Page 124 of Bone Year

I take a step, and Draven grabs my arm.

“Close enough.”

He was right about it running into the lake. The ice breaks along the edge of the fissure in a ragged line, and below that there is nothing but dark jagged rock going down farther than I can see in the fading light. No snow collects inside. No wind churns the mist. No bird calls anywhere in the woods behind us. I hold my hands out in front of me and swear I can feel a hint of warmth rising off the mist, which makes no sense in air this cold.

The humming has stopped.

The night has gone completely silent.

I can feel Poppy’s uneasy presence inside my chest, but she doesn’t appear.

“There’s no one here.” I don’t take my eyes off the fissure. “No one’s watching it? Who protects these people when twisted creatures come through this thing?”

Draven stares at the place where the fissure meets the edge of the lake. “No one. This place is deserted apart from the seamkeeper, and all he does is record what he sees.”

“And rings the bell.” I glance up at him.

He snorts. “Yes, because that bell is going to save anyone from what comes out of there. He might as well be ringing a dinner bell, because all he’s doing is calling the damn things to the village.”

I see his point.

“Then why ring it at all? Why do these people stay living here so close to a fixed fissure?”

He shakes his head, still looking off toward the lake.

“The bell is an old warning system. They’re too stuck in their ways to do away with it.” His voice lowers. “And the people… I imagine it’s all they’ve ever known.”

I have an urge to move closer and look down inside the crack. I look at my feet instead and notice that the snow around my boots has developed the same feathered frost patterns I saw at the edge of the fissure. Small ones spreading out from where I’m standing.

I take a step back. The frost stays where it is.

“Come on.” Draven’s hand finds the small of my back. “It’s getting dark. Let’s head back.”

We make the trek in silence. My chest loosens the farther we get from the fissure, and I hadn’t realized how tight it had been until it wasn’t anymore. I shake the rest of it off once we reach the chapel and step inside into the warmth near the hearth.

Draven kneels to feed the fire, and I open the door to the old bedchamber. It’s a simple room with a single bed that could fit two people. Two people who were entirely comfortable touching each other all night, which we most definitely are not. There’s a window behind the bed with a small crack in the glass and a low whistle of cold air trickling through it.

Great.

“You can take the bed. I’ll take the floor.”

I nearly jump. Draven has come up behind me without a sound, peering into the small space over my shoulder.

“How generous of you.” I step inside and drop our pack onto the foot of the bed. “Are you sure? The stone looks very comfortable.”

“I’ve slept in worse places.”

“Name one.”

He doesn’t answer, and I find it hard to imagine a prince sleeping anywhere uncomfortable, lost or not.

I turn to look at him. He’s leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, watching me like he’s already three steps ahead and waiting for me to catch up.

“You’ll freeze down there.”

“I don’t freeze.”

“Right. Vampire. I keep forgetting.”