Chapter 18
I awaken with a clattering of teeth and find the fire dead. I’m wrapped in my cloak with Kai curled around my back, but his lanky body offers no warmth. His blindfold has fallen off, and I’m not surprised when the first words out of his mouth are cruel ones.
They cut anyway.
“Your hair is a frightful nest.” He sits up.
“You should see yours,” I answer tartly. The prince remains naked, and I’m intrigued by the sight of his cock nestled between his muscular thighs.
“Gwen.”
“Kai.” I prop my chin on my hand.
“Get dressed.”
I sigh. Back to the dreary business of trying to save ourselves.
“Eat.” I shove a piece of bread at him, one I brought to go with my stew last night. He tests it with his teeth and grimaces.
“It’s as hard as a rock,” he complains. Wordlessly, I snatch it from him, cut off a corner of equally stone-hard butter from my stores and crush it onto the bread.
“This should help counteract the witch’s ice magic. Try it.” Grumpily, he gnaws on it while I finish dressing. Once he, too, gets his clothes on, we venture out into the palace and are immediately met with the sound of snow bees. “I truly despise that buzzing sound.”
Kai rakes his hair back into a knot. “You get used to it.”
“Are you okay?” It hardly seems possible for him to be paler, but his pallor has deepened. He looks like he’s going to be sick.
“The bread isn’t sitting well.”
Dread settles into the pit of my stomach. I hope I didn’t accidentally poison him with ordinary bread and butter. We don’t have time for me to nurse him. I won’t try feeding him again.
“I asked you this before we got distracted, but you didn’t really answer. Did the witch give you a puzzle to solve?”
He nods and gestures down a hallway. “I’ll show you. It’s in here.”
We enter what appears to be a library, but instead of books, the shelves are lined with game pieces. On the table in the center of the room, jagged ice shards lie haphazardly.
“I have to use all of the pieces to spell out—” He clutches his throat, gagging. Startled, I touch his shoulder. He brushes me off. “Are you sick?” I ask.
“I cannot tell you the word.” He smooths his hair back.
“I forgot that rule. The Queen reminded me. The task is for me to spell out the word within a perfect rectangle.” With one extended finger, he pushes a long piece up against another.
The angle of the short edge doesn’t quite match.
Dejectedly, Kai sets it aside and tries a different piece.
“This looks harder than I expected.” I sigh.
“Did you think I would make it easy for you?” The Queen strides into the room in a cloud of snow and billowing silk skirt. I can’t deny the pang of envy I feel at seeing her ageless beauty. She wafts over to Kai and reaches out to cup his chin.
I swat her hand away. The sting of touching her is a hundred times harsher than the frostbite of his skin. I wince and shake my hand.
“That will teach you to defy me,” she says icily.
“Don’t let her touch you, Kai.” My voice comes out low and menacing. He tips his head, considering me. “It’s how she steals your warmth. She needs it. Don’t you?”
I turn to her.
The Queen’s red lips press into a thin line. Blood in fresh-fallen snow. Her strange blue eyes glow with aurora lights. No heat reaches them.
“Unlike you, I do not take pleasure in pain, Gwendolyn. I hope your night with Kai was a memorable one.”
I drop my gaze to my toes, ashamed.
“You’re not jealous?” I ask.
The fae witch waves dismissively. “A little human wench could never inspire envy in me. Enjoy her as you will, Kai, for the hours you have remaining.”
As one, he and I turn to the hourglass floating in the corner. Most of the snow has piled in the lower half.
“We were supposed to have three days!” I shout. “We made our bargain less than a day ago. How is the glass so empty? I thought you couldn’t cheat.”
Gods, I’m furious.
“I haven’t cheated. Daylight was nearly gone when we made our bargain.
Your first day barely lasted ten minutes.
You spent most of the second in Kai’s arms. Now you’ve wasted the majority of your opportunity to solve my little puzzle and save your lives.
” She glides out of the room. Abandoning him, I follow her, seething.
“You’re a dirty rotten cheater.”
“For every name you call me, I will dock another hour,” she says over her shoulder, unperturbed.
“Cheater, cheater, cheater!”
“That’s three hours more gone.” She waves her hand idly.
The stupid hourglass made of frost and snowflakes floats after us, suddenly dangerously close to empty.
I hate magic. I hate this terrible castle with frozen humans for decor and most of all, I despise its owner, the tricky witch who cheats and punishes me for calling a spade a spade.
“To appease you, Gwendolyn, I will offer you a clue in exchange for one more hour of time.”
“What kind of clue? I’m not trading an hour of time for a useless hint.”
“One that will solve the puzzle if you can figure it out. I’m being quite generous, especially after you called me names.” She lifts one eyebrow.
I have to force the words past my gritted teeth. “I’m sorry I called you a cheater. I accept your trade. One hour for a useful clue.”
She snaps. Another chunk of flakes dump into the bottom portion of the hourglass.
“The word Kai is trying to spell is the gift that I will grant him, though he did not ask for it.”
“That’s all?” I cannot believe I fell for yet another one of her tricks.
“Good luck, Gwen.
I’m forced to swallow my ire and watch her drift off to gods-know-where she spends her time, and make my way back to the game room. “Any progress?”
He thoughtfully slides a shard into place. For once, it fits perfectly. A tingle of excitement races up my neck.
“What letter is this?”
“Could be an E. Possibly an I or a T.” He crosses one arm over his abdomen and props his chin on his fist. “Could be anything, honestly.”
“Even fae script?” I ask hopefully. That seems like the kind of dirty trick the Queen would pull.
“Their writing is all loops and squiggles.” He traces a scrolling shape in the air with one finger. I grab his wrist and examine the nail beds.
“Kai. You’re turning blue again.”
Now that I’m close enough to hear it, his teeth are chattering, too. Fear grips me hard. We’re not even close to solving this puzzle, and he’s halfway frozen.
“Put this on.” I take off Christabel’s cloak and wrap it around his shoulders. Cold air bites through layers of wool and sinks its teeth into my skin. “Where can I find more firewood?”
“The kitchens.”
I run the whole way. Piling as many logs as I can carry in my arms, hurry back to the game room with the flint and steel in my pocket.
But by the time I arrive, the wood has turned to icicles. I dump them uselessly beside the fireplace. Damned magic.
In my absence, Kai’s lips have turned a deep shade of violet. Frost clings to his ears. Without The Snow Queen’s protection, he’s freezing.
Fear stabs through me.
“Let’s make a list,” I say with all the calmness I can muster. “I’ll write down every word that might solve her riddle, and you try making letters with each of the shards, okay?”
I don’t dare glance at the hourglass. I loathe that thing. I hate the way it follows me and the low buzz of the snow bees’ judgment. Faint scratching sounds reach my ears as Kai moves the pieces around.
I take a charred stick from the tinder box and scribble as many words on a scrap of paper as I can before the tip wears off. I light the twig on fire with the flint, and curl my hands around the heat before blowing it out again.
Power.
He never wanted to become king. Without the Queen’s intervention, he would have remained a prince for the rest of his days. I show the scrap to Kai.
He shakes his head and keeps working, pushing pieces together and pulling them apart with a groan of frustration.
I scan the looping scrolls on the mirror over the mantelpiece, where her famed mirror once hung until the trolls stole it.
“Infinity.” I point to the decorative dragon heads eating their own tails. “Those loops form an ouroboros. Do you remember the picture of her mirror from your books when we were children?”
“B-barely.”
Even with the cloak, he’s too cold to argue with me. The chill is getting to me, too. My fingers have gone numb and my feet are painfully frost burned inside my boots.
Suddenly, the letter I snaps into place.
We loom over the table in awe. “That worked! We’re on the right path. Keep going, Kai, we can do this.”
I’m determined to win against that cheating queen.
Immortality. The Queen spoke of it. Kai has never said he wanted it. Is that the gift she would bestow upon him, that he hadn’t asked for?
“These three shards form a letter T,” he says. “But I can’t figure out where they go. They don’t fit inside the square. I want to put it…” He braces three gloved fingers on the ice and drags the trio to the left of the I. “Here.”
Panic rises in my chest, a tense wall of frustration and anger. We’re close, but those damned flakes are running through the hourglass so fast now.
What is as infinite as time?
“Eternity,” I speak the word in a harsh whisper. “Kai. Kai! The word you’re trying to spell is eternity. That’s what she promised you, isn’t it? To live forever with her here in this ice castle.”
He blinks slowly. Just as slowly, his chin dips. Yes.
“Hurry, Kai! We’re almost out of time!”
His frozen fingers can’t move fast enough. I glance at the hourglass of living snowflakes and panic blooms in my chest. I take over, pushing his hands to move the jagged ice shards together. I can’t touch the puzzle, but I can touch him.
The Snow Queen breezes in, tapping her foot with annoyance. I feel time speed up and slow down all at once. It stretches and warps. The ice shards won’t fit together, until finally—
E
“Yes! Kai, keep working!”
T
The second E is easier now that I know what shapes to look for. R, however, proves challenging. He uselessly turns a single piece over and over, caught in a trance. I’ll figure out where that one goes last—if there’s still time.
The Y proves to be another easy shape. Another T isn’t too difficult, but I can’t figure out the N, and there’s still the R to contend with. Frustrated, I cannibalize the pieces of the other letters and begin again.
The Snow Queen chuckles softly. I glance at the hourglass.
We have just seconds remaining. A tear slips down my cheek. We’re not going to win.
“I’m sorry, Kai,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry I failed you.”
Gently, because it will be the last time I ever get to kiss him, I take his cold cheeks between my hands and press my lips to his. They tremble. Hesitantly, his mold to mine like he too recognizes this is our final moment together. A sob breaks out of me as my tears splash onto his face.
With a roar, he shoves me away and lunges at the puzzle. But it’s too late—the last snow bee flutters down from the top of the hourglass. He slams the table’s edge with a closed fist. The pieces fly upward and land with a tinkling shatter.
I close my eyes. Hot tears burn down my cold cheeks. The weight of a frozen forever presses down on me. I bury my head in Kai’s shoulder. He hugs me to him.
“It cannot be.” The Queen gasps raggedly.
“Gwen,” he whispers. “It’s all right. You can look.”
I blink and slowly unfurl away from him. “What?”
“It seems, sweet child, that you have won.” The Snow Queen’s ageless features twist in a grimace of distaste.
“You correctly guessed the word. Kai has solved the puzzle. Moreover, your tears washed away the shard of the mirror that has been caught in his eye all this time.” Her voice doesn’t tremble in the slightest, but it is heavy with resignation when she says, “You are free to go. You all are.”
She raises both hands high above her head.
The snow bees abandon their hourglass and form a solid column.
She lowers her hands theatrically and smashes it through into the floor with an ear-shattering crack.
The ground trembles beneath my boots. I lunge for Kai’s hand.
His skin is warm and his grip on mine, strong.
He turns to me wearing the smile I once loved so dearly and haven’t seen in so long.
It warms me from within like basking in the summer sun.
I once wanted his darkness, but now, I am beyond relieved to have his light.
He drags me closer, curling my body protectively against his. I have only a moment to clutch him with all my strength before the ice crumbles beneath our feet and we drop into nothing.