Chapter XXXI. Ellery
XXXI
ELLERY
WINTER
The car lurched down yet another winding, snowy road, barreling heedlessly through the Northern hills. Ellery sat in the backseat, trying not to vomit.
“Woah, slow down,” Domenic croaked, white-knuckling the handle above the passenger door. “There’s a—”
“I see it,” Hanna grunted, swerving at the last possible second to avoid a fallen tree. She was so short, she sat propped on an extra seat, her foot barely touching the brakes.
They were headed to Nordmere to uncover why Maltherius had shown Ellery a vision of her hometown’s alban tree. Ellery, Domenic, and the Council still believed Maltherius had set them up for a trap. But the danger would be worth it if they finally gained a lead on Summer’s traitor.
Because Syarthis was best suited to verify the traitor, Hanna had paused her interrogations of the Order to accompany them. But the Council had contained the mission to the three of them, unsure of who else to trust and unwilling to risk rumors of internal discord leaking to the public.
“We won’t even survive until Nordmere at this rate,” Ellery grumbled. “I can just see the headlines. ALDERLAND’S DISAPPOINTING CHOSEN TWO DIE IN TRAGIC CAR CRASH.”
Domenic choked out a loud, awkward laugh.
Hanna shot him an unreadable look. The two of them had behaved strangely the entire journey, keeping Ellery’s nerves fraying faster than her seat belt.
Before a third of the country had fallen to Winter, the drive from Gallamere to Nordmere would’ve taken twelve hours.
But the ravaged road conditions beyond the border had slowed what could’ve been a single-day trip into two.
Anxiously, surreptitiously, Ellery slid her hands into her pockets, reassuring herself the winterghast hearts were still there.
Ellery had her own plans for this trip. Back in Gallamere, she’d tried touching each heart to its corresponding tree—Maltherius to an aspen, Eledrium to a pine—in an attempt to create a Winter wand.
It hadn’t worked. But she refused to give up.
It stood to reason that she had the best chance to make a Winter wand within Winter territory.
So once they got to Nordmere, she’d slip away and try again.
If her gamble worked, she’d tell Domenic everything.
And if it didn’t … he’d never have to know she’d lied to him at all.
Abruptly, their car skidded across a patch of ice.
Domenic cursed and braced himself in his seat. “Hanna. Hanna—”
“You’re not helping!” Hanna wrestled the steering wheel.
Ellery hastily grasped Iskarius. Ice dissolved across the highway, and the snowbanks lurched backward. She’d only meant to clear the road immediately in front of them, but her magic poured effortlessly through her, until pristine pavement stretched hundreds of feet ahead.
“Thanks,” Hanna muttered.
Ellery inspected Iskarius, bewildered. “You’re welcome.”
At long last, Nordmere came into view. The city was nestled into a valley, bordered by a frozen river on one side and thick forest on the other. Like most cities in the North, it had begun as a mining town, then grown large enough for other industries to take root.
“Huh,” Hanna said. “I thought it’d look worse.”
“Hanna,” Domenic gritted.
“No, it’s fine,” Ellery murmured. “I did, too.”
Although Peak had told them that some Northerners stubbornly remained in the fallen territory, Ellery had assumed year-round Winter would be as bleak as the textbook descriptions of the Thirty Years’ Chill.
Yet flourishing farms circled the city, crops rising through the snow in what could only be regular magical cultivation.
New neighborhoods had sprung up amidst the rubble.
In the city center, they passed entire blocks under active construction.
Although Nordmere was far from the bustling metropolis Ellery remembered, there were still people on the streets, open storefronts, even a park.
It unnerved her more than ruins would have. Ellery had girded herself for the fallen territory to be a wasteland of memories. Not this. Not life.
As twilight fell, the three of them elected to begin their mission after a night’s rest. So they stopped at what seemed to be the only hotel left in town.
Marks gouged the lobby floor from what had likely been a winterghast’s claws.
Hanna and Domenic lingered near the door with their luggage as Ellery marched to the front desk.
The receptionist read a pulpy romance novel propped against an ashtray.
“Welcome to the Nordmere Grand Hotel,” she said, with the throaty rasp of a heavy smoker. “What brings you to town?”
“Oh, we’re just passing through. We’ll need three rooms.”
“Sorry, sweetie. We’re nearly full up. Just one room left.”
Ellery gulped. “We’ll take it.”
The woman rummaged for the key, then leaned forward. “You look awfully familiar. And your accent … Have you got family in town?”
“Sorry, no,” Ellery mumbled.
She returned to find Domenic and Hanna in an intense debate.
“—think I don’t know why you’re here?” Domenic hissed.
“I didn’t want to be here,” Hanna snapped. “I didn’t want any of us here! I was overridden!”
“And yet you volunteered.”
“Oh, would you rather it’d been Sharpe with his nose up your—”
As Domenic spotted Ellery, he jabbed Hanna with his elbow.
“Any luck?” he asked Ellery.
Ellery studied them both. Hanna chewed a wad of bubble gum, seemingly unfazed. Domenic flushed.
“Kind of.” Ellery held up the single room key. “Everything okay?”
“Y-yeah,” Domenic said. He was a terrible liar. “Are you okay? You know, um, being back here?”
“I’ll live,” she said flatly. Somehow, this made him flush fiercer.
The trio hauled their luggage up several dilapidated flights to their room. The fixtures were outdated. The bathroom had seen better days. But it wasn’t the yellowed wallpaper and moth-eaten carpet that set Ellery’s heartbeat ratcheting. It was the bed, singular.
She and Domenic glanced at each other, then looked hastily away.
“So, I don’t care who’s cozying up next to me, but I’m sleeping on that bed,” Hanna announced. Then she flopped unceremoniously onto the drab comforter.
Ellery perched primly on the other side of the mattress. “Don’t hog the covers.”
Domenic heaved out a dramatic huff before setting down his suitcase. “Great. Fine. Well, I’m calling first dibs on the shower.”
As he stalked into the bathroom and closed the door, Hanna rolled over, then propped her head on her hand. She still wore her slushy boots.
“So,” Hanna drawled. “Any bets on what kind of trap’s waiting for us up here?”
Ellery removed her boots in the hopes that Hanna would follow suit (she didn’t), then crawled onto the covers and leaned against the headboard.
The mattress creaked in protest. “Kythion ambushing us, probably.” As terrifying as that notion was, at least they’d get a chance to slay the last remaining monster of the Dire Three.
“Sorry. I’m sure you’re thrilled at the prospect of fighting a building-sized winterghast.”
“Psh, compared to spending every day learning way more about random Order magicians than I ever wanted to know, this is practically my vacation.”
Ellery knew Hanna had yet to uncover evidence of Summer’s traitor, but she’d never spared much thought for what else she might have uncovered.
The enormity of sifting through so many minds, so many memories, was a tremendous burden.
Perhaps not as great as saving the country, but a burden all the same.
“I guess I’d prefer Kythion to that, too,” she said quietly.
“Don’t worry. At this point, nothing surprises me anymore. I’ve seen it all—every lurid secret, every horrible thought, every humiliation.” Hanna popped in a new piece of gum, then stuck her old one beneath the nightstand. “I mean, have you seen the way Peak looks at Iseul? It’s tragic.”
“Oof.” Ellery tugged a piece of hair around her finger, curious despite herself. “What about the rest of the Council?”
“Glynn devotes way too much mental energy to his pretentious hobbies. And for all Iseul tries to keep things tidy, her mind is so cluttered. She’s always thinking about twelve things at once in two different languages and not one of them is remembering to pay the electric bill.”
“And Sharpe?”
“His mom preferred his older sister and he never got over it.”
Ellery snorted. “So … exactly what I’ve always suspected, then.”
Hanna burst into a cackling laughter, like a hyena. Then, abruptly, she sobered. “This how you always pictured your great homecoming?”
Ellery blinked, surprised at the topic change. “If I had my way, I’d have never come back.”
Hanna cocked a brow. “Oh?”
“Gallamere’s where I belong.”
“Makes sense. I mean, you basically went right from being the Order’s darling to Alderland’s sweetheart.” Hanna imitated a rising airplane with her hand.
Ellery’s nerves drew taut as she thought of Demelza and the reporters at the Foretold premiere. Hanna knew Ellery most certainly wasn’t Alderland’s sweetheart anymore. “Sure.”
“Until, well, recently. Probably not feeling so glamorous anymore.” She crashed the airplane into her lap. “I’d actually be feeling pretty damn bitter, if it were me.”
Hanna watched Ellery so carefully. Too carefully. Like even though Syarthis couldn’t breach Ellery’s mind, Hanna still wanted to glimpse what she was thinking.
Ellery replayed the conversation she’d overheard between Domenic and Hanna in the lobby, the strangeness of the car ride, Domenic’s insistence in Glynn’s office that he was only trying to protect her.
And it all clicked, so obvious and yet so terrible that of course she hadn’t seen it until now.
The Council’s priority was finding Summer’s traitor and fulfilling the most recent piece of the prophecy.
Hanna never would’ve deviated from that just to chase down a half-baked chance at a lead.
Which meant they thought Ellery was the traitor. And Domenic hadn’t told her.