from Tower’s hand, look at Abe. “Nay, I mean, what’s it for? I didn’t realize we were in business together.”

Abe laughs and then stops suddenly, seeing Jolie’s resting form in the bed against the wall. “Poor kid,” he says. “I heard what happened. She’ll be all right?”

“I don’t know,” I admit.

Tower grunts something. “My brother offers his well wishes,” Abe says. Before I can even wonder how Abe can understand anything his brother says, he continues. “When the riders tore through the castle, not to mention you and yer strange friends running about, it was like a free fer all fer all the lowlifes in ice country…”

“What does that have to do with you?” I say.