15
KENDRA
Iknew the Wintermoon bridge would be large. I’ve seen it referenced online during the dead hours between deliveries, always described as bigger than the photos make it look, and the photos are already impressive.
But knowing a bridge crosses the water and sitting on it in the dark while Kade presses the accelerator harder are two nothing alike. The suspension towers rise on either side of the truck like cathedral columns, strung with lights that blur at the edges in the falling snow. Below us, where the straits should be, there’s nothing but black.
Kade sighs as the gate falls behind us, her whole body settling into the driver’s seat. “Thank god we’re home.” She pushes the engine a little harder.
“Could you maybe slow down,” I say. It’s not really a question.
“Hell no.” She glances at me sideways. “You’ll be fine, Bouda queen.”
I cut her a look that she completely ignores, then turn back to the window because the view is pulling at me and I’d rather focus on that than on the drop below. To the right, the touristisland blazes gold through the weather, its lights smearing warm against the dark water. Further out, the royal island rises in silhouette, the castles lit from below, their reflection scattered and moving across the surface of the strait.
In the backseat, Aiden and Andrew have gone quiet. I checked the mirror a few minutes ago and caught Andrew’s palm resting on Aiden’s knee, and Aiden watching the window pretending very hard not to notice it. I’m not going to say anything. But watching two people work out what they are to each other loosens something in me, and I hold onto that.
I look back through the rear window into the storm. The bridge lights disappear into snow about thirty feet behind us, and beyond that there’s nothing. Zaki refused to ride in the truck. She’d regarded it with contempt and no interest in negotiating, and she’d spoken to Kojo in their language that made him stand straighter and follow her into the dark without a word. I know they’re back there. I check anyway.
“Never in a million years did I think I’d end up moving to Wintermoon,” Aiden says quietly, more to himself than to the truck. He’s watching the tourist island the same way I was a moment ago.
Andrew sets his palm more firmly on Aiden’s knee. Aiden drops his gaze to it, then back out the window without moving away.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” she says. “Andrew’s never been much for settling in Wintermoon. He loves the outside world. The danger. The mess.” She pauses. “Always has.”
Andrew hisses at the back of her head. Kade keeps driving.
I check behind us again. Snow. Bridge lights. Nothing.
“Honey.” Her voice drops, loses its edge. “If you’re worried about losing them, don’t. As queen of the Bouda Clan, those two would set Wintermoon on fire to get back to you. Every building on it.”
I turn back around. “Try?”
Kade smiles, the corners of her eyes crinkling. “We have a goddess living on Wintermoon now.” She keeps her gaze on the road as the bridge begins to end, the shore appearing through the weather ahead. “Oh,” she adds, like she almost forgot. “Don’t freak out if you see spiders.”
I stare at her. “What?”
“They’re Carla’s. Her children. They’re harmless, honestly.” She waves one hand. “Like little dogs.”
I open my mouth, then close it. I don’t even want to go down that road right now.
We cross onto solid ground, and my body relaxes.
Kade takes us down an open road that disappears almost immediately into forest. The headlights punch into the dark between dense pines, most of them so tall I can’t see where they end, and the snow falls straight down between them in the still air. Between the tree lines there are breaks, cleared paths leading off into the dark at even intervals, and I clock that they’re too regular to be random. Shifter villages, probably. Pathways to places I don’t know yet and am going to have to learn.
Then the trees open up. The market takes up what must be a full city block, its stalls built from dark timber with iron lamp posts throwing warm gold light across the snow. Everything is shuttered for the night, canvas tied down over the goods, but I can still make out the shape of a full produce section under a wide covered walkway, a fish stall, what looks like a row of craft tables along the far wall. And set inside the market ring, tucked behind the shopping stalls, there’s a carnival that has no business being in the middle of a Michigan forest in February. A Ferris wheel, dormant but strung with lights tracing every spoke. Two small roller coasters banking through a grove of pines, their tracks curving up and out of sight between the trees. A swingride with the seats lifted for the night. A funhouse with mirrored panels bouncing the lamp light back in pieces.
“I’ll help with the town stuff when you’re settled,” Kade calls, passing the market without slowing. “But feel free to stop by whenever. My Leah will show you around.”
“How am I supposed to pay for things here?”
“You don’t.” She says it simply. “Wintermoon runs on a barter system, mostly. We use human currency for the folks who prefer it, but none of that applies to you. No money, no bills, none of it. This territory is one of the wealthiest in the world.” She glances at me to check if it landed.
I ease back into my seat and watch the market disappear in the side mirror.
It’s not much longer before Kade slows and turns onto a narrower path between two rows of old pines. They open into a clearing, and I sit up straight. The community lands stretch out wide in the dark, a village of cabins spread across the snow with warm light in some of the windows and lanterns burning along the cleared paths between them. Some of the cabins have greenhouse attachments, fogged with heat from inside, condensation running down the glass. Others have covered porches with rocking chairs and woodpiles stacked tight under lean-tos. The paths between them are shoveled clean, and the whole thing is tidier and more lived-in than anything I was picturing.
“Community lands.” Kade rolls slowly along the path. “This is where you’ll stay while we work out proper territory for your clan.”
