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“Froze the seas?”
“Oilliphéists don’t like ice.”
“They’re water dragons.”
“They likewater.Warm water, to be precise. The cold weakens them. The dragon couldn’t move through the icy air…”
Aoife was still speaking, but Juliana’s mind was back in Winter, watching Ladrien shudder in the cold, watching him try to teleport as if the cold hurt him.
Because it did.
And he wasn’t teleporting—he was transforming.
Transforming into water.
“Not that that’s much use to us here,” Aoife continued. “Neither of us are witches. I have some theoretical knowledge, of course, but anything of great magnitude—”
“We don’t need a witch,” Juliana rushed. “We’ve got the Winter gardens.”
And a pile of snow waiting on the mountain tops.
It was time for another avalanche.
“Get back to Miriam and the others,” she said. “They’re being held outside the palace gates. Free them, however you can—” She paused, thinking swiftly. “Hawthorn, can you hear me?”
A vine shot through the wall, making Aoife jump.
“Go with her. Get them up. Bring them to Winter. Make it snow.”
For a moment, she felt something brush her cheek, but a second later it was gone, so swiftly it might have been the wind.
“Go,” she told Aoife, when the vines fell limp around them. “Go!”
“What are you going to do?”
“What else?” she said, climbing to her feet. “I’m going to take on a dragon.”
Juliana could never quite remember how she got out of the palace, only she did, somehow, with the benefit of a head start. She recalled feeling Ladrien shatter through the library ceiling and spill out into the darkening air, roaring her name.
“JULIANA ARDENCOURT!” he howled, his body blackening the clouds. “I WILL HAVE YOUR HEART. I WILL HAVE YOUR SOUL. I WILL MAKE YOU WATCH AS I DESTROY EVERYTHING YOU LOVE.”
Juliana didn’t watch him, didn’t turn back. She streamed through the gardens, weaving in and out of sight. The lawns turned white and glassy, the trees crisp with frost.
Not much further.
Her feet sunk into snow. She kept to the dense pines, woven so thickly Ladrien couldn’t enter. Any further, she wouldn’t be able to move herself. Ladrien paused at the wooded entrance, and then swung his huge tail straight though the trunks, cutting several of them down like butter.
How long could she hide here? How long would she need before Hawthorn and Aoife freed the others?
If they even could. Two against all of his forces… what had she been thinking?
She waited as long as she dared, until half the trees were demolished, and then sprinted for the mountains. She’d cause an avalanche herself if she needed to.
It took Ladrien a while to realise what she was doing, by which point she’d already reached the path up the side, carved out of the rock, half-hidden. He was slower than he was in the library, his breath wheezing. When he rammed into the side, the mountain rammed back.
“Come on, come on…”
She struggled up the rocky incline, lungs burning. Ladrien took a second to gather his breath, and Juliana took a moment to glance out over the grounds—
