He takes both my hands in greeting and leans in to kiss my cheek. I turn my face, press my lips to his ear and say softly, “You can’t have it. Whatever it is, you’re not taking it. The answer is no.”

His breath is warm on my ear. “I have come for something of which you’d like to be quit.”

I wonder if he always speaks in the manner he is spoken to. The devil is the master of assimilation. It is how he gains entry: he makes himself appear a friend.

“Again, no.” I think perhaps we have something to trade. Perhaps I will give him whatever it is he wants for moving the IFP. But best to deny from the onset.

He slides his hands up my arms to my elbows and cups them lightly, drawing us closer. “We could barter.”

Does he read thoughts or merely expressions so well? “Give me my Sean back,” I whisper. The stubble on his cheek abrades my skin.

“Your beloved Sean has been free to leave for weeks,” he murmurs against my ear.

I mask a tiny jerk and swallow a cry of protest. I do not know whether he speaks the truth. If it is a lie, it is a bitter and hurtful one.

“It is not a lie.” He lets his hands fall from my arms and steps back. I am colder where he was touching me.

I see Dani exiting one of the buses. The clouds part on my troubled heart and I am suddenly buoyant. Her fiery hair is a halo of sunshine around her glowing, delicate, eternally battered face. Her smile of greeting is infectious. How I have missed her!

I open my arms, knowing she will never run into them as I wish. Knowing any hug I steal from the child will be just that—stolen. Beneath her hardy, bruised exterior shines pure gold. She is filled with light as no one I have encountered before. It makes me both harder and gentler on her. Though she is cross and grumpy and irritable as any teen, there is not one ounce of ill will in her and she has had reason to feel it. Indeed, reasons enough to fill a book, but she radiates only excitement and happiness to be alive. I realize Ryodan is watching me watch her, intently. I wonder again if he can pick up my thoughts, and if so, how clearly?

“Why have you come?” I demand.

Dani skids to a stop on the ice in front of me and blurts in a rush of breath, “Hey, Kat, what’s up? Long time, no see, huh? Everything okay out here? You got enough to eat and stuff? Sorry I haven’t been around to check on things but I got stuck in Faery. Dude! You’re never going to believe all the stuff that’s been happening! Brrr, it’s cold out here! Oh, and we think we know how to stop the Unseelie responsible for turning our world into an arctic zone! Hey, I’m freezing, you going to let us in?”

We are again in the common room watching out the window as the most peculiar confederacy I have ever seen collaborate upon a shared goal prepares to destroy us.

I cannot see it any other way. They are wrong. It won’t work. It’s far too dangerous.

Five men who do not exist, one violent, immensely powerful, sex-obsessed Unseelie prince who believes himself in love with Dani, an exceedingly radiant and happy Jo, and a young, good-looking boy with glasses for whom Dani is the sun, moon, and stars and reminds me of my Sean but harbors secrets so dark and deep that even my gifts cannot reach them, work together to unload equipment from the buses and carry it across mounds of snow and ice to the chosen location.

While Dani told me their plan to trap the Hoar Frost King with the IFP, Ryodan remained silent, and with good reason. He knew each of my objections and that there was no valid rebuttal for any of them. At the end, when permission should have been given or withheld by me—and it most certainly would have been withheld—he informed me that if I failed to cooperate in any way, he would destroy the abbey and continue with his plan.

“You’re going to destroy it anyway,” I said.

“No we’re not. It’s going to work, Kat!” Dani exclaimed.

“You don’t know that. You don’t even know if the Hoar Frost King can be killed.”

Ryodan’s gaze reflected the same odds of success I perceive. He said simply, “How much longer do you think you and your charges will survive if this snow continues.”

He has the most jarring way of never punctuating his questions.

They plan to free a monster.

I said, “Assuming it works and the Hoar Frost King is destroyed, how do you plan to tether the IFP again?”

Even Dani had the good grace to look away.

I cannot read Ryodan. I will never be able to. But I can read the rest of them.

Deep down, they do not believe they can.

THIRTY-NINE

“Crystal world with winter flowers turn my day to frozen hours”

I ain’t never been to a heavy metal concert though I seen some on TV. Dancer’s been to all kinds of shows. Growing up in a cage had serious disadvantages. By the time I got out, there were so many things I wanted to do that I couldn’t get to them all. Now all the good bands are dead, and tonight is probably as close as I’m going to ever get. The violet lights flickering in the sky are perfect for a rock concert, like having our own laser show! I seen some on TV and they were über-cool.

It’s crazy how many speakers and cables and stuff Dancer and me picked up. We might have gotten a little carried away. But the music store we looted was untouched and crammed full of equipment, with no windows broken, and a full cash register. I guess in times of war nobody’s thinking, Gee, I want to go steal a stereo. In the end we filled both buses, figuring the louder the better.

We set up the sound stage close to the abbey, between the wall and the IFP.

It’s freaky working close to it, knowing if anybody jostles you into it, you’re instantly dead. Creeps me all kinds of out but I got a job to do hooking up speakers while Dancer gets everything else up and running. The long, wide, scorched black trail behind it is a constant reminder that it would char me to cinders if I so much as touched it. Although the IFP emits no actual heat, no snow accumulates on the barren soil, as if where it passed it has left the earth antithetical to cold.

The faceted funnel is taller than the abbey, at least a hundred feet wide at the top, and tapers to forty or so at the base—more than big enough to swallow one Hoar Frost King. The earth beneath it is baked to a slick, shiny black finish, though the fire-world fragment doesn’t throw off heat. A ribbon of glowing wards twist around the base, securely tethered to a black loop on a black box etched with symbols about twenty feet away. I skirt the IFP, eyeing the black box suspiciously, thinking how the feck is that tiny thing that is roughly the size of a Rubik’s cube keeping an IFP from drifting? It can’t weigh more than half a pound. I kick it gently to see how far it moves and just about break my toe! I can’t resist trying to pick it up.