Page 16 of The Midnight Blizzard
“Yes. Let me in!” There was a slight pause, and he added, “Please. If you’re decent.”
“Why wouldn’t I be decent?” I asked with a laugh, rubbing my eyes and tugging the door open. Jack stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind him.
“I don’t know; I don’t have any sisters. How should I know how girls dress when they sleep?”
“Oh, you were thinking about what I was wearing?” I teased, almost lifting my hand to brush snow from Jack’s hair before I stopped myself. It was too easy to be casual with him; it already felt like we’d known each other for years. Jack twisted his gloves, and his eyes darted around the room. By holly, I’d said something to make him uncomfortable again. It was too difficult to refrain from flirting with him. Should I apologize again? Act as though it wasn’t the flirting that it had been?
He shoved something at me—a napkin folded around a breakfast pastry, which had gone cold in the time it took Jack to bring it to me from the dining hall. “I brought you something to eat,” he said, politely ignoring the moment of discomfort. “And I was going to take you to get Kodiak if you’d like to go.”
“Yes,” I agreed quickly, eager to move the conversation in a direction that didn’t involve me making advances thatwould get Jack into serious trouble. I scarfed down the pastry, pulled on my cloak, and followed Jack to the dog barn, where his team was still hooked up to the sled. “Your team just ran; won’t they be tired?”
“Do they look tired to you?” All of his dogs were jumping up and down, howling in excitement as Jack detangled their harnesses. “They always want to run.”
Within five minutes, Jack and I swept out of the barn. I tried to burrow my hands into the folds of the lap blanket, but it didn’t do much to ward off the cold that stung my eyes and fingers. Even with my cloak wrapped around me, I found it progressively difficult to talk as my shivering increased. It wasn’t until I was shaking all over that Jack noticed.
“Noelle! I’m so sorry; you’re cold.”
“You c-c-can’t control th-the weather,” I stammered, teeth chattering.
“Here.” After shifting the lead line to his left hand, Jack raised his right and bit on the middle finger of his glove, pulling it off his own hand then passing it to me. He did the same thing with his left, never taking his eyes off the road, but managing to strip off both of his gloves.
My fingers slowly closed around them. “W-w-won’t your fingers get c-c-cold?”
As a response, Jack conjured a small flurry of snow in his palm, swirling it around in the air and watching as it was blown away on the wind. “I don’t get cold. One of the many benefits of being a mage whose powers circulate around being able to control ice.” He let the snow float away on the breeze, then pulled his woolen cap off and attempted to one-handedly plunk it onto my head without looking at me.
“But you wear fur coats and woolen caps!”
“I already get stared at and accused enough for just being a mage. I’m not keen on encouraging whispers about me. If mages want to continue to have privileges, we need to blend in.”
“Rights.”
“Excuse me?”
“Rights, not privileges. Mage rights are human rights, and you are just as entitled to them as anyone else.”
Jack grinned at me, glancing away from the road for the briefest second before his eyes snapped back. “You have no idea how good it is to have found someone who I can trust to always be on my side. Whoa!” Jack pulled on the reins to slow us down. The town’s street was fairly empty; it was too cold for anyone to linger outdoors long.
There were already fresh footprints in the snow leading up to Beryl’s door. While Jack staked the team, I looked into the large window of the dress shop next door to Beryl’s. A light-blue gown with ruffles down one side stood displayed in the window, complete with a white fur wrap. If only I had access to any funds at all, I would have bought a dress just like that. I refused to allow myself to think about what Jack would think or say if I wore something like that. It wasn’t fair to let my mind wander in that direction.
“Ready?” Jack said, sparing a single glance at the gown in the window before he nodded at Beryl’s shop. “It sounds as though we may need to rescue Beryl.”
I tore my gaze away and turned to Beryl’s shop, where raised voices could be heard from inside, though the exact words weren’t clear. When we entered, we discovered a large, beefy woman wrapped in multiple layers of furs standing nose to nose with Beryl, shouting about how a cream he’d given her for wart removal had stained her skin green.
“It’s only temporary,” Beryl was trying to explain. “Once it fades?—”
“You expect me to wait forthisto fade?” she shouted, snatching at her skirts and hoisting it to expose her trunk-like leg. Her knee had indeed been stained a deep green in all the spots where warts still showed, little raised bumps that coupled with the emerald color to make it look as though she were slowly turning into a frog.
“It will fade in a few days,” Beryl insisted. “I promise. I wouldn’t prescribe anything that would turn you permanently green, and I did tell you it might before you began treatment.”
The woman, with her skirt still yanked up above her knee, took notice of Jack and me standing quietly in the room. “Agh, a mage!” she shrieked, dropping her skirts and flapping one of her fur wraps at Jack as though he were a troublesome fly. “Stay back!”
Jack sighed and though his neck tightened, he didn’t move a muscle, even though the woman continued to wave her arms about. Wasn’t he even going to defend himself?
“He isn’t doing anything,” I protested, drawing myselfup to my full height and squaring my shoulders.
“He’s come to sneak a peek at a woman’s legs, no doubt!” the woman accused, glaring daggers at Jack, who remained so still he could have been an ice statue. His piercing blue eyes seemed to look right through her as his face became a model of cold passivity. “Why else would he be here?”
I placed my fists on my hips, feet splayed as I wished I were taller. “He’s here at my request,” I spat.
