The tide of wind was a roar, and Bear had to shout, “You will die before you reach it! Promise me you will not try!”
“I will find you!” She was not losing him. Not now, not like this.
Swarming faster, the water-wind swept Bear off the bed. He hung in the air like an angel ascending. “If you love me, let me go. Please, Cassie, keep yourself safe, keep our baby safe.”
She jumped to her feet and wrapped her arms around his waist. “No!”
“Cassie, promise me! Think of the baby!”
She didn’t want a baby; she wanted him! She couldn’t lose him! Pulled upward, he slipped through her arms. She squeezed his knees as the wind lifted him higher. His head reached the canopy, and the ice melted around him like meringue. His shoulders passed through it, then his chest, his waist, his thighs. Cassie’s head hit the canopy—solid. “No! Come back!” His knees slipped through her arms. She clutched his ankles. “No!”
He disappeared through the canopy, and Cassie fell. She bounced on the silken sheets, and her head smacked backward into the bedpost.
Everything went black.
PART 2
East of the Sun and West of the Moon
CHAPTER 15
Latitude 91° 00’ 00” N
Longitude indeterminate
Altitude 15 ft.
Cassie woke cold. Shivering on the silken sheets, she massaged the lump on the back of her skull. For several seconds, she wondered why she had slept on top of the sheets, why she was cold, and why her head ached. Then she heard the dripping.
She leaned down from the bed and picked her flashlight up off the floor, then shined it on the bedpost. The post glistened with a fresh sheen of water. Droplets ran down the spiral. The canopy dripped as if it were crying. It cannot melt. Not so long as I am here.
Bear was gone.
The bed was melting.
“Oh, no,” she said.
Cassie vaulted out of bed; her bare feet hit ice. Cold shot up her legs, and she grabbed the bedpost. It was a wet icicle. She snatched her hand back. Cold! She ran to her pack and shed her nightshirt. Limp on the floor, the silk soaked in meltwater. Cassie bundled on flannels and wools. She could have woken with hypothermia. She could have woken with hypothermia and a concussion. I could have not woken at all, she thought.
She heard a sudden snap like a rifle shot—the snap of cracked ice. That sounded like it came from a wall, she thought. And then she heard a sound like a thousand windows breaking.
Oh, God, it wasn’t just the bedroom that was melting. It was the castle. The castle was melting. She had to get out of here—out of the bedroom, out of the castle, out into the Arctic.
Out into the Arctic, but… She didn’t have a choice, she told herself. She had to leave now. Heart thudding faster, she pulled on her full gear: parka, mukluks, gaiters. She’d kept her pack prepared for her trips with Bear, so it took only a few precious seconds to lift the pack onto her back—but with each second, the shotgun sound of cracking ice crescendoed. Securing the pack, she hurried into the hall.
In the hall, it was worse. Cracks raced through the ice walls. Meltwater ran in rivers. Run, run, run! her mind shouted at her. Cassie skidded down the hallway, and the flashlight’s beam swept over dripping walls and ceiling. Gripping the wet banister, she sidestepped down the waterfall stairs. Rumbling shook the floor. Please, don’t let it collapse, she thought. With the ceiling and the spires, thousands of pounds of ice were above her. Catching her balance at the bottom of the stairs, she ran through the banquet hall.
Chandeliers clanked as the banquet hall shook. Shards fell and splashed into an inch of water. A caribou sculpture toppled. Chunks of ice scattered across the banquet hall. Cassie shielded her face. A chandelier plummeted from the ceiling. When the chandelier crashed down, shards flew like shrapnel.
Cassie ran through the water. Faster, faster! Her pack pounded on her back. Frescoes peeled from the walls, and statues tumbled from alcoves. She dodged chunks of falling ice.
Buttresses shook. Pillars crumbled. Overhead, the vaulted ceiling fractured. Plumes of ice filled the air in a thick haze. She sprinted for the crystal lattice gate as the floor heaved. She scrambled over the cracks.
The splintered gate rained daggers of ice. Covering her head, Cassie plunged through it. Ice spikes hit her arms and her neck. Screaming, she burst out the other side. Her pack slammed her tailbone.
Outside, the topiary garden melted. Faces ran into puddles. Limbs fell. Undercut by running water, the sculptures collapsed. Cassie ran for the outer wall. Half of it had fallen.
It was as if a giant were ripping the castle apart. With deafening cracks like an iceberg calving, spires split from the walls and crashed to the ground. Cassie fell forward as the ground bucked. Keep moving, she thought. Must keep moving! She splashed in meltwater, and then she scrambled to her feet while, Jericho-like, the walls came tumbling down.
She scrambled over the remnants of the blue outer wall. Behind her, she heard gushing, like a dam released. Run! A mammoth waterfall crashed down from the parapets. It drowned the topiary garden.
Snow cycloned, and ice pelted her face and arms. Cassie stumbled as the ground shook. Again, she was knocked down. Ice chunks rained down on her like a meteor shower. On her knees, she crawled. She inhaled snow, and tears poured from her eyes as the ice pelted her.
And then suddenly, it was still.
Curled on the ground, Cassie panted. Her muscles were as tense as fists. She heard running water. Ice tinkled. She tried to open her eyes and could not. The tears had frozen her eyelids shut.
Dammit, she had to see! What had happened? The castle, her home… Was she still too close? She couldn’t run if she couldn’t see which direction to run.
She yanked off her gloves and spat on her fingers. She rubbed the warm saliva on her eyelids. Eyelashes broke. Her hands stiffened in the cold. She scraped until she could crack her eyes open. She blinked furiously and shoved her chilled hands back into the gloves and mitts.
She was surrounded by white. Snow hung in the air, and it was impossible to distinguish between ground and sky. The world was devoid of color. It was as if she had fallen into a bowl of milk. Securing her goggles, she stood and squinted into the whiteout. Where was the castle? Had it fallen? What about the gardens? Slowly, the snow-choked air thinned.
And the polar bears came.
One by one, the white bears walked ghostlike out of the snow. Through the blurred air, they appeared to drift. Close by—too close—one brushed past her. She stiffened, wanting to scream, not daring to scream. Bears were all around her, emerging from the white. She was surrounded, engulfed.
As the snow settled, she saw hundreds coming from all directions. Soon she could see the gardens, now a wasteland of icy spikes. Sniffing the snow, the polar bears wandered through the wreckage, trampling the remnants. Cassie swallowed, a lump in her throat. All of Bear’s beautiful sculptures… And then she saw what was left of her home.
The castle was gone. The buttresses were ice boulders; the walls were icebergs. She began to shake. She could have been crushed. If she had woken a few minutes later… if she had run a little slower… She could have been killed. As long as these walls are standing, nothing here will harm you, Bear had said once. The walls were no longer standing. Her home was destroyed.
And Bear was gone.
She’d lost him. She’d truly lost Bear.
Cassie felt icy knives twisting in her gut. Her husband was gone, her home destroyed, she was thirteen hundred miles north of the station, and she was surrounded by polar bears.