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Got to admit, I like that about him. I’m used to feeling like I’m the only one sees the hard things coming, and I’m always angling to skew the odds in my favor. It’s nice to know somebody else is preparing, too.

  He’s right. The hole has to be plugged because the boat is sinking. Another few days and I’m not sure our exodus would be possible. We’d be iced in. I hate the plan we’re about to put in motion but we got to do it. Sometimes when all hell’s breaking loose the only thing to do is to break more hell loose.

  Before it’s too late.

  When we get to the abbey and tell her what we’re going to do, Kat’s going to have a total meltdown.

  Night brings a violet aurora borealis to our home. Aubergine and gentian flames flicker on shiny ice-capped snow as if on the swells of an alabaster ocean.

  We gather at the windows of the common room to watch the dance of violet vapors. I am appalled to realize how much time I’ve spent in my chambers the past month, so as not to betray Cruce’s visitations. I did not see we were all going off alone for similar reasons. Our abbey had become hauntingly quiet and lonely with me, their leader, unaware. I will never again permit myself to forget that isolation is the first step to defeat.

  Tonight our unwanted visitor is conspicuously absent. It is the first evening in weeks he has not dogged my step. He knows we are angry and his appearance would only further rile us. Margery, too, is absent. I will confront the wasp in our nest come morning. She and I will reach terms or she will leave.

  Tonight we break into our precious stash of corn sealed airtight in jars late last summer, popping it with oil over flame. We make the evening a celebration, warmed by the last of the cider scalded over a fire, spiced with cinnamon and clove. Communion, warmth, good scents in the air, contribute to a feeling of thanksgiving and hope, and we reconnect into the family we once were with new appreciation. Now that we all know Cruce was plying his seduction upon each of us, we are no longer divided by guilt.

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  When I hear the roar of engines approaching the abbey, I fear for the safety of my girls and bid them retreat to the cafeteria while I see to the door. Three of those who served in the Haven, Rowena’s inner circle, refuse to leave, and another three step forward to join them, Tanty Nana at the forefront, her eyes wise in twin nests of wrinkles. They infuse me with courage. I begin to understand the purpose of the chosen inner circle.

  The seven of us bundle into cloaks, scarves, and mittens, and step out into the snow. Lavender lights wisp across a twilight terrain, evoking a surreal, dreamy ambience. We watch as trucks with enormous blades carve their way up our white-capped drive followed by four Humvees and two buses.

  When Ryodan steps down from the driver’s seat of one of the trucks, for the briefest of startled moments I think: But how serendipitous, I can ask him to tow the IFP away!

  Common sense asserts itself and my heart grows chill.

  Yes, I wanted to see him. But for this man to come here tonight, for him to use machines to bulldoze a path through mountains of ice to reach our home, means we have something he wants.

  Badly.

  Through narrowed eyes, I regard him. Lack of visible cloven hoof, tail, or horns does not disguise the devil at my door. He glides, long-limbed and sure-footed, through the snow. He is a beautiful man but unlike my Sean the impression is of animal grace, something not human. Coupled, of course, with the fact that he is not really here! No man stands where he walks. I sense nothing. It is shocking. It is sensational in that it is the very antithesis of sensation. Loath though I am to admit it, it is such a relief! I get nothing from him. Never have I been around anyone that affords me such blissful emotional silence.

  He takes both my hands in greeting and leans in to kiss my cheek. I turn my face, press my lips to his ear and say softly, “You can’t have it. Whatever it is, you’re not taking it. The answer is no. ”

  His breath is warm on my ear. “I have come for something of which you’d like to be quit. ”

  I wonder if he always speaks in the manner he is spoken to. The devil is the master of assimilation. It is how he gains entry: he makes himself appear a friend.

  “Again, no. ” I think perhaps we have something to trade. Perhaps I will give him whatever it is he wants for moving the IFP. But best to deny from the onset.

  He slides his hands up my arms to my elbows and cups them lightly, drawing us closer. “We could barter. ”

  Does he read thoughts or merely expressions so well? “Give me my Sean back,” I whisper. The stubble on his cheek abrades my skin.

  “Your beloved Sean has been free to leave for weeks,” he murmurs against my ear.

  I mask a tiny jerk and swallow a cry of protest. I do not know whether he speaks the truth. If it is a lie, it is a bitter and hurtful one.

  “It is not a lie. ” He lets his hands fall from my arms and steps back. I am colder where he was touching me.

  I see Dani exiting one of the buses. The clouds part on my troubled heart and I am suddenly buoyant. Her fiery hair is a halo of sunshine around her glowing, delicate, eternally battered face. Her smile of greeting is infectious. How I have missed her!

  I open my arms, knowing she will never run into them as I wish. Knowing any hug I steal from the child will be just that—stolen. Beneath her hardy, bruised exterior shines pure gold. She is filled with light as no one I have encountered before. It makes me both harder and gentler on her. Though she is cross and grumpy and irritable as any teen, there is not one ounce of ill will in her and she has had reason to feel it. Indeed, reasons enough to fill a book, but she radiates only excitement and happiness to be alive. I realize Ryodan is watching me watch her, intently. I wonder again if he can pick up my thoughts, and if so, how clearly?

  “Why have you come?” I demand.

  Dani skids to a stop on the ice in front of me and blurts in a rush of breath, “Hey, Kat, what’s up? Long time, no see, huh? Everything okay out here? You got enough to eat and stuff? Sorry I haven’t been around to check on things but I got stuck in Faery. Dude! You’re never going to believe all the stuff that’s been happening! Brrr, it’s cold out here! Oh, and we think we know how to stop the Unseelie responsible for turning our world into an arctic zone! Hey, I’m freezing, you going to let us in?”

  We are again in the common room watching out the window as the most peculiar confederacy I have ever seen collaborate upon a shared goal prepares to destroy us.

  I cannot see it any other way. They are wrong. It won’t work. It’s far too dangerous.

  Five men who do not exist, one violent, immensely powerful, sex-obsessed Unseelie prince who believes himself in love with Dani, an exceedingly radiant and happy Jo, and a young, good-looking boy with glasses for whom Dani is the sun, moon, and stars and reminds me of my Sean but harbors secrets so dark and deep that even my gifts cannot reach them, work together to unload equipment from the buses and carry it across mounds of snow and ice to the chosen location.

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  While Dani told me their plan to trap the Hoar Frost King with the IFP, Ryodan remained silent, and with good reason. He knew each of my objections and that there was no valid rebuttal for any of them. At the end, when permission should have been given or withheld by me—and it most certainly would have been withheld—he informed me that if I failed to cooperate in any way, he would destroy the abbey and continue with his plan.

  “You’re going to destroy it anyway,” I said.

  “No we’re not. It’s going to work, Kat!” Dani exclaimed.

  “You don’t know that. You don’t even know if the Hoar Frost King can be killed. ”

  Ryodan’s gaze reflected the same odds of success I perceive. He said simply, “How much longer do you think you and your charges will survive if this snow continues. ”

  He has the most jarring way of never punctuating his questions.

  They plan to f
ree a monster.

  I said, “Assuming it works and the Hoar Frost King is destroyed, how do you plan to tether the IFP again?”

  Even Dani had the good grace to look away.

  I cannot read Ryodan. I will never be able to. But I can read the rest of them.

  Deep down, they do not believe they can.

  THIRTY-NINE

  “Crystal world with winter flowers turn my day to frozen hours”

  I ain’t never been to a heavy metal concert though I seen some on TV. Dancer’s been to all kinds of shows. Growing up in a cage had serious disadvantages. By the time I got out, there were so many things I wanted to do that I couldn’t get to them all. Now all the good bands are dead, and tonight is probably as close as I’m going to ever get. The violet lights flickering in the sky are perfect for a rock concert, like having our own laser show! I seen some on TV and they were über-cool.

  It’s crazy how many speakers and cables and stuff Dancer and me picked up. We might have gotten a little carried away. But the music store we looted was untouched and crammed full of equipment, with no windows broken, and a full cash register. I guess in times of war nobody’s thinking, Gee, I want to go steal a stereo. In the end we filled both buses, figuring the louder the better.

  We set up the sound stage close to the abbey, between the wall and the IFP.

  It’s freaky working close to it, knowing if anybody jostles you into it, you’re instantly dead. Creeps me all kinds of out but I got a job to do hooking up speakers while Dancer gets everything else up and running. The long, wide, scorched black trail behind it is a constant reminder that it would char me to cinders if I so much as touched it. Although the IFP emits no actual heat, no snow accumulates on the barren soil, as if where it passed it has left the earth antithetical to cold.

  The faceted funnel is taller than the abbey, at least a hundred feet wide at the top, and tapers to forty or so at the base—more than big enough to swallow one Hoar Frost King. The earth beneath it is baked to a slick, shiny black finish, though the fire-world fragment doesn’t throw off heat. A ribbon of glowing wards twist around the base, securely tethered to a black loop on a black box etched with symbols about twenty feet away. I skirt the IFP, eyeing the black box suspiciously, thinking how the feck is that tiny thing that is roughly the size of a Rubik’s cube keeping an IFP from drifting? It can’t weigh more than half a pound. I kick it gently to see how far it moves and just about break my toe! I can’t resist trying to pick it up.

  I can’t even budge it on the snow!

  “What? You got some kind of ultradense metal I ain’t never heard of?” I say grumpily, but if he hears me he doesn’t respond. How does Ryodan always have the coolest stuff? Where the heck does he get it?

  I look back up at the funnel. It’s eerily beautiful, crystalline planes and angles reflecting the dazzling purples of the aurora borealis. I will a silent thought to the universe: Let this work. We’ve all had a tough gig lately. Let there be no casualties tonight.

  Kat’s outside again, watching us. Ryodan told her she has to move the sidhe-seers out into the snow once we begin. It almost made her nuts! She took it as the equivalent of him saying the abbey was an accepted casualty, but I know him. He wasn’t saying that. He just takes the possibles into consideration and knows that trying to move nearly three hundred women in the middle of a crisis is a nightmare. I’ve tried to move them during times of peace and quiet and had the luck of a broken mirror nailed beneath an upside-down horseshoe with a ladder nearby that a black cat just walked under. Like sheep, sidhe-seers herd by nature, until you want them to go somewhere. Then they’re all fluffy bottoms and broken legs.

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  Since we’re just about to start, I guess they’re all inside bundling up. Freeze-framing the equipment into place is the only thing keeping me from shivering. Well, that and nervousness about overshooting my mark and ending up a crispy critter might be heating me up, too. Some of Ryodan’s dudes are getting fires going, and a few sidhe-seers begin to straggle out and gather around.

  I look at Kat walking toward me from the abbey. She looks so slight with her hair blowing back from her face and her body like a reed that could be too easily broken. I worry about Kat. I know she didn’t want to run the abbey but everybody insisted. Kat exudes something peaceful and strong that makes you feel at ease even when you probably shouldn’t. She says faith is a rock and as long as you have your feet planted firmly on it you can’t falter.

  “Dani. ”

  “Hey, Kat. ”

  “It’s too close to the abbey. Set it up closer to the IFP. ”

  “Can’t. When the Hoar Frost King comes, if the IFP is too close to the speakers, the funnel could get iced before we can cut the tether and use it. ”

  “If it’s not closer, the Hoar Frost King could appear, ice, and vanish before the IFP even gets to it. ”

  I don’t say nothing. I already took that into consideration when Dancer and me did our time calculations.

  “Do you really believe this has any chance of working?”

  I plug two speakers into a generator and begin piggybacking the connections. “Which part of it?”

  “Any. ”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure we’re going to end up drawing it here. I don’t know the exact sound it’ll come for, but we’ll make it eventually. By the time Dancer’s done, the music is going to vie with arena-rock for sheer decibels. We shut everything down in and around the city and Dancer dropped the signal to our decoys once we got here. If sound is the Hoar Frost King’s Scooby-snacks—and I’m not wrong about this—it’s going to be starving and we’re leaving it only one source of food. I give attracting it ninety-nine percent odds. ”

  “And destroying it?”

  I ponder that. I been pondering that all the way out. “I hear the IFP incinerated everything in its path, even boulders and concrete buildings and stuff, right?”

  She nods.

  “The IFP is part of Faery so it’s not like we’re trying to incinerate a Fae monster with human fire. We’re trying to burn it in fire from its own world. I think that increases the odds substantially. ”

  “But who says fire will win over ice? You said it’s not even made of ice. What if it’s made of something fire has no effect on? What if you summon the Hoar Frost King here and it ices the IFP?”

  I been trying not to consider that possibility. “Then we’re all in a world of shit and probably dead, Kat. ”

  She gives me a look.

  I flash her a gamine grin. “But then at least we got rid of the IFP!”

  She gives me another look.

  I spread my hands, palms up. “What do you want me to say? I’m not going to lie to you. You’re like Christian. You know anyway. ”

  “You do realize it will require impeccable timing. You have to draw it to a precise location, cut the tether holding the IFP, and hope the Ice Monster gets trapped in the few seconds it’s in our dimension. And whoever cuts that tether might get iced. ”

  “Dude, a few secs are all we need! Most of us can freeze-frame and Christian can sift. We’re darned fast! We’re setting up practically on top of the IFP. The instant the Hoar Frost King appears, we cut the tether, and both sound stage and Ice Monster get swallowed. ”

  Her gaze spans the fifteen yards between the sound stage and the perimeter wall of what used to be Ro’s chambers but are now hers. “And so does the abbey. ”

  “We’re going to retether it before that happens!”

  “Again, that’s going to require impeccable timing. ”

  “Again, dude, we all freeze-frame. ’Sides, I heard the IFP wasn’t moving all that fast. Ryodan says as long as he’s got thirty seconds and gets it done before it enters the abbey, it’s a no-brainer. ”

  “And if it reaches the abbey?”

  “It won’t. ”

  “If it does?” she presses.

  “Lo
ok, we got at least a minute before it hits the abbey wall. We ain’t going to let it take the abbey. ” I’m not about to tell her that Ryodan said if it entered the abbey he’d be unable to ward it off until it came out the other side. Something about a containment spell only working if you completely enclose on all four sides the object you want contained.

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  “One minute,” Kat says quietly. “Do you realize if it destroys this place, we will lose everything our order has spent millennia gathering? All our books and sacred objects, our history, our home. Do you see the grass and flowers growing up against the wall? Do you realize if the IFP breaches the abbey, it may very well melt Cruce’s prison and set him free? The Sinsar Dubh will be loose in our world, walking around in the body of an Unseelie prince!”

  “Look, Kat, I ain’t saying it’s a perfect plan. But if you don’t have any better ideas, get out of the way and let us do our job. ” I look around at the swells of snow, the iced trees, the piles of crusted drifts. “How much longer do you think we’ll survive like this?”

  She sighs and says, “That’s the only reason I haven’t stopped you. ”

  “You haven’t stopped us because you can’t!” I say heatedly. “You’re just one person and we’re all superheroes!”

  “I won’t let it take my abbey, Dani. I won’t let these women be ripped from the only home they’ve ever known. Like you, I’m willing to risk a great deal for those things in which I believe. ”

  I watch her as she walks away and think she’s starting to worry me a little.

  It’s nearly eight when our concert begins. We laid out sheets of plywood on the snow to hold the audio equipment and made a second platform a short distance away for the generators we’re using to power it all, then a third platform for the music source and so our tushes don’t get cold. We put that one far enough away that we don’t get iced when it shows up. We build a couple fires and stack wood nearby. My hair and clothes smell like outdoors and wood smoke, and for a sec it makes me feel like I’m on a family vacation or something. All these folks, including six that are fast enough—and I still don’t get to have a decent snowball fight!

  Me and Ryodan, Christian, and Jo gather on the platform, ready to dart in and cut the tether when it comes.