Frozen

somehow.”

“What’s it saying now?”

“Actually, it’s been quiet for a while.” Since the white bird was killed, she realized. There was something more. Since she had fallen for Wes, it had been silent, angry somehow. She remembered the anguish of the wailer, and its large shadow on the water, its anger as it tore their ship apart.

“What else can you do?” he said, hugging her closer to him.

“Not much,” she said, as she snuggled against him. “It just comes and goes. I mean, when bad things happen, it saves me—I jumped out the window at MacArthur and it carried me, but I can’t make it do anything unless . . . I feel something strongly, then it just comes out. I’ve never been able to control it. Except . . .” She hesitated, shy all of a sudden. “Except when I pulled you from the water. It was as if I could hold it, I could use it.” Crystal clear and in control, that was how she had felt, when she had saved him.

“Huh.” Wes thought it over. “I think you’re afraid to use it, and that’s why it’s unpredictable. I think you have to embrace it. You can’t fight it. Don’t resist it.”

Resist it? It was true. She had resisted it. She had tried to hide from it. Tried to outrun it. But it was there. It was always part of her. The voice is mine. I am the monster. Hadn’t she known that from the beginning? Why was she fighting it?

Wes spoke directly into her ear, his strong arms around her, and she had never felt safer. “You have to accept who you are, Nat. Once you do, you can do anything you want.” He chuckled softly. “Or maybe, to tap into your power, all you need to do is think of me.”

41

NAT FELT SHY THE NEXT DAY, WHEN SHE woke up lying next to Wes, his arm still slung across her torso. She picked it up gently, trying not to disturb him. She heard the sound of far-off gunfire and she walked to the door, to look through the slit to see what was happening. Wes woke up and stood next to her. “What’s going on?”

“More captives, it looks like. More smallkind,” she said. She moved away from the window so he could see. “And the Ear is back. His ship mustn’t be too far from ours.”

The smallmen were shivering on the deck of the ship. Their hands were unbound; they wore no chains or ropes. There was no need—the slavers had simply removed their coats, exposing them to the cold. The frozen air was its own shackle, crippling the smallmen, forcing them to obey.

There was a barrel full of ice and slurry, and it looked like the slavers were playing one of their favorite games: making Popsicles. They threatened to dunk anyone who dared to disobey their orders. At this temperature, the water would immediately freeze on the skin, and death would not take long.

Wes prayed that the smallmen would obey, and then looked away; he’d seen too much already. He tried not to listen, but there was no way to block out the Ear’s braying laughter as it carried over the sound of screaming. The bald slaver was joking with the Slob that now he had enough for a tiny circus.

The next few days were the same, and the weariness and the claustrophobia began to take its toll. There were no more new captives, and the mercenaries became restless and frustrated, taking their rage out on the prisoners. The small cups of gruel that had arrived once a day disappeared, and Wes noticed the bitter joy the slavers took in the cries of the young and old among them.

They were down to their last Bacon Fruit, Wes’s jacket was almost flat, and although he tried not to show how cold he had become since they had resorted to eating his clothing, Nat could see the blue flush on his cheek, his frostbitten fingers. He spoke less, and when he did, his words were slow and calculated as if each syllable was a struggle.

The weather had worsened as they made their way toward Olympia City, the center of the flesh markets. Sudden showers of snow poured from the sky and a constant fog filled the air. The water was rougher as they neared the outlaw territories, and trashbergs swirled around the ship.

Wes was visibly trembling and, more than once, he asked Nat if it was day or night—his eyes were bothering him. He had chosen to eat rather than to be warm. Nat tried to make him wear her coat, just for a minute, but he adamantly refused.

Nat knew she had to do something before they plunged into despair. Wes was deteriorating before her eyes. “Liannan,” she called. “Tell us a story about the Blue.”

The sylph’s voice carried over. Her voice was weaker than the last time they had spoken, and Nat knew that the imprisonment was taking its toll, the iron slowly sapping the strength from the lovely being. “It’s beautiful. Everything they say about it is true. Your throat does not burn when you inhale; the water is as clear as the air. The sun still shines in the Blue . . . and the grass is the green of emeralds.”

“How do you know? You’ve been there?” Wes challenged.

“I am from Vallonis.”

“So why are you here, then? Why leave?” he asked. Nat wondered why he was being so aggressive. He had never acted that way toward Liannan before.

“The Blue is part of this world, it has always been part of it, and once, very long ago, it was this world. A shining civilization: Atlantis, a world where magic and science existed peacefully together. But the promise of Atlantis died during the First Breaking, and the Blue faded into the mist, until the Second Attempt in Avalon. But Avalon died as well, and the world of magic was closed to this land. When the ice came, it is said among our people that the Return was finally upon us. That the Age of Science was over, and the Third Age of Vallonis had finally come. Our people have returned to this world, but . . .”

“But?” Nat prompted.

“Something went wrong. This world is killing our magic and killing us, causing what you call the ‘rot’ . . . and so we sent scouts out, to bring our people back to the doorway, back to the safety of Arem. But it will not be enough to hide in the Blue. Our worlds are colliding, becoming one again. The Blue must cover the land once more and magic have its proper place.”

Nat frowned. “Or . . . ?”

“Or everything will be poisoned, not only this world, but Vallonis as well . . . until everything is lost. I was sent to the gray lands to find the source of the sickness. I chanced upon the pilgrims and thought to lead them to safety first, but afterward, I must resume my search.”

“See? She’s not giving up,” Wes said, finally a ghost of his former smirk appearing on his drawn, handsome face. “So you don’t either.”

She smiled back at him, but the smiles left their faces when the door to their cage opened with a bang and the guard pointed to Nat. “You’re up.”

“Hold on!” Wes said, sticking his foot through the door before the man could slam it closed. “What’s going on?”

“What do you think?” The guard smirked. “Traders are here. Shopping. Get ready.”

Nat glanced at Wes.

“No, hold on, hold on now,” Wes said. “Avo said he wouldn’t harm my people in any way . . .”

The guard laughed. “And you believe that, lover boy?” He kicked away Wes’s foot and slammed the door. “They’ll be here in five!”

Wes clenched his hands into fists. “When he comes back—listen, when he opens the door, I’ll hide behind the shadows, and I can deck him from behind, then we’ll get out of here, get Liannan out, get to the lifeboats. I think I know where we are—we can’t be far from the port at New Crete.”

“No, Wes,” she said slowly. “It’s too dangerous. There are too many men out there. You don’t have a gun, we don’t have a ship—if you fight him, they’ll kill you.”

Wes shook his head. “No—listen to me, Nat. I’m not going to let them take you!”

“It will be all right,” she said bravely. “Maybe . . . maybe they won’t want me.”

“NO!”

The guard opened the door and handed her a metal collar linked to a chain. “Put it around your neck, just