Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
As a group, we raced out of the bowels of the castle and propelled ourselves up the staircase.
In the dungeon, we were sitting ducks, trapped and easy pickings for the cruel villain who sought us.
We had to reach the main level and, with any luck, find a back way out of the castle before the Ice Queen could track us down.
My stomach churned with anxiety as the walls around us grew slick with frost, and the air cooled quickly enough that I could see my breath escaping in white clouds.
“No, no, no, no, no,” Erik said. “She can’t catch me again. I won’t let her.”
I wondered how she could have found us. She could have tracked the portal energy, I supposed.
Freya had used a portal on her pets, after all.
With a sample of energy, tracking another portal to this location would have been easy enough.
In fact, my parents had created such a potion.
I frowned. And knowing my luck, maybe I had once supplied the Ice Queen’s minions with the very ingredients necessary to get the jump on us.
We sprinted past room after room, wondering where another exit could be.
Would the Ember King even have another exit?
I eyed the holes in the walls, like the one that Freya and I had slipped through previously.
Now that the lava was no longer a threat, that might be our best bet to escape.
I was about to say so when we were stopped in our tracks by a guttural roar.
Ahead, the doorway we’d been running toward was suddenly filled by a creature covered in a coat of white fur, its bulky frame bending to fit through the opening.
It had two short blue horns protruding from the top of its head and a pale face to match its fur, the face of a monster, with red eyes and a large mouth full of teeth.
Its arms ended with deadly-looking blue claws.
I eyed Freya’s axe, wondering if it would be able to work magic twice.
A tinkling laugh behind us was almost worse than the roar of the beast. It sounded like icicles clinking together, or ice cubes slipping into a glass. And it was accompanied by a blanket of cold air that rolled over us like fog, freezing my breath and chilling me to the bone.
I turned to face the Ice Queen and was rather impressed by her gorgeous figure.
She was tall and beautiful, with hair as white as snow, matching a sleeveless, form-fitting dress that brushed the floor with each step she took.
Her skin was also white but was tinged blue, as if she’d been out in the cold.
Imagine that. Her lips were just as frosty, and her eyes were a cold and unfeeling deep blue.
“Don’t mind the yeti,” she said, smiling at us.
“He doesn’t have very good manners. But then again, neither do you, trying to slip away without even a greeting.
” She clucked her tongue. “And after stealing my property at that.” Her eyes sought out Erik.
“There you are, my beautiful boy. I was terribly devastated that you would run away. Again. I may have to actually punish you this time.”
“We saw how you punish people,” Freya said. “I bet the Council of Witches will have something to say about it.”
Tinkling laughter again. The Ice Queen had a very calm air about her.
It was disconcerting, like she didn’t expect we would be able to fight her at all.
“Oh, the Council of Witches. Those obsolete hags couldn’t find their way out of a cauldron.
And anyway, what happens in my domain is my business.
They have no authority there. Here, however …
” She shrugged. “Believe me, what I did in Greenland is nothing compared to what I’m going to do to you for taking my witch away from me.
” Her features hardened. “Don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be. ”
I eyed the yeti looming in one doorway, and the Ice Queen in the other. We wouldn’t be able to get past either of them easily. “It’s a short drop to the moat, friends.”
Freya stiffened beside me. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”
“Now!”
The yeti charged us, letting out another roar, but I hardly paid attention to the outburst as I ran for my life toward the windows, yanking Auggie after me.
“Stop them!” the Ice Queen ordered.
The ground was growing slippery beneath my feet as ice grew thick across the floor, but I was nearly to the windows. As soon as I reached them, I gazed down. Thankfully, it really was a short drop.
“You first,” I ordered Auggie. He looked wary as he inched out the window, looking down at the frozen moat below. “Don’t think about it. Just jump.”
Auggie leapt, emitting a small cry as he fell through the air. When he landed safely on the ice below, I let out a breath.
I looked back over my shoulder to see where the others were.
And cursed.
Freya was pulling her axe out from the throat of the yeti, crimson blood spraying over the floor, a stark contrast to its coat of white fur. Erik was skidding wildly in his attempt to hurry in my direction.
Unwilling to leave my companions without seeing them to safety, I hesitated at the window.
My feet slid under me when I attempted to take a step.
I gritted my teeth and launched myself from the window, only to land on the floor with the wind knocked out of me.
I wheezed as I reached out for the wall to help myself up.
Freya pushed Erik ahead of her, and slipped on the floor herself, spinning in place for a moment before standing on shaky legs and continuing after him.
Erik, meanwhile, could hardly stop himself.
I had to slide out of the way as he sailed past me, to safety.
I watched him hit the ground below on his tailbone before turning back to Freya, who was gaining momentum as well.
“Come on,” I yelled, then I realized that I’d lost track of the Ice Queen. Was she going to be down on the ice waiting for us?
I glanced aside and flinched at the icy smile I found only a few feet away. The Ice Queen’s eyes glittered in the shadows like diamonds as she set her predatory eyes on me. “You look like perfect bait.”
I could hardly get out a warning as Freya hit the wall hard, the ice not allowing her to slow down. The impact threw me off-balance, and I fell half out of the window. I managed to grab hold of Freya’s leg on my way out and tried to pull her out after me, but she seemed to be anchored on something.
Freya screamed and I looked up to see the Ice Queen’s hand wrapped around Freya’s forearm. Steam rose from where she touched Freya’s skin.
“Freya!” I shouted.
The Ice Queen gritted her teeth and grabbed a handful of Freya’s hair in an attempt to pull her back inside the castle. The hair immediately froze on contact and broke away, brittle as glass.
A flash of yellow flame suddenly entered the periphery of my vision.
I tilted my head as Narcissa came to our aid.
To avoid the reach of the flames, the Ice Queen released Freya, and together, she and I fell from the window.
I hit the ice with a smack that startled the air from my lungs, then found Auggie leaning over me, helping me to my feet.
I shivered as I stared at Freya, who clutched her upper right arm with a grimace.
A clear handprint could be seen on her skin, like a bruise.
But the mark was black and the skin looked dead.
“Frostbite,” Erik said, shaking his head. “We have to … before infection sets in …”
“We have to what?” Auggie asked, voice rising. “Cut off her arm?”
“She does have three others,” Narcissa said helpfully, cocking her head. “But she’ll be rather uneven. Maybe she can sew on another dead arm and bring it to life.”
I ignored Narcissa to focus on Freya. I touched her face. “Freya? Can you hear me?”
Her teeth were clenched tight, and her face was pinched with pain, but she nodded. Gods, this was all my fault. I should never have accepted Freya’s help in the first place. I should have left Therese and Narcissa in Lexi’s care. Then it would just be me escorting Auggie, like Lucifer had intended.
“We need to get away from here fast anyway,” Erik noted, looking back up at the castle, looming overhead. “She’s not going to quit that easily.”
I looked at Freya, her pinched face. “You have to get us to Lexi, Freya. Can you do that? Even if it takes everything you have, even if you black out, you need to get us to her. She can heal you as soon as you do that.”
Freya cracked open her eyes. “Damn you, Callum.”
I grabbed her head and forced her to look at me. “You’ll do it,” I told her. “Because you have to.”
Freya grunted, either with pain, or as a form of assent.
Her face pale, she lifted her three good arms into the air, fingertips sparking to life.
She had to compensate for what she would have usually drawn with her fourth arm, doubling back on the runes.
But she did it. As soon as the portal opened before us, I breathed a sigh of relief.
I tossed a mixture of dodo eggshells and sphinx fur at the entrance, to scramble any attempts by magic users to trace us again.
Then we wasted no time stepping through into Lexi’s warm parlor, leaving the Ice Queen, and her terrible powers, behind.