Page 53
“Where did they go?” I whispered to Victor between chattering teeth.
A metal hatch dropped from the ceiling with a great clang, blocking the stairwell entrance and sealing us inside. Icy, brittle laughter filled the cellar.
“A cold dragon is a dead dragon,” Stephanie’s sharp, jagged voice announced, coming from all around but also nowhere. “Enjoy your final moments at my hotel.”
CHAPTER 14
The cold seeped under my skin and gnawed on my bones.
A cold dragon is a dead dragon.
Was she right? I’d never really spent long enough being cold to know for certain, but I knew I didn’t like it. There had been that one time I’d been trapped in the industrial meat store with Zee. Little Jimmy had butchered a whole bunch of people to save us, but they’d been bad people, so it was alright.
Jimmy wasn’t here to save me now. Victor would be alright, though. It took more than the cold to kill him.
We’d tried the door, but like the hotel’s rooms, it had been warded shut with the only latch likely on the outside. Nobody was getting in or out.
Where was Zee? Had he tried to translocate into the cellar and the wards had ricocheted him away somewhere? I wasn’t sure how these things worked, but it seemed likely or he’d have been with us.
I paced. Misty vapor swirled around my legs.
Victor stood at the door, frowning as he studied the metal barrier.
The rest of the SOS Hotel crew were rifling through the glass remains of the containers, perhaps only now realizing it had all been real. It was one thing to be told you were the victims of an ageless fae who liked to freeze people for her collection, but definitely something else to see it with your own eyes.
I regretted involving them, regretted stopping at this hotel, regretted dragging Victor and Zee along on this road trip, but most of all, I regretted not ending my brother properly the first time around. This wasn’t his fault, but if he hadn’t shown up, we wouldn’t have gotten into this mess to begin with.
Although Stephanie would still have been freezing people, but like Victor always said, we couldn’t save everyone.
I stopped pacing, slid down the back wall, and hugged my knees to my chest, trying to guard against the cold. Smoky water vapor sloshed around my ankles, hiding the cellar floor.
Why hadn’t I thought to bring the anti-ward ring? We could have walked right out if I had.
What if Zee was in trouble?
Victor knelt beside me but stayed quiet for a few minutes, like he did when I knew he had something to say but was trying to decide the best way to say it. “Do not blame yourself.”
“How do you know I am?” I tried to smile but it didn’t stick.
“You always do. Fear not. Zodiac, while unconventional in his approach to certain things, will no doubt be using his new godlike powers to find and free us.”
“He’s also pretty high right now.” I puffed into my hands, then wedged them between my thighs.
“Yes, well. He’s experienced in that respect too.” But wherever he was, it was true he would be doing everything he could to break us out of this icebox. Tom Collins too, after he’d finished dismembering the concierge.
“If all else fails, there is the nuclear option,” Victor suggested softly.
He was suggesting I should shift? “It’s too risky,” I whispered, and swooshed my fingers through the misty vapor. “I’d be as likely to crush everyone in here as I would be to save them. I don’t have much control over what goes where, only which way is up.”
“I’m sure it will not come to that.”
At least one of us was.
“Thank you,” I told him. “For sticking with me through everything.”
“I will always stand with you and Zodiac, Adam.”
“Always and forever,” I whispered, watching the mist swirl about my fingers. Victor was generally right and calm and sensible. I loved him, loved them both, and I’d end up getting them killed. I knew it, the same as I’d known my heart would save the world, but they knew it too. Was that love, standing up for what was right even though you knew it would cost everything? I was pretty certain it was.
