I’d grown in the soil of the Ravenwoods, the vilest place in the land, and still I shivered as I glanced at the black trees, creeping like a sickness over the hills.
A slice of wind shoved me aside, whistling furiously through the streets, chiming as it pelted windows and shutters with ice. I cowered against the nearest door to shield myself from swirls of needle-like snow.
“Inside with you, girl!”
A wrinkled hand shot from a barely-open door and yanked me through. I found myself trapped in a dim, narrow maze of towering bookcases with a very short, very old woman. She looked sternly at me, stray white curls peeking from a flowered headscarf.
“You must not linger in the cold.”
I nodded, dazed from the stifling warmth, and from the thick, sweet scent of aged parchment. The woman let go of me and hobbled wordlessly to the counter tucked against a far wall. I’d landed in the bookstore and this was Olva—whom I knew only from Bahra’s laments about brambles in the garden and a lost antique vase, which Adrik had found, after a long search, under the old woman’s bed. He’d murmured something about pesky household spirits and always leaving a bite on the plate to appease them.
Olva paid me no further heed, which suited me just fine. I wandered among the bookshelves while I waited for the wind to ease, but it battered the walls loudly and relentlessly. At the far end of the store, light filtered through a frosted window. I could not bear to look at Lorell’s red-and-white speckled roof, and I could bear even less the thought of looking away—as if the house might vanish if I blinked, and I’d wake up to find that none of it had been real.
I did not know which was worse: To have found and lost it, or never to have known it at all.
The sharp ring of a bell tore me with a flinch from my woes. Instincts sharpened by a decade of the hunt kept me rooted beneath the window, hidden behind a shelf. The floorboards creaked beneath heavy steps. I retreated further into the shadows, holding my breath.
“Have you heard?” The voice was deep, unfamiliar.
“It is true?” croaked Olva. “There is nothing left?”
A sharp breath in the silence. “Not one grain of wheat.”
“No carrots either?”
“No carrots either.”
“No potatoes and no cabbage?”
“No, Olva, nothing at all. The fields are bare.”
A long sigh, another too-long beat of silence. “The stores are full,” said Olva. “We will last a while.”
“That we will,” said the visitor.
“Spring will come soon.”
“That it will.”
I waited until the footsteps faded and the bell above the door quieted, and then I waited another while before I put on my brightest smile, bid Olva farewell, and hurried with dread-blurred vision back into the winter afternoon.
Spring will come soon.
The lie clanked like shattered glass in my chest as I stumbled forth. Deep inside, unease had taken root on that horribly quiet storm day. Now, there bloomed a vicious tangle of terror. I’d ignored the whispers of the wind, the terrible cold, the too-long winter.
I should have died in the wasteland. I should have put that glass shard to use when the hounds came, but because I was weak-hearted, I’d faltered—not once, buttwice. I’d falteredtwicein the face of death. Now the town was paying the pricefor my selfishness. I should have known that this cold was not normal. That my magic had plunged Wildemire into a deep, terrible winter. I’d sentenced these people to starve. To become trapped in a tomb of ice.
I had to find Adrik. Once he purged me of this magic, the thaw would come. It had to.
“Hello?”
I winced, torn rudely from my frenzied thoughts. I’d run blindly down the street, right past the bakery and tavern. The voice came from a door half-hidden behind a veil of rambling roses. A woman stepped forth, bright and beautiful. The sun painted rainbows into her stark-white curls. Despite the bitter cold, she wore only a light lace dress. The scent of tea drifted past her into the street, along with the lively tune of a harp.
“You are Evana, no? I’m so glad to meet you at last!” She clutched the hem of my coat and pulled me with startling strength through the door. “Adrik’s been going on and on about you, and I’m sick of it. Come in, come in, I’ll make tea while we talk!”
This could only be the famous Zora. Adrik, for all the talking he’d supposedly done, seemed not to have mentioned that such enthusiasm frightened me, and that I made for poor company.
If the veil of roses at the door had alarmed me, the inside of the teahouse had crawled from my nightmares. Wherever I looked, alive things gawked back at me: From every corner and from the rafters sprawled ivy, blossoms sprouted from gaps in bricks and floorboards, moss blanketed the ceiling, adorned with wildflowers and other such horrors. It must have been Almira’s doing. The magic in the teahouse was almost as dense as the scent of lavender and honey.
