Chapter 8
ísarr
I stomped back into the cabin, snow still clinging to my boots, shoulders tight enough to snap.
The shutters were open now, daylight spilling in—pale and thin—across the wooden floorboards.
It revealed what both Bianca and I already knew: the storm was over, and she was free to go.
I wished I hadn’t looked outside, hadn’t seen what was waiting there in the snowdrifts beyond my porch.
It had all looked clear, safe. The front yard, at least, and so had everything around my atelier.
The deer had been caught on the far side of the cabin, just visible from my kitchen window.
Perhaps it had thought to shelter from the storm beneath the shrubs and the dense pines there.
It hadn’t counted on me. Caught in perfect, crystalline ice, forever frozen in mid-step.
Its eyes wide, its final breath captured, heart no longer pounding.
Horrible and beautiful at the same time; I hated it.
Another innocent thing, stilled by my storm—by me.
I yanked the door shut harder than necessary, sealing the light away.
My chest ached with the knowledge that I’d killed again without meaning to.
And still—still—Bianca stood in the center of my cabin, her coat open and her posture relaxed, bright eyes turned toward me as if I weren’t a monster. As if I were worth trusting.
It was unbearable.
I froze inside the way I always did when feelings rose too sharp, staring instead of speaking, clamping my jaw shut before I said something I couldn’t take back.
She was so tempting it hurt to look, hair loose around her shoulders, cheeks flushed with warmth from my fire.
My fire that would never be enough to counter the cold in me.
She tilted her head, studying me as if she could see straight through my silence. Then she drawled, slow and sweet, “I need to make a call.”
The words should have been nothing, but somehow, they loosened something locked inside my chest. Heat rose beneath my skin, crawling up my throat.
My face felt hot. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d blushed—maybe never.
Ice dragons didn’t blush, did they? I turned away too quickly, pretending to busy myself, but the shame of it lingered.
When she held out her dead phone, I took it without a word.
Our fingers brushed, and a spark I tried to ignore shot straight down to my gut—and lower.
I plugged the thing into the charger by the kitchen counter, careful not to breathe too deeply, careful not to drown in the scent of her so close behind me.
She was beginning to smell like me now: there was her scent of flowers, something soft I couldn’t name, and my pine and ice, my smoke and wood.
It wasn’t good how much I liked that. I needed her gone.
Grabbing my own phone, I dialed Jackson, desperation scraping my throat raw.
The sheriff always answered. Always. With the snowstorm over several hours ago, he had to have had plenty of time to check the roads and other residents.
He wouldn’t check on me, obviously, the storm was my element.
This time, the call rang until the line went dead.
I frowned at my screen in confusion, wondering if I’d done it wrong, hit redial, but got the same silence.
That was strange—wrong, even. Why would the sheriff be out of reach? People might need him! I needed his help pretty badly right now. Grinding my teeth, I punched in Drew’s number next. Surely, if the sheriff was busy, the deputy would answer? But there was nothing there either. What was going on?
My fingers were stiff on the phone, pressing too hard.
Fine, Grandma Liz would answer, she couldn’t possibly be busy too, right?
As mayor, that wasn’t strictly true. If there was a crisis in the Hollow that needed the full attention of both lawmen, she might be involved too.
I didn’t want to give up hope, though—I needed someone to solve my problem.
It felt really rough when Bianca was staring at me with those big blue eyes, as if she could see right through me.
Liz’s voice came through—brisk, businesslike, and a little distracted—but I didn’t want to register that. Relief flickered through me until I tried to get words in. “Liz, I—” I began, but she interrupted me with that same distracted tone that had been in her greeting.
“ísarr, things are busy. I’ll pick up your work later,” she said.
In the background of the call, I could hear the jangle and clatter of her many bracelets as she moved her arm.
Across from me on the other side of the counter, Bianca was deadly quiet, still staring, listening to the mounting panic in my tone.
“No, wait, I need—” I tried again, but it was already too late; the line clicked and went dead.
I lowered the phone, staring at it like it had betrayed me.
Everyone always answered, because nothing ever happened around here.
They always answered—but now? Silence. Brushed off.
Hung up on. I knew it wasn’t a slight to me; it meant they had problems, and if it were safe for me to leave my home to help, I’d already be racing down my hill. It wasn’t, though. I could do nothing.
My hand curled around the phone until it creaked.
The cabin was too warm, too small, too filled with the sound of her breathing.
The deer outside, frozen forever, was proof enough.
She wasn’t safe here, but knowing the Hollow was in turmoil meant that the only thing I wanted in that moment was to keep her exactly where she was.
She lingered by the counter, her phone still dark and silent between us. Finally, she tilted her head, eyes narrowing just a fraction. “What’s going on?” She was not afraid of me, and now that it was bright inside the cabin, she was not afraid of the shadows from our dreams either.
I ground my teeth, fighting the urge to look anywhere but at her.
I glanced again at the deer I could just see through the window.
My gut twisted with fear. “Everyone in town’s…
unavailable.” The word felt bitter on my tongue.
I didn’t want to resent them for their inability to help when they might be in need themselves, but I felt angry anyway.
“The sheriff, the deputy—even Liz—they’re all busy with something big in town.
No one’s coming. You’re stuck with me a little longer. ”
The dread in my voice was too obvious, even to my own ears.
Her brows lifted in surprise, her voice gentle.
“Is that… a problem?” At least she didn’t sound hurt, that was something.
I didn’t want her to feel like I was rejecting her, silly as that was, but I’d killed last night, and that could have been her.
My gaze betrayed me. It dragged to the window—past her—to the deer in the snow: ice-clear, delicate, frozen in a moment of fear forever. My chest squeezed so tightly, it felt like I was breaking in two. “Yes,” I snapped, before I could stop myself.
She startled, blinking up at me, and I hated the look of shock in her eyes.
Hated that I’d put it there. My throat closed, my words rough as gravel when I forced them out.
“It’s not you. That’s on me. I’m not safe to be around.
” That was as much as I could give her—more than I was willing to admit out loud.
The shame of my failure was too strong, backed by centuries of ridicule from my own kind.
My family had shunned me, kicked me out; I was a laughingstock.
They didn’t even care that my power was deadly, just that I couldn’t control it.
I shoved her phone toward her on the counter.
It buzzed faintly, the screen flickering to life as the charge took hold.
She understood the dismissal, her lips pressing tight, and turned her attention to the phone in her hands.
Her fingers moved quickly as she unlocked it and scrolled to a number to dial.
I could see there were dozens of missed notifications, but she ignored them.
I should’ve walked away when she started the call; given her privacy.
That would have been the decent thing to do.
But she’d listened to my calls. She hadn’t pretended not to hear, that made it fair game, didn’t it?
And gods help me, I wanted to know more.
Like a glutton for punishment, I wanted to know everything about her.
It connected instantly, and a woman’s voice all but burst through—loud, frantic—words tumbling over themselves in relief.
I didn’t have to guess to know who that would be: her mother.
“Mamma, I’m fine,” Bianca rushed to reassure her, her voice warm, soothing.
“No, no, really, I promise. I found shelter—yes, yes, I’m inside, safe. ”
She talked fast, almost too fast, as if she could outpace her mother’s panic.
Her free hand moved as much as her lips did—fluttering, shaping words, cutting the air, as if she could sculpt her meaning with her fingers.
When she laughed, it was breathless—a nervous little trill—and her hands went to her hair, brushing it back before flicking wide again, as if to underline her sentences.
I leaned against the counter, arms crossed tight to keep them still, watching her in the glow of the morning light.
She looked alive in a way I never had, light poured into a body too small to contain it.
I knew, as sure as I knew the cold in my bones, that she’d never be safe with me, and I wanted to keep her anyway.
At first, I only half-listened, letting her voice wash over me while I pretended to busy myself at the counter. Then something shifted in her tone—her warmth cooled, and her laughter stuttered into silence. My head lifted, ears sharpening on the words bleeding through the tiny speaker.
“Mamma, slow down. What do you mean, investigation?” Bianca’s voice was tight now, trembling at the edges.
The other voice—her mother’s—was harder to catch, but clear enough to my sharper hearing.
She was saying things about the police, a massive Search and Rescue operation.
It did not surprise me that rescue teams were already out combing the hills for Bianca, but this wasn’t just about her, it seemed.
The name Kevin dropped several times. I straightened, every nerve awake.
Bianca’s lips parted, her eyes wide, glossing with something that might be tears.
I wanted to hiss in anger that she might be upset about another man, but she had a kind heart, so there was no need for jealousy.
I had no right to that kind of feeling anyway.
“He didn’t…come back?” she whispered, echoing her mother’s words.
A pause, then, sharper: “No, I don’t know where.
..” Her hand pressed to her forehead as she paced in a small circle on my rug. “Yes, I’ll stay put. I promise.”
The call ended abruptly, her shoulders slumping under the silence that followed.
She lowered the phone slowly, as if it had turned into something heavy.
When she finally looked at me, her expression was grim, horrified.
“Kevin’s missing.” The words were brittle, like glass.
“The idiot. He took off on that snowmobile and… he never came back.” I had not been there, but I could vividly picture what it had done to Bianca to see the bastard drive off and abandon her—possibly to certain death—though from the sound of it, that had not been his intention.
She had clearly known this man for some time, though, and she cared about his fate.
Swallowing roughly, her voice rose in pitch.
“We have to—” She bit her tongue, cutting herself short.
Color rose in her cheeks, not from warmth, but embarrassment this time.
“Sorry. That’s… that’s not your problem.
I’ve already imposed too much on you. I’ll wait here until someone can come get me, and then I’ll be out of your hair. ”
Her attempt at a polite smile was worse than any frown: too thin, too sad. In the hollowness of her voice, I heard something else—she didn’t want to go. Not really. My chest lurched, a surge of something hot and wild cracking through the ice in my veins—joy.
That feeling was as ridiculous as it was dangerous, but I couldn’t hide it from myself.
If she had to stay put for now anyway, the least I could do was ease her mind, couldn’t I?
I forced my voice to be steady and low when I said, “We’ll search for him.
” Maybe those manners were starting to come back to me at last. Yeah, okay, I was a danger to her and others, but the storm had passed. I should help while I could.
Her head snapped up, blue eyes wide and startled in her pale face.
Pink began to glow again in her cheeks, this time definitely a blush of pleasure.
Relief, bright and obvious. “After we eat,” I continued, as if the decision were already carved into stone.
“And dress properly. It might look clear now, but it’s still freezing hard out there. ”
Her lips parted, a soft sound of surprise escaping her throat. She blinked, almost disbelieving, then nodded once, small and hesitant. I turned away before she could see how much that tiny nod unraveled me.