Theron’s hand envelops mine, jerking me out of my sudden epiphany. I jump, panic lancing through me before I can calm myself.
Just like that, just that easily, my magic gushes up through me, ice running in a jagged flow through my veins, crashing around my body in a frenzied assault of snow and chill. I rip free of Theron’s touch, slamming back into the corner of the carriage, blind to anything but the unexpected influx of magic. I’m not threatened or scared or anxious—why is it reacting like this?
I gasp, unable to breathe past the knot of frost in my throat, and when I blink, I’m on the floor of the carriage in Garrigan’s arms.
“My queen!” he says, and I don’t know how long he’s been calling to me.
The carriage door flies open. The servant teeters justoutside, his dark eyes sweeping over me before he levels a gaze at me again—but instead of studious, it’s sad. Sympathetic.
Poor, broken Winter queen,the look says.
No one counters him—if anything, Theron, Ceridwen, Conall, and Garrigan echo him.
Coldness roils in my chest and spreads down my hands, turning every muscle into crystalized ice. I shove out of Garrigan’s arms, the magic thrumming and eager to rush out of me, to pour into him and Conall, to use them because that’s all it does. Hurt and control and destroy, and I scramble back from them, pressing myself against the cushioned carriage seat.
“Go!” I shout. Maybe if they get far enough away, maybe if there aren’t any Winterians close to me, the magic will just dissipate into nothing, and I won’t hurt anyone. Or maybe I’ll call down a blizzard in Yakim and it won’t just be the Summerian princess who sees my magic’s flaw—it will be a university full of Rhythm citizens.
My lungs burn but I hold my breath, refusing to give myself energy until I calm down. What would Hannah say if she were here? No, I don’t want her here—I don’t want her.She’s part of the magic, and I am so tired of magic. I don’t need her.
Calm down, calm,please be calm—
The icy chill rushes down my limbs and leaps from my fingers, barreling out of me before I can control it, beforeI can stop it. My ribs crack open, a bolt of lightning gouging through my flesh, incinerating my muscles, cutting my heart into two pieces as my eyes meet Garrigan’s, Conall’s.
But none of it compares to the sheer horror of watching what I do to them. Not just putting strength in them like I did with Sir—the command I screamed at them,Go!, reverberates through me. It gathers the magic and spews out of me on a surge of frost, ice crystals that slam into their bodies—
And fling them from the carriage.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
Mather
THE CHILL WINDbit across Mather’s face, fighting the sweat that beaded along his brow. He stood only one story in the air, but the wind snaked between the other half-repaired cottages, causing snowflakes to stick to his exposed chest, ice and cold melting into exertion and heat. The gust teetered him forward on the skeleton of this cottage’s roof, and he used the movement to test the sturdiness of the boards he’d just finished nailing into place. They groaned but held.
“I’m not going to catch you.” Phil slanted an amused eye up to him, his fingers fast at work salvaging old nails from rotted planks of wood on the cottage’s floor.
“Your concern is moving, but I’m not going to fall,” Mather panted. To prove his point, he stood straight up, balancing on the joist that made the base for thetriangle-framed rafter.
Phil snorted. “Show-off.”
Mather grinned, holding himself steady on the ridge board, the single long plank of wood that ran the full length of the roof, or what would eventually be the roof. From here, he could see the entirety of the square—a dozen other skeleton roofs and unfinished buildings crawling with Winterians performing the same tasks as he and Phil.
Mather’s attention pivoted to the northeastern part of the city. The Thaw’s cottage was still at least three sections away from being the focus of the repairs. They had another couple of months before they had to seriously consider moving elsewhere, or at the very least packing up their training gear until the builders passed them over.
They had been lucky so far. Lucky that few people went to the outskirts of Jannuari’s inhabited section; lucky that as long as Mather and the rest of the Thaw occasionally helped with the repairs, no one noticed them missing on other days; lucky it had only been little more than a couple of weeks since they’d started their secret training so they hadn’t yet needed real weapons beyond the few flimsy knives Mather had managed to steal.
A group of Cordellan soldiers circled the square, lapping the area as they had been doing all day. Mather glared at them, knowing his glare would go unnoticed but feeling better when he threw it. From the soldiers’ hips hung onesword and two daggers each, perfectly sharpened weapons that dangled unused and taunting. Even the wooden swords the Winterian army had used before Noam’s ban had been borrowed from Cordell. Would the Cordellans notice if a few of their swords went missing from their weapons tent? Probably.
Mather glowered as the soldiers marched toward this cottage, taking in the surrounding Winterians with a possessive air that felt like a dull blade running up Mather’s spine.
Thwack.
Mather dropped his eyes to the cottage next door, the one Hollis, Trace, and Feige had been assigned to. Their roof was nothing but half a dozen joists running parallel to the floor, leaving the entirety of the one-story cottage open for Mather to gaze down into.
And when he did, alarm spiraled through him so strongly that he wobbled on the roof until his fingers caught the ridge board again.
