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The world slows to a crawl. The orc’s beady black eyes, hooded by an enormous overhanging brow, fixate on the bait Ruby dangles back and forth. A bellow shatters the night as three darklings attack his thick legs, but they might as well be flies for all the orc notices.
His platter-sized hand closes around Ruby, who’s still holding the bait, the idiot. Her eyes widen as she finally breaks out of her drunken stupor, and the squeal of fear she emits as he shoves her toward his hideous mouth—
A blast of bone-shattering cold ripples through the air, blowing my pale hair forward and turning my breath cloudy white. The grass around us has crystallized, everything in a hundred foot radius transformed from Spring to Winter. Like statues after a blizzard, darklings and the orc are frozen, covered in a deep layer of ice.
The world seems to still, as if time has stopped. But then I hear Ruby’s curses and realize what’s happened.
Valerian—he broke the rule and saved me. Saved us. Ruby would have died, but still, disappointment fills me as I realize what this means.
I’m going to be expelled.
But I’d ask him to do it again in a heartbeat to save Ruby.
Ruby!
My boots crunch the frosted grass as I rush to her side. Only her feet are visible, and they kick and flail as she works to break free. I reach onto my tiptoes, wrap my fingers around each tiny leg, and tug.
She pops free from the orc’s thick icy fingers and dives straight into my vest, trembling. “Thank you,” she whispers.
“Don’t thank me,” I protest as I stumble toward the safety zone, nearly colliding with a darkling frozen in a crouch. “That was compliments of the Winter Prince.”
Ruby peeks her head from my shirt. “Kid, I don’t know how you did it, but I know magic. And that savage display of power came from you.”
Me? Crap. I must have stolen the magic from Valerian. Did anyone else see?
“This is bad, Ruby,” I mutter as I approach the waiting circle of shadows and Evermore.
Fingers of orange reach across the sky. Sunrise. If I’m not inside that protective shield when the sun rises—
I lunge to where Valerian and the others are waiting, ignoring the tense looks on their faces. I’m trying to think up a way to explain the display when I spot the figure in front of me, blocking my way to safety.
As I see Prince Hellebore’s smarmy visage, my frustration overrides my survival instincts. I’ve been chased by flesh-eating humans turned zombie, covered in their bloody gore, faced down an orc, and now this giant douche face isn’t going to stand in my way.
“Move,” I growl, my hand going for my sword hilt, “or you’ll lose your favorite tiny appendage.”
I ignore Ruby’s gasp from inside my vest.
He laughs. “Why is it with humans, the weakest ones have the loudest bark?”
Screw this pointy-eared dickwad. I move to brush past him into the safety zone—
A sudden gust of wind slams into me, smashing me flat against the shield—which is now as hard as a pane of glass. He’s careful not to touch me—Mack said something about him asking for permission.
But the force of the wind is so strong that I can’t move.
And I know—I just know that none of the dangers I survived in the night compare to the situation I’m in now.
24
The shield smells like lilies. I’m not sure why that’s the first thing I think when my face is flattened against the magical wall, probably looking as smooshed as when the twins do the same to our screen door back home.
The only difference is they have a choice. I do not.
Valerian roars as he batters the shield trying to get to me, his eyes gleaming with murderous intent. Burst after burst of his magic slams against the thin partition separating him from me, but the shield’s power feeds from the entire academy, and it refuses to break.
Asher joins him, their combined magic rolling outward in waves of pale blue and orange, one frosting the shield and the other scorching it.
But I already know the divide between us cannot be breached, and I might as well be in another realm entirely. Unreachable and . . . alone.
