Inch by inch, they constructed the winter man.
Frost was all sharp edges and glistening icicles. Icy mist drifted from his eyes as he gazed past Oliver at the open door, the sound of the running shower filling the room. A hint of emotion, possibly disapproval, flickered across his face and then was gone.
“I’ve been to Amelia’s and had a look about the place. Unseen, of course. It is closed now, and dark. We must limit the possibility of Kitsune being recognized by someone who might inform the Hunters, and your exposure to the city. Anyone who is obviously new to Euphrasia is likely to fall under suspicion of being the Intruder who is wanted by the authorities. The less you talk to people, the better. We’ll stay here until dark.”
Oliver scratched the back of his head and glanced at the windows. “That’s a long way off.”
“There’s nothing to be done about it. You and Kitsune rest. Eat. The kitchen will bring food up if she asks. They will think you lovers, wishing to indulge in each other.”
Heat flushed Oliver’s face and he kept his gaze locked on Frost, steadfastly refusing the temptation to glance back at the open bathroom door.
“We’ll make do,” he said. “Is Amelia’s far from here?”
The winter man shook his head. “Not far at all. Four blocks. Perhaps five. The neighborhood is less than desirable, but perfect for a place like Amelia’s. The character of Perinthia changes with every corner turned.”
The conversation continued for another minute or two. When Kitsune emerged from the shower, wrapped in a thick white cotton robe that seemed stark and bright against the café au lait hue of her skin, it was obvious she wore nothing under it. As the two Borderkind discussed the necessity of waiting out the day in that room, Oliver did what he could to avert his eyes from her, afraid he would stare. The memory of her nakedness was vividly replaying itself in his head.
Later, after they’d eaten— the staff of Fleur de Lis had been just as accommodating as Frost had predicted— exhaustion took over. Oliver had been cognizant of the fact that there was only one large bed and no sofa or any other surface comfortable enough to sleep on by choice. Even so, he’d intended to make up some kind of space on the floor with an extra blanket he’d found and one of the pillows from the bed. Kitsune would not hear of it.
Had she remained in just that cotton robe in which she had emerged from the bathroom earlier, there was no way he would have gotten into bed with her. Not that he thought anything might happen— he was just some ordinary guy, after all, and she was exotic and . . . hell, she was supernatural— but even so, the awkwardness would have crippled him. Not to mention thoughts of Julianna. The marriage had never happened, but she was still his fiancée. And with Frost in the room, his embarrassment would have been that much worse.
Not that their eventual compromise was much better. Kitsune wore the black top and pants she’d had on throughout their adventures thus far and she insisted that he climb beneath the covers while she spread her fur cloak over herself and burrowed into the bed. She seemed to find his discomfort amusing, but only for the minute or two that it took her to fall into a deep sleep.
Oliver was not so fortunate.
While Frost stood watch over them, entirely still in the darkest corner of the room as though he were truly frozen, Oliver lay turned away from Kitsune, wide-awake and staring at the wall. He had showered after they’d eaten and the clean linens felt wonderful against his bare arms, but every nerve ending seemed to be alive and aware. From time to time he drew deep breaths and forced his eyes closed, trying to will sleep to claim him. An echo of his nightmare in Oliver Larch’s house remained in his mind, and thoughts of this only added to all of the thoughts that troubled him.
His eyes were shut tight when he felt the cold air against his face. When he opened them, Frost was crouched beside the bed, watching him intently. His hair chimed as he tilted his head like a curious bird.
“What haunts you, Oliver?”
He stared into those blue-white eyes, trying to find the words. A shiver ran through him from the nearness of the winter man, and perhaps from his own thoughts as well. Throughout their journey, their flight from those who would have taken their lives, Oliver had exulted in the discovery of magic and of the ironic freedom bestowed upon him by the intrusion of violence, terror, and the supernatural into his life. But his dreams had been dreams of home.
“I’ve been gone too long,” Oliver said, keeping his voice low so as not to rouse the gently purring Kitsune. “That night you came to me, with the Falconer hunting you, my wedding was supposed to be the next day.”
“Those events were not in your control. You did not abandon your fiancée willingly.”
Oliver’s stomach gave a sour twist. “No. But I was glad. I’d been doubting the decision to marry since the day I first proposed.”
“Do you not love her?”
“I do. I think I do. But it felt like I was . . . surrendering to the future my father had mapped out for me. Julianna was going to marry that guy, the one my father had groomed so perfectly, and then I’d have to be him forever. I wished I could just break out of that, be more of what I wanted, and then if she still wanted me . . . but I was too well trained, wasn’t I?” He laughed bitterly. “I was a good puppy. Doing just what my master wanted.”
Frost tilted his head ever so slightly and a blast of frigid air swept through the room.
“Some would say that is the role of a good son.”
Oliver stared at him, wondering if that was Frost’s belief, or simply one he had observed in the ages he had spent as harbinger of winter in the world of men. “A good son, I guess. But what happens when the son isn’t a boy anymore? Someday he may have a son of his own, and then what?”
The winter man smiled. The ice of his face cracked, chips drifting to the floor. “That is the question at hand, is it not? And if you survive the piercing of the Veil, you will have an opportunity to answer it.”
“I can’t wait that long. My father will be embarrassed as hell by my going AWOL for the wedding. Julianna, too, I’m sure. But Collette would have been worried the first day. And by now, she and Julianna have probably both gotten to the point where they think I’m . . . that if I haven’t come back yet, then I’m dead in a ditch somewhere.”
Talking about the conflicts inside of him was like releasing steam from a pressure valve. As he began to relax, at last Oliver began to feel as though he might be capable of sleep.
“I’ve been gone too long. I know it would be dangerous for me to be around them, but I can’t just let them stay in the dark. I’ve got to at least let them know I’m alive.”
Frost opened his mouth slightly, revealing jagged, frozen teeth. It wasn’t a smile or a laugh, but Oliver wasn’t sure how to read the expression beyond that.
“How do you propose to do that?” the winter man asked.
Oliver watched him closely. Kitsune was warm beside him, even though she was not under the covers, but the chill coming off Frost seemed even more frigid.
“Could you take me across the Border? Just for a few minutes? Half an hour, at the most? I’ve got to call them, Frost. I have to let them know.”
The winter man’s brows crackled. “What would you tell them that they would believe?”
“Only that I’m all right. That I’m in some trouble and I hope to be able to come home soon.”
Slowly, Frost nodded. He stood from a crouch, unfolding with such fluidity it was as though he were a storm himself and each motion was a gust of wind. This was not far from the truth. Yet Oliver could not admire the beauty of the winter man. Instead he was troubled by Frost’s demeanor.
“What is it?” Oliver asked.
“I will do this for you, Oliver. I have pledged to aid you because it was saving my life that imperiled your own. But you must wait until we have found a place where I believe we can cross swiftly and safely, and then you must make haste. We will not spend even one night in Perinthia, if I can help it. At sundown we go to Amelia’s. If we are not able to learn the location of Professor Koenig there, I know of other places we might ask such questions. And then we leave.”
“Of course,” Oliver said. “The Hunters could find us at any time. Got to keep moving.”
The winter man spun on him, eyes furiously narrowed, features shifting now into slivers, chin and cheeks and nose all long and sharp. The mist that drifted from his eyes eddied around his head and he took a step back toward the bed, arms raised, dagger fingers curved as though he meant to strike.
Oliver’s mouth dropped open but he could not move or speak. The cold caressed him, but it was fear that had frozen him, not the power of the winter man.
Frost dropped to one knee and reached out to tap a fingertip— a needle of ice— against Oliver’s temple.
“Think. You must begin now to imagine a world beyond yourself. You seek your life’s path, and I do understand. But you must also see that far more is at stake here than your one fragile, mortal life. It is not for myself that I fear. Not even for the Borderkind alone, though this conspiracy seems aimed at us. It is not enough to ask who is attempting to slay the Borderkind, but why. Have you given no thought at all to the greater powers at work here?”
Oliver hesitated, feeling more than ever like a child as he lay in bed with Frost looming angrily above him. He’d thought the Borderkind his friend, but just then his heart thundered with terror and his breath caught in his throat.
The winter man snarled. “No. I suppose you haven’t.” He shook his head. “I have been watching for the Hunters, wondering why they haven’t made more attempts to kill us. I have come to the conclusion that it is because they have been spread too thin. There are many Borderkind, you see, far more than there are Myth Hunters.”
He spat the word myth like it was poison on his tongue. “They are busy, the Hunters. Out across the Two Kingdoms, killing. And when I ask myself why, I cannot think of a single answer, except that whoever is responsible has a larger plan, and wishes to make sure the Borderkind are not able to interfere. Perhaps our secret enemy dreams of conquest, and the freedom of the Borderkind to travel where we wish makes us dangerous to him. But that is mere conjecture. The rest is mystery. But my life and Kitsune’s life and thousands of others’ rely upon my solving that mystery.
“So I will take you through the Veil to make your phone call, and I will get you to Professor Koenig because that is what I promised. But every minute that passes ticks us closer to the extermination of the Borderkind, and that I cannot forget.”
Oliver wanted to say so much. He wanted to show his gratitude and swear his loyalty to Frost, to vow that once he was no longer marked for death he would remain in this world and fight at their side and do whatever he could to unravel the savage conspiracy that was closing in around them.
But the glint in the winter man’s eyes kept him silent.
When the winter man turned away and went back to the shadows in the corner of the room to wait out the rest of the day, Oliver let himself breathe again. Laden with fear and guilt and frustration, he was certain he would never sleep.
Soon enough, however, he did at last slide down into a troubled slumber, into dreams that spanned two worlds, in both of which he felt alone.
Night in Perinthia was vastly different from morning. At dawn the streets had been well nigh deserted, but just after dusk, they were bustling. Carriages rattled over cobblestones, but they were hardly the only traffic on the streets. There were cars as well— most of them ancient, noisy, oil-stinking things from the early days of the twentieth century. Others, however, were bizarre incongruities: an old sedan, complete with running board, that looked as though it might once have been driven by John Dillinger, and a 1970s-era Ford pickup truck with faded green paint on what small areas had not already been eaten by rust.
Those were the metal beasts. There were far more of the other variety. Black dogs of immense size and a startling variety loped along sidewalks and stalked amongst the crowds. Some had blazing red eyes, and others, though smaller, seemed to walk several inches above the ground, paws never quite touching anything solid. There were creatures of every persuasion, most of which seemed to have been put together from the component parts of other animals. A rooster’s head on a lizard’s body, with a scorpion’s tail. An alligator’s head on the body of a lion, with eagle’s wings. Some he thought he knew from mythology: a gryphon, a harpy, a Pegasus. But most were a puzzle to him, a menagerie of legend and story.
Massive horses clomped slowly along the stone roads, not moving aside for carriage or auto, most of them carrying dark riders in leather armor, some of whom had no flesh on their bones and only a skull for a head . . . while others had no head at all. There were giants of differing size, demeanor, and sophistication. Boggarts and goblins and trolls— though often it was difficult to tell the difference— and nymphs and fairies from around the world, some of them flitting wisps with shimmering wings of color, and others lithe men and women of ethereal beauty and the cool reserve and calm of the deepest ocean before a storm.
And there were monsters, of course. Staggering things covered in filth that seemed to have dragged themselves from swampland or sewer, beautiful dead-faced things with mesmerizing eyes and a reach just long enough to snatch their prey, and deadly, razor-toothed things low to the ground and almost faster than the eye could follow.
Amongst them all, far more numerous than the beasts and the fairies and goblins and the monsters put together, were the humans. Generations of Lost Ones who had slipped from one world into the next— the children of Roanoke and Norfolk, of Shanghai and Tunguska, of the ill-fated passengers of a thousand ghost ships. A city full of men and women and children to whom this was all no more than ordinary, who linked arms with romantic intention and gazed in shop windows as they walked, who sampled the wares from merchants’ carts and laughed at the antics of street performers of all persuasions.
