Chapter Twenty-Nine An Audience with the Ice Queen
Chapter Twenty-Nine
An Audience with the Ice Queen
The dream starts out pleasantly, like a scene straight from a book of fairy stories: a castle of carved and gleaming ice rises around me, and snowflakes drift from the ceiling like falling stars. Some of them flowing and flowering, others sharp and crystalline. They glitter upon my fingertips, my cheeks, and I smile before catching one on my tongue.
At first, I do not notice when they still.
Nor do I notice the air as it thins, the frost as it creeps up my whisper-thin gown. Indeed, I do not notice anything until the castle itself steals over my feet, trapping them in solid ice. Startled, I glance down at my snow-white hands, at the shocking red of my fingernails. They match the winterberries growing in my hair.
The trail of blood glistening upon the ice behind me.
“Finally,” my sister says in a bored voice. “I thought you’d never fall asleep.”
“ Filippa? ”
I whirl in disbelief, nearly tumbling to the floor when my feet refuse to move, still frozen solid. And in a sickening swoop of intuition, I realize this isn’t a dream at all—not with my sister standing feet away from me, cold and cruel and wrong, and not with that look of apathy in her unnerving eyes. One black and one green.
“What are you doing here?” Craning my neck to look around us, I gape at the glittering walls. The blood behind me, I realize, is not blood at all but a cloak of vivid crimson. I cannot place the fabric, however; it ripples in the strange silver light like liquid, like my hand might slip through it, into it, if I dared bend down to investigate. “Where are we?”
My gaze catches on the pedestal table in the middle of the room—snowflakes carved into the palest of wood—and the elegant bouquet of frozen snowdrops at its center. Behind it, the grand staircase sweeps upward to a sparkling landing before dividing and rising out of sight. I kneel to inspect the glasslike floors, where an evergreen forest has been sculpted beneath the ice. “Is this the spirit realm?” I ask in wonder.
She lifts a delicate shoulder before smoothing the near translucent fabric of her sparkling white gown. She does not wear a crimson cloak or berries in her hair. Instead, she appears almost wraithlike with her spill of black hair and bloodless skin, a dark gash in the fabric of this place. “Almost.”
I glance down again, unable to help it. Shadows seem to drift through the evergreens beneath the ice, and—if I look closely—they could almost be... people. I repress a shiver when one moves too close, revealing muted yet undeniably chestnut-colored hair.
Frederic.
I jerk backward, away from him, stomach rolling.
“Why do you breathe?” Filippa asks abruptly, tearing me from my shock. My confusion . “You are a vampire, ma belle. You are dead, and the dead should not care of such mundane things.”
My gaze flicks up to hers in growing horror. Because my sister has trapped the soul of her ex-lover in the floor. Because beside him, Evangeline gazes up at me too, her eyes desolate and empty. “B-Breath allows us to scent things.”
“Oh?” Filippa arches a mocking eyebrow. “And what do I smell like?”
I inhale reluctantly, preparing for the worst, but instead my confusion deepens. My brow furrows. Because she—she doesn’t smell like a revenant. I draw back slightly, inhaling her scent again. Again. But—no, there is no rot. The snowdrops on the table blacken and crack upon my realization, but Filippa pays them no heed. Instead she lifts her chin in a gesture so like our mother that the sight of it feels like a physical blow to my chest—or perhaps she has simply frozen the air inside me too. It makes no sense .
The loup garou—the privateers, even the Archbishop—smelled of decay and fetid things, of despair, but beyond that, none of them could communicate; they could hardly think , let alone speak. Not like Filippa.
Something went wrong with that spell of Frederic’s—or something went very, very right.
Mathilde described the hole Frederic and Filippa tore through the veil as unique, unlike the rips the other revenants created. Anyone who has seen the maelstrom would agree, but... just how far do those differences go?
“Well?” Filippa slowly trails her fingers across the frozen snowdrops. “Do I smell like roses?”
A shiver runs down my spine at the suggestion. At that memory of roses and rot, of candle smoke and of true, suffocating darkness. I will not be frightened of my sister, however, or her newfound alliance. “You smell like you always do, Pip—like beeswax candles.”
The lie rises of its own volition, or perhaps not—perhaps, despite everything, I want to goad her, to gauge her reaction. Perhaps I want to see that flicker of irritation in her eyes, that subtle tightening of displeasure, and—
Hope sparks in my chest as her eyes indeed narrow. As her lips purse. She doesn’t want to smell like summer honey. The awareness dawns slowly, though I don’t yet understand it.
Instinctively, I push harder: “This palace looks exactly as I always imagined it—straight from the pages of The Winter Queen , isn’t it?” I gesture to her gown, to the delicate silver hairpiece nestled at her crown, and a muscle starts to feather in her jaw—a slight movement, yes, but a damning one all the same. “You’ve certainly dressed the part. The cape is a nice touch. Did you sew the little diamonds yourself?”
With an ominous crack, the ice begins to splinter between our feet. “I know what you’re doing, ma belle,” she says coldly, “but you will not find what you seek in me. I suggest you stop looking.”
That spark of hope kindles now, climbing higher, and I take another step forward, desperate to—to shake her, perhaps, to embrace her. To make her remember how much we once loved each other. Because the palace, the gown, the threats, even her alliance with Death—she seems to have donned each like armor, which means...
Perhaps there is still something inside her to protect.
“You’ve never been a monster, Filippa,” I say fiercely.
“I do not expect you to understand.” Filippa stands rigid, hands clasped at her waist in the perfect imitation of my mother, and watches our nursemaid drift aimlessly through the trees. “Nor do I require your approval. Though we once resembled each other, we have never been the same. Perhaps it is for the best I look like this now, and you look like that—our faces rather reflect the truth of it, don’t you think? I am a monster who looks like a monster, and you are a monster who looks like God.”
“How can you say that to me?”
“Because I know you.” When I open my mouth to argue, to vehemently disagree with her scathing logic, she adds, “Why did you never follow me when I crept out to meet Frederic? I expected to find you behind me at least once, but you never ventured beyond the window. Were you not curious about him? Did you not wonder where we went?”
“Of course I wondered.” Though I try to remain just as cool, calm, and collected as my older sister, my voice rings out sharp and indignant. “I asked you, Pippa. Every night, I asked, and I asked, and I asked , and you refused to tell me a word about him. Clearly, you didn’t want me to know—of course now I know why —so I never ventured beyond the window because it would’ve been an invasion of your privacy. I wanted you to like me. I wanted you to trust me, but in the end, neither of us got what we wanted, did we?”
She says nothing in response—just continues her perusal of the shadows beneath the floor—and I wince, already regretting the bitter words. “Filippa—” I start ruefully, but she interrupts before I can apologize.
“He promised to return Frostine in exchange for my help.”
The confession nearly cleaves my chest in two. “Oh, Pip.”
She gives a mournful laugh, but of course, it isn’t really a laugh at all. “I need your pity as much as I need your understanding and approval.” Her gaze flicks to mine at the last, and in it, I see the lights of Frederic’s and Evangeline’s souls reflected. She kept them. Despite her quiet defiance, her sharp contempt—she kept them with her, and she is willing to sacrifice everything to keep her daughter too.
And there is my answer.
“I asked him not to involve you in this, Célie.” Filippa glides past without looking at me, just as ethereal in this strange palace as a ghost in the spirit realm. Just as chilling. “I tried to keep you out of it, but Death is Death. In the end, what can either of us really do?” When I do not answer, she hesitates in the doorway, glancing back but revealing nothing. “The real reason I brought you here—it isn’t because I wanted to see you. It’s because he does.”
Before I can say another word, Filippa flicks her hand, and I plunge straight through the ice, screaming and falling until my feet slam into hard earth. Disoriented, I brace my knees instinctively and drop into a crouch to absorb the impact. It takes several seconds to realize I am no longer in the ice palace—no longer with Filippa at all but staring up at a familiar face.
“Hello, my sweet,” Death croons. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
My body stills at the sound, every muscle tensing in preparation to run, every instinct screaming at me to flee . Because this—this isn’t right. I shouldn’t be here, wherever here is, and certainly not alone with Death. Not again. The last time I saw him, he ripped out Frederic’s heart with a cheery grin—he drained all the blood from his body—and his revenants—his revenants —
Their putrid stench surrounds us, clinging to my hair, my skin, my very senses.
I need to leave.
Now.
As if sensing the thought, Death clicks his tongue softly and shakes his head in warning. “And here I thought you’d be pleased to see me,” he says. “Truly, I thought you might even want to help me, given the circumstances.”
He smirks at my incredulous stare—his silver eyes swirling in the dappled light of another forest—and leans against the trunk of a gnarled and ancient fir. As in Cesarine, tendrils of decay seem to unfurl from his being. They stretch outward into the foliage, blackening the boughs of the trees above him, turning their needles pale and brown.
“No?” He arches an amused brow. “You have no burning questions you’d like to ask? Nothing at all to say to me? That doesn’t sound like the Célie I know.”
The Célie I know. The words feel too intimate—almost intimidating—but instinct warns me not to argue; instead I straighten slowly, warily, my heart lodged in my throat. Because I recognize these trees—all pine and spruce and cypress. Evergreens. Their sharp scent permeates the air as awareness creeps through me. It prickles my nape, that indefinable feeling of being watched, as if these trees see us just as clearly as we see them—as if they’re sentient, alive —their whispers carried on a curious breeze.
“La F?ret des Yeux,” I whisper.
Death grins. “Very good. I assume you’ve been here before?”
I nod, gooseflesh erupting down my arms because—yes, I’ve been in the Forest of Eyes many times, and I’d like to remember approximately none of them. “Is this a—some kind of dream?”
Please let it be a dream.
“Just how often do you dream of me, Célie?” Still grinning, Death pushes from the tree, clad in only a thin white shirt—no coat or cravat—and fitted black pants tucked into knee-high boots. He extends an arm as if expecting me to take it, as if expecting the two of us to promenade through the rot and revenants. “Wait. Don’t answer that. Best to keep a little mystery this early in our relationship.”
My brows snap together. “We do not have a—”
An overhead branch crumbles before I can finish, and though I leap aside to avoid its path, a ray of light breaks through the treetops as the branch falls. It falls across my cheek, my throat, my chest with blistering heat. And for just an instant, I do not understand what’s happening, what hurts —then I shriek, clutching my face and lunging into the shadows as smoke curls between my fingers. As it escapes toward the brilliant blue sky now peeking through holes in the canopy.
I blink up at those holes in horror. Sunlight.
It dapples the undergrowth all around Death, whose pestilence continues to spread, poisoning the trees and wilting their foliage. Needles flutter to the forest floor. Another branch splinters. From the angle of light, it must be midafternoon, which means—
Death tuts sympathetically as reality crashes through me in a sickening wave.
Which means I’m trapped.
Even if I miraculously do manage to escape both Death and his revenants—not to mention whatever else lives in this godforsaken forest—I’ll have nowhere to go until sunset. Nowhere to hide.
Death knows it.
Strolling closer, he shakes his proffered arms at me. “Of course we have a relationship, Célie darling. You’re my Bride.” And something in his voice ...
My heart plummets at the possibility that he could be— controlling all of this, somehow. The death and decay. The broken branches. Though he looks human now, we know next to nothing about his abilities in our realm. Perhaps he can— and will , my intuition warns—do much worse than burn me next time.
“This... isn’t just a dream, is it?” I ask him.
Death shakes his head slowly. “They never are.”
With that terrifying confirmation, the stench of the revenants finally overwhelms me, and I stumble back a step, nearly burning myself in another patch of sunlight. Though they keep out of sight, moving on unnaturally silent feet, I sense them just beyond the shadows, watching us. Waiting. Scores of them. The pines shudder at their presence as those tendrils creep farther from Death, withering everything in their path.
Except me , I realize with a brutal twist of my stomach.
Except the revenants.
“But—” I shake my head, still clutching my cheek and ignoring the sharp, needlelike pricks of pain as it heals. “The Forest of Eyes is hundreds of miles away from Requiem—”
“The spirit realm cares little for such mundane things as physical distance.”
The spirit realm. My thoughts skitter wildly to falling through it outside Mathilde’s cottage, but—but Michal and I returned to our realm before I succumbed to sleep. His watchful gaze is the last I remember beyond vague, muddled fragments of my mother’s low voice, a warm cloth upon my face. It makes no sense . “How did Filippa—? Did she use the veil to bring me here?”
Death nods, heaving an impatient sigh when he realizes I’m not going to accept his arm. He seizes my elbow instead. “I’ve never heard anyone think as loudly as you do. Do you always scream your thoughts at unsuspecting onlookers?”
I open my mouth to answer—or to ask how Filippa used the veil to travel—but close it again just as quickly, dropping my hand from the freshly healed skin of my cheek. “Why am I here?” I ask instead, forcing myself to remain calm. “What do you want with me?”
“Ah. Now that I’m glad you asked.” Death gestures to the hard-packed earth winding around our feet. My eyes narrow as I follow the path to what appears to be a... gate? Suspicion trickles half-formed through my thoughts. Because why would a gate be in the middle of the forest? “I’m afraid I need your help with a little experiment. Ignore them,” he adds when my gaze darts to a pale hand on the tree up ahead. It slithers out of sight in the next second.
“Easier said than done.”
“My revenants won’t attack unless you flee—and you aren’t going to do that, are you?” Death’s eyes glitter almost impishly as he frog-marches me along the path, wrapping his free arm around my shoulders. “No, you’re entirely too clever for such theatrics. This is an opportunity, after all, to uncover my diabolical plot, and anyway, you have no torch with which to incinerate anyone this time. Such an inconvenience, I know.”
He punctuates the words with a squeeze, and I wince at his obvious strength. Worse still, if he’s insinuating what I think he is, he knows about the revenant Michal and I burned, but—but how can he? We would’ve scented him if he’d been hiding, would’ve scented another revenant too.
Though my unease deepens at that, I dare not pull away from him. Not yet. Because loath as I am to admit it, Death is right—we have no idea what he wants, only that he wants something , and this could be my only opportunity to discover it. I would be a fool not to take advantage, not to wring even a single answer from him before he does—well, whatever it is we’re about to do.
“How do you know about the loup garou?” To my surprise, my voice comes out even, and I thank every deity who might be listening for small mercies. “Did—did you send him after us?” I ask shrewdly.
Death scoffs as we pass through the gate. “Don’t be ridiculous. Haven’t I just said no revenant will harm you unless provoked?”
“Then how—?”
“You aren’t the only one with spies, my sweet.”
I blink at him, praying I misheard, but—no. He said spies. Spies. The word hums strangely in my ears—soft at first, a whisper of warning—before rising to an unintelligible din and stinging me. Stinging hard . Because a spy is so much worse than Death crouching among ferns to eavesdrop; it’s worse than the revenants stalking our footsteps now. A spy is unknown. A spy is dangerous —especially if they know about Michal and his subterfuge. And they would , my subconscious hisses. If they saw the revenant burning, they saw Michal too.
My unease spikes to outright panic at the thought, but I force it down. This isn’t the time to lose my head. As Death pulls me forward—so much stronger than me, too strong to overpower—I grit my teeth and stumble along in his wake, pretending I follow of my own volition. And in a way, I do . Death needs something from me—that much is clear—and if I can be clever, if I can manipulate that leverage, perhaps he’ll tell me everything I need to know.
Still, I drag my feet just enough to seem convincing. “We needn’t be enemies, you know. I didn’t particularly care for Frederic either, and my sister—well, I want her to be happy more than anyone. Have you ever considered simply asking for my help rather than threatening me with”—I wave my hand toward the dying trees, the shadows moving through them—“all of this?”
“Oh?” Death arches a brow and smirks down at me, as if he knows exactly what I’m trying to do and finds it enormously entertaining. His silver eyes, however, glitter with intrigue. With anticipation. He promised Filippa he would exhaust every option before involving me, so whatever he wants, he must want it very badly. “And just what information will you give for the name of my spy?”
I lift a delicate shoulder beneath his hand, bracing myself for what is to come. “I suppose that depends on the information you give me.”
He barks a laugh at that, squeezing again in subtle warning as we round the bend and the first wooden cottage appears. With it, another scent joins those of the pine needles, the roses, the decay. Sharp, biting, and cruel, it nearly singes my nose when I inhale, but worse still is that I—I recognize it. My heart crashes to my feet.
Blood magic.
“I do love a good impasse,” Death says, winking at my horrified expression. “Let’s see which of us is the first to break, shall we?”