Page 73 of Seasonal Fears

“I think you have a concussion,” adds Jack, somewhat anxiously. Harry’s not her responsibility, but he’s the best chance her candidate has of reaching the labyrinth alive, and she wants Melanie to win more than she’s ever wanted just about anything in her entire life. She needs to save him if she wants to save her, and she knows that completely.

The plastic rustles again. A pleasant-faced young man, appearance dominated by brown hair, brown eyes, and a well-trimmed beard, steps through. His clothes are impossible to judge, covered as they are by a heavy canvas apron, and thick gloves cover his hands.

All of that is obvious and easy to see, and pales in importance next to the saw he’s holding in one hand, dangling it with the casual ease of someone who knows precisely how his tools work and has no qualms about using them.

That baked-summer-pavement feeling accompanies him into the room, and Harry is gripped with the sudden, almost overwhelming desire to punch him in the face until those overtly perfect teeth develop gaps and leans, shattering enamel and the lines he probably paid some orthodontist dearly to achieve. The reason candidates fight is much clearer now: if he’s going to feel this way every time he meets another contender for the Summer crown, violence is inevitable. It may be the fact that this guy hit him with a baseball bat, but it feels more essential than that, more unavoidable.

It feels as natural as breathing.

“Hello,” says the man, looking at Harry, with a small smile on his face. “Will you repudiate your crown?”

So at least this guy knows the basics, even if he’s working with a substandard alchemist. Harry didn’t know them a week ago, or even what an alchemist really was, and yet he can’t stop himself from feeling slightly superior to the man in front of him. So this guy has an inferior alchemist? Whatever. Melanie’s father is a good enough alchemist to make people, and while he can’t necessarily be said to be on Harry’s “side,” he’s definitely not someone to sniff dismissively at.

“No, I don’t think I will,” he says, words rendered slightly mushy by the swelling in his mouth. He’s not sure his head has ever hurt this badly in his life. “It’s mine and I’m keeping it.”

“Ah, but see, it’s not, not yet,” says the man—Matthew. He hefts his saw. “You have a potential claim to the crown, which is clearly not going to be exercised, since you have to reach the labyrinth alive to go through the trials. And as of right now, you’re not going to make it. I’d rather not kill you while you’re still in contention, if you don’t mind.”

“What the fuck difference does it make?” Harry demands. There’s no give in these ropes. He can’t get himself free. This is not an action movie. Either he buys enough time for Melanie to come and find him—possibly pushing herself deeper into Winter in the process, although he doesn’t want to think about that more than he absolutely has to—or he dies here, taken apart by a man with a fucking enormous bone saw.

“Right now, you’re tied to the Summer,” says Matthew patiently. “Misty likes that about you. She’s a little too excited by the idea of getting pieces of the Summer to keep in her spice rack and sprinkle on her casseroles, and I’d rather not help her on her quest for horrifying world domination.”

“I can’t believe you’re hanging around with an alchemist,” says Jack, like it’s the worst thing she can imagine. “Don’t you think that’s going to backfire?”

“No. Should I?” Matthew shrugs. “You don’t get a say in who I hang out with, little Winter sprite. You belong to someone else. Someone I’m very excited to meet, when she gets here.”

Harry sits up straighter, straining against his bonds. “You stay the fuck away from Melanie!”

“You have a mouth on you, you know that?” Matthew seems delighted by that, like the fact of Harry’s swearing somehow justifies everything he’s done and everything he’s planning to do. “Melanie, you say? Sounds like a cool girl.” Then he snorts, amused by himself. “Of course she’s cool. She’s a living manifestation of Winter. She’d have to be cool. Not like the other Winter we had around here.”

His expression darkens, something cold and cruel moving behind the genial mask of it all. Harry has a terrible feeling the past tense in that sentence isn’t because his Winter left.

There’s a rustle, and then a third person bursts into the room. This one is slightly older than either Harry or the boy with the saw, who also looks to be in his late teens; this one’s in his mid-twenties or thereabout, Latino, with short-cropped dark hair and a flannel shirt open over a thin white tee. He looks more anxious than either Matthew or the absent, terrifying Misty.

Jack stiffens, narrowing her eyes and glaring hate at the lanky man next to Matthew. “Traitor,” she accuses, mildly enough that Harry has trouble hearing the venom in the word.

The man doesn’t. He winces, and asks, “What would you have done, if this was how your candidate wanted to win?”

“My candidate doesn’t have a saw in her hand. My candidate isn’t in this to take anyone else apart. She’ll kill if she has to, but she won’t do it for fun. You’ve helped yours set up a fucking murder room like something out of a Bryan Fuller show, and you can’t tell me it was out of necessity.”

Matthew bounces the saw in his hand. “This is getting boring,” he says. “Tommy, how many limbs does an attendant need to do their job?”

The man swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down like a fishing buoy. Harry can’t look away. There’s something about this man, who has inspired Jack’s hatred so quickly, who’s helping someone who intends to kill him, that speaks of home and harvest, of safety in the storm. He’s in the presence of a Corn Jenny, whatever the other Summer wants to call him, and he should have been able to feel this man’s calming presence since before their current adventure started.

“Tommy?” says Matthew, more sharply, and the Corn Jenny snaps out of staring at Harry to look around and answer.

“Um, there are no requirements in regards to number of limbs. The first Jack Frost I met was a double amputee following her service in the first Gulf War, and she was still fully equipped to support and train her candidate.”

“Excellent,” says Matthew. “Then I can have her arms, and maybe she’ll learn to keep a civil tongue in her head. Or maybe I’ll take that, too, and she can figure out how to communicate with no voice or hands. It’s all the same to me.”

Jack bucks against the ropes as he approaches. He’s almost there when the man says, somewhat desperately, “Wait!”

He stops and turns, looking placidly over his shoulder at his attendant. The man stands a little straighter and says, in the same borderline desperate tone, “You promised her to Misty. She’s not going to be happy if you do any damage, and you know she takes that out on me. Please don’t get Misty mad at me again.”

Matthew’s look turns curious. “Are you scared of my sister?”

“I have a sense of self-preservation, so yeah, I’m terrified of your sister. She’d be threatening to take you apart for scrap too if she weren’t so worried about upsetting your mother.”

“So instead she just blackmails me with threats of telling Mom about my little workroom,” says Matthew, and gestures toward Jack with his saw. “I don’t need her anymore, except as a lure for someone I’m not sure I actually want to deal with yet. It’s better if the Winter shows up to find her Summer already dead and gone. Then we blame Misty for killing him, and she takes care of all our problems in one beautiful swoop.” He looks to Harry then. “Surely you can see the wisdom of repudiating your crown. Let it go and I’ll let you go.”