you.”
Ella’s back to dresses, dropping a flowery one over my arms. The flowers are roses, big and red, so similar to the ones on the rooftop garden back home that I’d believe Ella if she told me the fabric was modeled after them. I stare at them and ignore Ella bemoaning how many sundresses she owns. I now have to try very hard to remember the feeling of Kai kissing me, of being in his arms. To remember the feeling of certainty, that we belonged to each other.
“Ginny?” Ella asks, and I raise my eyes to her—when did I start crying? “Oh, Ginny,” Ella says, shoving the clothes out of my hands and pulling me close. I haven’t been hugged this tightly in ages, and it makes me choke on my tears, inhaling Ella’s perfume in big gulps.
“Sorry,” I say. “It’s just the roses on that dress, they reminded me—”
“We’ll trash it. I’ll burn it. Or both—we can cut it up, and we’ve got five fireplaces and a barbeque out back—we’ll burn a piece in each one just for good measure.”
She’s trying to help, so I just nod, agree. But as we collect the clothing she’s giving to me, as I make my way to my bedroom, all I can think about is the fact that the dress isn’t the problem. That even when it’s gone, the roses in my head will remain.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I barely sleep, plagued by a fight for my heart. Staying with Lucas and Ella, being happy, being warm, being home. Or going after Kai, the boy who broke my heart. The boy who walked away into the cold. The boy who not only may never want me again, but might get me killed.
The boy who I love.
The roses in my head aren’t going anywhere—the love I have for Kai isn’t going anywhere, no matter what he’s done, no matter if he still wants me or not. Besides—Grandma Dalia never found her boy, and she became… Grandma Dalia. I don’t want that to happen to me, don’t want to be looking over my shoulder, worrying, scared my entire life. I want to be with Kai. I have to go after him.
It’s a decision I feel strong about until the following morning when I hurry downstairs and see Ella. She’s in the kitchen, pulling out flour, sugar, multicolored salts, fancy oils, an entirely different person than the crying girl I saw last night. There’s a stack of cookbooks on the counter beside her that look brand-new, and she’s wearing a bright pink apron.
“What are you doing?” I ask, still sleepy.
“We’re going to cook things!” she chirps.
“… Why?”
“Because you said you like to cook, and I figured you could teach me!” she says. “I got you an apron. You don’t have to wear it, though. Help me find a recipe?”
I take the pink apron from Ella’s hands. It seems so hurtful, so cruel to crush Ella’s happiness by abruptly telling her I can’t stay. She and Lucas have given me so much; I can give her an afternoon, can’t I? I’m stalling— for fear of Mora, of the cold, of whatever painful uncertainty lies ahead—but it’s hard to be sorry about it when I think of Kai walking away from me. Staying a little longer feels like a way to even the scales between me and Kai, even if I’m the only one measuring.
Ella and I sit down at the kitchen table and begin to flip through the various cookbooks together. Many are signed, or written in another language, or involve ingredients that I’m fairly certain even Ella doesn’t have in the pantry, like milk thistle and grapefruit curd. There’s something soothing about paging through the books, though, looking at perfect photos of even more perfect food.
“What about this?” Ella asks, pointing to a page in a dessert book.
“That looks complicated,” I say.
“But do we have all the stuff for it?” She looks over her shoulder at the counter.
“Probably,” I say. It’s a recipe for something called Chocolate Blackout Cake. Baking was never my thing, really, and this one involves a lot of steps for something I’m pretty sure we could make out of a box. Ella is persuasive, though, and twenty minutes later she’s whisking eggs and oil together while I try to figure out if I can substitute some sort of fancy imported cocoa powder for melted chocolate chips.
“So I was wondering,” Ella says, “do you know how to ride a horse?”
“I live in Atlanta,” I say. “Shortage of horses there, except the ones pulling carriages.”
“Because I’ve got four—they aren’t stabled here, but it’s close. We could go ride them while the cake cooks.”
“It only cooks for thirty-five minutes,” I remind her, smiling.
“Is that all? Why aren’t I making these all the time?” she says, whisking so hard that some of the mixture spills out of the bowl. “Well, maybe when we’re done, then. Or tomorrow. Though I was thinking we could go book shopping tomorrow.”
“That sounds fun,” I say, sliding a butter knife across the top of a measuring cup full of cocoa—I figure we’ll just add a little more butter to make up for the substitution. Ella grins and helps me load everything into the mixer.
The cake turns out lopsided, and we’re terrible at sprinkling the garnish around the edges like the picture. Ella is delighted, though, and insists on calling Lucas in to show him.
“We made it!” she says, whisking the top off the cake stand.
“I’m impressed,” Lucas says, kissing her on the cheek. “I mean, you have three degrees, but… a cake…”
“Oh, shut up,” she says. “I’m excited.”
“Clearly,” he jokes, and kisses her again, pulling her close so that her hip bumps his. We eat cake for lunch, so much that by four o’clock, all three of us are lying on our backs on the various couches in their “theater room.”
“Is the ice better today?” I say offhandedly. I can’t stall forever, but I want to ease Ella in to the idea of me leaving.
“Yes,” Lucas says; I see Ella turn her head to him and glare, though I don’t think she knows I catch it.
“I should…” I inhale. “I should go, then. Before Mora and Kai get too far ahead of me.” I speak quickly, as if I’m ripping off a Band-Aid.
“But we’re supposed to go horseback riding tomorrow,” Ella says quickly.
“Yeah, but I can’t….”
“She’s a witch monster thing,” Ella says. “Look, here’s what I’m thinking: We’ll call Lucas’s brother Silas. We’ll pay him and his girlfriend to go run Mora down—they do it all the time.”
“With Fenris, they do it all the time,” Lucas says. “I don’t think they even know about the Snow Queen. And I haven’t been able to get in touch with him anyhow.”
“Okay, but still. They kill werewolves. It’s what they do. And he always calls back eventually.”
“And what if Kai is a wolf by then?” I say quietly. Ella goes silent, and Lucas sighs loudly. “Ella, I can’t just… stay here. I…” I’m almost afraid to say it, especially after yesterday, but I force the sentence out. “I love him.”
“I know you love him. But you dying won’t bring him back. It’ll just mean he’s still a monster, and you’re gone,” she says. “Come on. Just let us call them. And we’ll have a great time tomorrow. Besides—if you don’t stay, I’ll eat the rest of the cake myself.”
“I’ll help,” Lucas says. Ella smiles, but it doesn’t look real—it looks trained, like something she’d give a pageant judge. It looks desperate.
“And besides, Ginny, now that I know I
“Sure,” I say, fighting to keep my voice from breaking. I roll over to look at the scar on my hand. “We’ll do one for lunch tomorrow.”
It stops snowing at four in the morning. I know, because I’m still awake, staring at the clock. I feel delirious,
