Kyle, crying. Johnny holding him and whispering, “Hey, kid, don’t worry what she says. I’ll take care of you.” “Promise?” Kyle sniffled. “Promise,” Johnny said—
The Lady, glowering down at Elin while ice fell around them both. “I told you not to return without the leaf. Why do you continue to disobey me?” Elin held up her hands, as if to explain, but the Lady grasped her wrist. In moments she was a red-tailed hawk once more, launching into the dark. Behind her the Lady whispered, “And so Kaylen will pay for his foolishness with the human girl at last—”
The Lady, marching through an ice-sheathed forest that glittered in the early-morning sun. Johnny marched by her side, a gray wolf at his heels—
“Liza.” Karin’s quiet voice drew me out of my visions as gently as Mom’s voice drew me out of nightmares. I opened my eyes to the shining trees around me. Kyle still held my hand.
“She found Matthew.” Had the Lady gone looking for him, or had he returned on his own, looking for Johnny and me? It didn’t matter. “We have to find them.” Matthew and I were supposed to keep each other safe. What was the point of whatever was between us if we couldn’t do that much?
“You are certain it was not the future you saw?” Karin asked. Elin hunkered down on her fist, talons digging into leather, as if she would deny us all.
“I don’t think so.” Though there was no wind, the dawn was cold. “It was morning, and there was ice on the trees.”
“Best not to let any more time pass, then.” Karin looked at me. “Ice and sun will present challenges for you as a seer. Do your best not to focus on any one spot for too long—but do not try so hard that you are not careful of your footing. Kyle, if Liza stops walking, can you squeeze her hand? That will help wake her out of visions.”
Kyle nodded soberly. “Can I pinch her, too?”
A smile pulled at Karin’s lips. “If you wish.”
I kept a wary eye on Elin as we set out. Ice coated the limestone bluffs, the white snow, the path we walked. My steps were maddeningly slow over the slick ice. I wished I were a hawk, not bound to the slippery earth. My thoughts kept turning to Matthew, imagining the Lady’s fingers running through his fur, imagining Matthew trotting behind her, obeying her every command.
The glimmering ice tugged at my gaze, like a child eager to show all her toys. Fragments of vision flickered at the edges of my sight.
Elin, running through underground tunnels, younger, alone—
The Lady, her hands on Elin’s shoulders. “How dare you let your control of the firestarter slip? You will find him. You will destroy him and all the escaped children who have caused our people grief with their magic this day—”
Matthew, running along a snow-covered path, running so hard his paws bled—
We crossed the river, Kyle and I making our way slowly over slick rocks, and even Karin choosing her steps with care. I’d hoped to cut through the forest and so gain some time, but the ground was too slippery. We followed the path toward Clayburn.
Elin watching Clayburn’s houses burn, her hand on Ethan’s arm—
Elin turning away from the sound of screaming, the sight of bright flames licking wood. Elin kneeling to throw up in the snow—
Ethan shuddering as if just coming awake, then creeping away from Elin’s side—
The sun rose higher, turning the sky a deep blue. “Stop,” Kyle whispered.
I stopped. “Why?”
Kyle pinched my arm. “That’s why!”
“Hey!”
Kyle giggled. Karin laughed, too. Elin twisted her head to glower at us. Karin shifted the hawk from one fist to the other as we walked on.
Darkness flickered within the ice-sheathed trees. Shadows—the trees hadn’t lost their shadows with the coming of winter after all, any more than the seeds had. They’d merely drawn that last bit of darkness close, as if to hold it safe. I softened my gaze, focusing on the shadows instead of the ice, and the visions came less often.
Hope calling up wind, her hands raised high, her face grim. Only then her hands fell slack, and she smiled—
Mom, standing on Kate’s back porch, looking into the Lady’s cold eyes. “Do to me as you will. I will fear you no longer—”
It was hard not to walk too fast over the treacherous ice.
As we neared Clayburn, Karin paused beside something silver that shone against the ground. Elin’s butterfly, feebly flapping its wings. “You kept it,” Karin whispered as she took the butterfly in one hand. She raised the hawk toward her, but Elin turned away.
“Set it free.” Kyle lifted his chin toward the butterfly. A faint shadow clung to its metal wings.
“If I set it free, it will die.” Karin frowned as she straightened a bent wing tip.
Better to die than to remain helpless, trapped in silver forever. “Where did Elin get such an awful thing?”
“It was a gift.” Karin sighed. “From her mother.” She fastened the clip into her own hair, above her braid.
In Clayburn ice sheathed the burned houses, sheathed, too, the burned bodies around them. Kyle dug his fingernails into my hand. Karin’s steps grew slower, more deliberate—there was anger there. On her shoulder, Elin craned her hawk’s head this way and that, as if so much death were a matter of mere curiosity, as if those deaths weren’t all her fault.
“She says they smell bad,” Kyle whispered.
Karin stroked Elin’s feathers. “I know,” she whispered, though the smell was faint now, decay slowed by the cold and the ice.
I held Kyle’s hand firmly as we turned onto the path away from Clayburn. Tracks broke through the ice: a human foot, a wolf’s paw. Trees creaked around us. Even if spring came, some trees would die beneath this winter ice.
A younger Elin with tears streaming down her cheeks. “Why won’t you allow me to go with you? I do not lack the courage—”
Karin, lips pressed firmly together. “You are too young for this battle, Elianna. I will protect you a time longer, if I can. There is a chance you might survive this War, while I know that I will not—”
Kyle pinched my arm, harder this time. I slipped and fell butt-first onto the ice. Kyle laughed. Karin reached out a hand. I looked up at her as I took it and struggled to my feet. She’d left her daughter, too, left her because of the War, but stayed away to teach human children. I glanced at the hawk on her fist, but Elin’s head was hidden beneath one wing. The other hung awkwardly by her side.
The air grew warmer as the sun edged past noon. Light glinted off a water droplet that hung, half-frozen, from a branch.
Matthew—eyes bright, soot-streaked hair falling into his face—saying, “I’ll go faster alone—”
I focused on setting my feet down on the ice and making sure I didn’t fall again.
Too soon we came to shards of white bone poking through the snow. The ashes of the dead children gave a sickly-gray cast to the ice that covered their remains.
Elin made a strange, strangled sound I’d never heard any bird make. “She’s crying,” Kyle whispered.
Crying wouldn’t bring them back. Elin was responsible for the things she did, too.
We found my pack among the ashes, coated with ice. I pulled out the dried meat within and shared it with the others. Someone—the Lady?—had severed my bowstring. I hesitated—Father had helped me make that bow, and it could be restrung back home—then left it and the pack where they lay. They’d only weigh me down.