Chapter XXXVI. Ellery
XXXVI
ELLERY
WINTER
The first day of Summer was Alderland’s most joyous holiday.
From the moment dawn broke, snow melted, and the entire country bloomed in instantaneous awakening.
Fresh leaves budded on barren trees. Flower petals drifted through the countryside like confetti, perfuming the breeze.
And in the Gallamere Gardens, an enormous picnic heralded a weeklong jubilee.
But this year, tension permeated the crowd. Although the band onstage doggedly played the national anthem, no one clapped or sang along. Vendors fruitlessly hawked balloons and hot dogs. People shivered in the dim glow of the lampposts.
Gallamere’s leaders sat on risers behind the band, Summer frocks readied beneath their thick coats. Ellery sat among them, trapped in an outfit that didn’t suit her in a color she didn’t like. She tugged anxiously at her necklace.
Ellery glanced at Glynn amidst the rest of the Council across the stage. When she, Domenic, and Hanna had returned from Nordmere, they’d told the Councilors about Winter territory and its magicians, omitting Ellery’s theft of the winterghast hearts. Only Glynn knew otherwise.
You’re on the precipice of a breakthrough, Ellery, Glynn had promised her. But the rest of the Council will be more amenable to the notion of Winter wands after Summer comes. Just be patient for one more week. Everything will feel better then.
As much as she wanted to trust Glynn, he’d lied to her about the deaths of every previous Chosen One.
And so had the rest of the Council. She hadn’t told any of them she knew; she didn’t want platitudes and excuses.
Especially when their scrutiny had only grown after the failed mission North.
Even now, they glanced at her as though she might spontaneously morph into a winterghast in heels and a designer dress.
They will never change their minds, Ellery repeated. The Order will use me, because they need me. But they’ll hate me all the same.
No. Not all of them.
Domenic sat beside her, the heat of his magic a distracting press against her neck. He wore the garb of Summer’s Chosen: a crisp collared shirt with a jaunty green vest. He fiddled with a clump of dandelions, mangling their stems. He did not look at her.
What I’m really fighting for—what I’ve always been fighting for—is this, he’d told her. You and me.
Such a future had always been impossible.
Even if they saved Alderland together, they were still doomed to die.
But it would be an even worse fate to betray him, and despite all her doubts, she could never do so without proof.
Maybe once Summer came, with the winterghasts gone and the country safe for another year, they could finally find the traitor.
Maybe the next piece of the prophecy would put their paranoia to rest.
Even the best she could hope for was still a tragedy.
The first rays of light reached above the horizon like outstretched fingers rising from a grave. The sun crested above the Gardens, and the national anthem crescendoed along with it. People clasped their hands together, waiting, wishing.
Ellery held her breath. Domenic clamped the flowers in his fist.
Seconds ticked by, then dragged. But the barren trees didn’t bud.
The snowy meadow didn’t melt.
The band cut off, horns and woodwinds wailing in a final, frantic cry before falling silent.
And Ellery knew.
It was unprecedented. It was unfathomable. But Summer wasn’t coming.
Murmurs rose in an anthem of their own. People called out questions, some pulling each other close, some breaking away from the crowd.
Children began to cry, their families too aghast to soothe them.
For once, even the reporters didn’t lift their cameras.
Instead they stared at the gray sky, the frozen ground, the lifeless foliage.
Then, as one, their stares swiveled to Ellery.
She felt the collective force of their fear, a crushing, foreboding pressure. Instinctively, her defense mechanism kicked in. She reached for Iskarius. And she reached for Domenic.
As their hands brushed, they met each other’s gazes.
He’d never been good at concealing his feelings. Especially not from her. And she knew what lurked in the quiver of his lips, in the haunted depths of his eyes.
Defeat.
Her heart shattered, and yet Ellery endured, as she always did.
She cloaked herself, and she fled.