Iced

Thirty-Four

I slow-mo Joe it down the corridor cussing Ryodan but keeping it under my breath since he’s walking right next to me.

The new house rules are the biggest pile of BS I ever heard. It’s going to kill me to follow them. Literally result in my death because there’s no way I’ll remember to do everything he wants me to do while also keeping track of everything I’m not allowed to do. In addition to “Report to work at eight every night” is the most offensive rule of all: “You will never leave Chester’s unaccompanied by one of my people again.”

“So, I never get to be alone, like, ever?” I exploded, flabbergasted. “Dude, I need my private time.” I been alone most of my life. Too many people in my personal space start to chafe me after a while. I get edgy and weird. And tired, too, like they wear me out just being there. I have to get off by myself, or be with one person like Dancer to recharge.

He didn’t answer me.

Another one that really gets me is that I’m supposed to never question or argue with him in public! I’m going to be dead by morning. Only way I have a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding there is if I start wearing a muzzle or cut out my own tongue.

“You can say anything you want to me in private,” he said. “Which is way the fuck more than I permit anyone else.”

“I don’t want no private time with you.”

“Too bad,” he said. “Plan on a lot of it.”

“Why do you dick with me? Why don’t you just forget about me and let me live my life.” It’s weird to think he’s been watching me since I was nine. I never even noticed him. He’s noticed me probably more than anybody else ever has, including my mom.

Again, he doesn’t answer.

I walk with him to the end of a hallway on the third floor. He stops at a glass panel that’s smoked black and pulls a cloth hood out of his pocket. When he reaches for me, I duck back and say, “You’re kidding, right?”

He just looks at me until I snatch the hood from his hand, put it on myself, and let him guide me by an arm.

I suffer the indignity of being blinded in silence, and focus on absorbing every detail I can. I count steps. I sniff through the heavy fabric. I listen hard. When we get on an elevator and go down, I count seconds so I can figure out what floor he’s taking me to when I finally get some time alone, and I will. He can’t have someone on me every second of every day. He’ll get tired of it. I need to get back to Dancer! I need to talk to Ryodan about getting samples but when I brought up the Ice Monster he told me to stow it.

When we arrive at our destination and he pulls the hood off, I’m floored to see Ryodan’s got his own War Room, and of course it’s top-of-the-line, technological perfection, and makes ours look stupid! Once again I’m jealous. There are computers everywhere. CPUs and monitors and keyboards and I don’t know what half the stuff in the room is, and I know a lot. Dancer would go crazy in here!

He’s got a map up, too, but unlike our paper one, his is electronic, on a glass panel suspended from the ceiling, about twenty feet wide and ten feet tall. It’s something out of a futuristic movie. It’s got lots of lines and dots and triangulated areas marked out in different colors.

“Sit.”

I drop down in a chair behind an enormous slab table that faces the map. There are nine chairs at the table. I wonder how long this room has been here, how many centuries these dudes who don’t seem to be able to die have sat in this room and plotted things. I wonder what kind of things guys like them plot. Coups? Economic catastrophes? World wars?

“So, Barrons is alive, too,” I fish.

“Yes.”

“Dude, what the feck? I don’t know what your superpower is, but I want whatever you’ve got.”

“You think.”

“I know.”

“You don’t even know what it is. Yet you’d take it sight unseen.”

“To, like, never die? Fecking-A I would!”

“And if there’s a price.”

“Dude, we’re talking immortality. There ain’t no price too high!”

He gives me a faint smile. “Ask me again when you’re older.”

“Huh?” I say. “Really? When I’m older I can have whatever you got? Like, how much older? Fifteen?”

“I didn’t say you could have it. I said you could ask me. And no, not fifteen.”

“Dude, give me a little hope here.”

“I just did.”

He taps something in on a remote device and all the sudden I’m not looking at Dublin on the grid anymore. He’s zoomed out and I’m seeing a map of surrounding countries. There are dots pegged in England, Scotland, France, Germany, Spain, Poland, Romania, and Greece. He zooms out farther and I see two in Morocco and one in Norway.

I let out a low whistle, horrified. Dancer and me were only seeing the little picture. “There’s more than one Ice Monster.”

“Not necessarily. I think if there was more than one, we’d be hearing reports of it all over the world and we’re not. So far, it’s confined to this region.”

“I need samples from Faery and the first place it iced in Chester’s.”

“Elaborate.”

“Dancer and me went through all the evidence. There’s iron in every bag and—”

“No.”

“You didn’t let me finish.”

“I don’t have to. Iron has nothing to do with it.”

“How can you know that?”

“Because there’s not a single drop of iron anywhere in or near Chester’s.”

“Well, what the feck is this place built from?”

“Irrelevant. Besides,” he says, “if it was after iron, it would have taken the cages at Dublin Castle and it didn’t. It iced the place and vanished. We’ve been studying the map and scenes for weeks. There’s no pattern, no commonality. I put my best man on it, a linchpin pro. He can’t find a tipping point, sees no order in this chaos.”

“Who’s your linchpin pro?” I want to talk to him. I’m fascinated by linchpin theory. If you know where to make the dominoes start toppling, you own the dominoes! Of course, Ryodan doesn’t answer that question either so I tell him Dancer’s theory about salt water and whales and that maybe it’s drawn by something because it’s looking for something else.

“Possible. But not iron.”

“You dudes been hosting fairies for, like, millennia, haven’t you? That’s the only reason for a place like this having no iron!”

“There are other things that don’t like iron. Not just Fae. A smart person might find a lot of things missing in Chester’s.” A faint smile plays at his lips, and I almost get the idea he’s challenging me to figure something out.

“Dude, if I’m stuck here long enough, I will.” I gesture at the map. “Show me Dublin again.” When he resets the map, I say, “I need the remote.”

He punches numbers in on it, no doubt locking systems off from me, then hands it over.

“Let me stare at the map a while.”

When he leaves, he locks me in.

I’m still staring hours later, no closer to an epiphany, when I start smelling the most fecking awesome smell in the world. I try to concentrate on the map but I can’t. I shove a candy bar in my mouth. It tastes like Styrofoam. I haven’t smelled fresh-cooked beef in longer than I can remember. I never got it at the abbey! Somewhere in Chester’s, some spoiled person is feasting. My mouth fills with saliva. I slide down in my chair, drop my head back and inhale real deep and slow, making lip-smacking noises, pretending I’m the lucky recipient. I smell all kinds of spices! I think whatever the meat is, it’s accompanied by mashed potatoes and some kind of greens. I smell garlic, salt and pepper, butter! I smell onion and oregano and rosemary! It’s almost enough to make me cry, thinking about that kind of food. I’m beyond sick of candy bars and protein bars and canned stuff. I’m so home-cooked-meal starved that not even my chocolate Pop-Tarts hit the spot like they used to.

When the door slides open and Lor comes in, pushing a cart like you see in hotels for room service, I just sit there and stare, thinking: Is this a new way to torture me? I don’t move a muscle. I’m not going to make an idiot of myself. Ryodan’s probably on his way to eat in front of me just to make me suffer.

Lor rolls the cart to a stop a few inches from the toes of my shoes. I have to grip the arms of my chair so I don’t jump out of it and attack whatever’s in those covered dishes.

“Boss says eat.”

He takes the lid off the biggest plate and sure enough there’s meat sizzling like it just came off a grill with a side of mashed potatoes, plus a mixed veggie medley! There’s a bowl with bread, hot from the oven. And butter! I almost expire from the sheer excitement of it. Like, the real stuff and a whole carafe of milk! It’s the most beautiful sight I think I’ve ever seen. I stare, holding my breath.

“You’re scrawny,” he adds.

“That’s for me?” I say wonderingly. I still don’t move. It’s got to be a trick. The meat is a rib-eye steak, perfectly marbled. It’s thick and has grill marks on it and looks like it’s cooked to perfection. I’ve only ever had it twice in my life. Once when Mom got engaged — it didn’t work, the dude ditched her, they all did eventually — and another time when she got a new job that she thought would get us out of Ireland for good if she saved everything she made for three years. She got fired after a month and cried herself to sleep every night for weeks. I think she thought if she could just get us out of Ireland, everything would be easier. I know other sidhe-seer families ran. Mac’s did.

Lor nods.

I’m out of the chair and on the cart in fast-mo.

“Kid, slow down. You might want to taste it.”

My hands shake when I pick up the fork. I go straight for the steak, slicing a big chunk off. The first bite explodes in my mouth, full of meaty juices and sheer succulent beefy perfection. I slump back into my chair and close my eyes, chewing slowly, delicately milking it for every single taste. I fork up a pile of fluffy mashed potatoes and they’re fecking heaven! The bread is tender and warm inside, crusty outside, and kissed with rosemary just like Mom’s. I wonder who cooks around here. I wonder where their kitchen is. I’m going to rob them blind if I find it. I slather butter on the bread then lick it off and slather more. I pour a long cool drink of milk down my gullet. I force myself to count to five between each drink and bite. It occurs to me I’ve never seen Ryodan eat. He probably pigs out in private. Probably eats steak and milk every day!

“The snow’s piling up and the temperature’s dropping,” Lor says. “People are lined up for five blocks, trying to get inside. Generators and gas have gotten scarce. People are freezing to death. It’s June in Dublin. Who’d fucking believe it?”

I chew reverently, listening to him and staring at nothing. “Maybe it’s not after an element like iron or something. Maybe it’s after a feeling. Maybe someone was having sex at every scene, or … eating at every scene, or fighting or praying or … something.”

“Doesn’t hold water. There was no life at the steeple.”

I knew that. I just forgot for a sec. “So we’re back to the inanimate.”

“Looks like.”

All too soon my meal is over. I’ve got the best taste ever on my tongue. I won’t eat again until I absolutely have to, and I’m not about to brush my teeth for a while. I want to relish the residue from my taste buds till there’s nothing left. I may never get this kind of a meal again. After I sop up every drop of beef juice with the last few bites of bread, Lor takes the cart and leaves.

I could almost pass out from the overload of rich food. Digesting it stupefies me for a while and I stretch out on the floor, staring up at the map.

I can’t shake the feeling that I’m still not seeing the big picture. I’m lying here, staring at an enormous map, and I know there’s something about these scenes I’m missing or reading wrong. I can feel it. Like Dancer, I get hunches and I listen to them. Used to be, when I was little, I couldn’t concentrate because of all the things I could hear around me. When Ro took me in, she taught me to plug my ears, shut out the din and focus. Old witch passed on a few good things but they’ll never counter all the evil she did.

I dig earplugs out of my backpack. Dancer made them for me out of some kind of stuff that absorbs noise way better than the standard plugs. I wedge them in, tune out the world, and begin sorting through my facts.

One: It’s not after iron. There’s none at Chester’s. I need to get that info to Dancer ASAP.

Two: It’s not after life force because one of the scenes had no life forms and I seriously doubt a mouse would be enough.

Three: Dirt, metal, and plastic are the only physical elements all the scenes had in common.

I start mentally rebuilding every scene I visited, labeling and depositing them in one of the more readily accessible drawers in my brain’s filing cabinet, right next to where Dancer and me play chess sometimes without a board. It’s an important part of your brain to exercise if you want to stay sharp. Being smart is handy, but if you aren’t mentally agile, it doesn’t get you anywhere but stuck in your own fact-ruts.

First up is the subclub. There were over a hundred humans and Fae engaged in various social and sexual activities. I visualize the room in detail, from the torture racks to the sofas, the sexual couplings to the band that was playing in the corner, the food that was on a table, the tapestries and mirrors on the walls. I look for something in the club that I can easily spot at every other scene. Maybe it’s hunting for a tapestry or a special mirror. It sounds stupid, but who can say what might draw a creature like that? Maybe it was cursed and it needs some hallowed Fae object to free itself. You never know with the Fae.

Next up is the warehouse that got iced, populated only by Unseelie and filled with crates and boxes of guns. What was in this place that was also in the club? No tapestries or mirrors that I saw, but maybe there was one in a crate somewhere behind all the audio equipment and electronics.

Then there were two underground pubs with the usual stuff: wood bar, bottles, drinks, stools, a huge mirror behind the bar, folks dancing, a few shooting pool in the corner of one place, playing darts in the other. The wood could have come from anywhere: the stools, the bar, the framed pictures on the walls, the floor. The plastic also could have come from anything: bottle toppers, chairs, plates, phones, the list goes on and on.

The fitness center had three people in a building filled with treadmills and ellipticals and all kinds of weight machines and twenty or so of those milky-crystal meditation bowls. I guess the wood at that scene must have come from the framing of the building. I go back and begin mentally breaking down the structure of each scene, too, so I can add all that stuff into the mix.

“This is impossible,” I mutter. It’s worse than looking for a needle in a haystack. I’m looking for a dozen needles in dozens of different haystacks that are no longer even there because they all exploded. It could be after a red Solo cup for all I know! Do they have red Solo cups in Morocco?

I go through the rest of the scenes and realize I need more info on the ones that happened while I was gone in order to visualize them. Ryodan might have a kick-ass War Room but Dancer’s got lists already put together.

Too bad I’m locked in.

I look at the door. I don’t remember hearing Lor lock it. Lor likes to stir things up, keep them hopping.

I freeze-frame over to it, test the knob and grin.

“Dani, I don’t think this is a good idea,” Jo says.

“He said I couldn’t leave without one of his people. Listening to you talk, you and him are, like, peas in the Jo-pod. That makes you one of his people. Are you or aren’t you? ’Cause the way I figure it, if the dude’s banging you every day and doesn’t consider you one of his people, you’re not just getting screwed, you’re stupid.” I hate manipulating Jo. When her heart’s involved, it’s way too easy. And her heart’s dangling off her sleeve where Ryodan’s concerned. “Dude, you been outside lately?” I push. We have to go now. It took me twenty minutes to find my way back to the main part of Chester’s from the War Room. I got a bad feeling Ryodan doesn’t plan to leave me alone in there too long, with all those computers. I wouldn’t. If I really was stuck in there, that’s what I’d be messing with right now, trying to hack into his systems. “The world is falling apart. Folks are dying! I just want to run a quick errand. That’s all. One tiny little errand. It won’t hardly take any time at all.”

“I’ll go ask him if it’s okay first.”

“You got any idea where he is? ’Cause I ain’t seen him in hours. Isn’t it morning? Did he come to the top of the stairs yet? Is he still summoning you that way for a quickie over his desk, or have you graduated to, like, getting banged in a bed and everything? What’s he got, some kind of progressive ranking system? If you last a whole week, you get to do it in a chair, and if you make it two—”

“Now you’re just being mean,” she says. “Stop it.”

“Just saying. I’d like to see you get some real romance, Jo. You deserve it. You’re the prettiest girl in here and everybody’d love to date you. Do you know he has steak and milk and bread and stuff? I had the best meal today. Does he feed you like that?”

She tries to mask her surprise but doesn’t succeed. “Isn’t he still mad at you?”

“Don’t look like it from where I’m sitting.”

“Steak?”

I lick my lips, still tasting it. “Rib eye.”

“Milk?”

“Dude.” I nod. “Look, all I want to do is run by Dancer’s and get the lists.”

“He really gave you steak and milk today?”

I’d laugh but it’s sad. We’re all so fecking hungry for a home-cooked meal. When spring started to green things up out at the abbey, the girls started talking about growing veggies again. All the produce was gone within a month of the walls falling. If you want to bake something, you have to run a generator to power the oven. Either that or have whatever the feck kind of setup Ryodan’s got here at Chester’s, and even then you can only bake stuff that doesn’t require butter or milk or eggs. Jo’s almost as upset that he gave me good food as she is about him not romancing her.

“I’d call and ask Dancer to courier it over but, dude, no phones and no couriers. Can we just go? We’ll be back before anybody knows we’re gone. And if you and Ryodan really are a ‘thing,’ he ain’t going to give you any guff. He’s going to appreciate a woman with a little spine and independence!” Yeah, right. Ryodan despises spine and independence. He likes good little robots.

“Did he give you anything else?”

If I was having sex with somebody and they gave someone besides me awesome food, I’d be ten kinds of furious. The way I see it, intimacy should entitle you to privileges. If it don’t, it’s just skintimacy like on TV with folks always swapping partners and hurting each other. “Fresh strawberries and ice cream,” I lie.

“Ice cream? Are you kidding me? What kind?”

It’s sleeting when we get outside. Abandoned cars are shiny with a layer of ice. Skeletal trees shimmer like they’re crusted with diamonds. Snowdrifts are piling up. There’s a group of people outside Chester’s but it’s a somber, quiet crowd and I realize these ain’t partiers trying to get inside, these are folks looking to survive what’s coming. I guess all the partiers have already been let in. Wrapped in blankets, wearing hats, earmuffs, and gloves, these are folks that got no generators at home, and the weather has turned dangerously cold, sending them out into the streets to look for a source of heat before it’s too late.

Jo and me look at the folks as we pass.

“Let us in,” they say. “We just want to get warm.”

You can tell there’s heat in the club — and a lot of it — because the area above Chester’s is bare of accumulation. The pavement is an underinsulated roof, and the heat radiating up keeps melting the snow. Even that nominal sign of warmth is enough to keep folks standing around, hoping, waiting.

There’s old people here, with nothing to trade for food or drink or the privilege of hanging at Chester’s. The big, brawny human bouncers Ryodan uses outside the club turn them back at the door, and a crowd has moved into the snow-free ruin of stone and wood that used to be the club aboveground. They got fires going in cans. They’ve gathered wood from surrounding buildings and piled it up. They look like they plan to stay a good long while. Like until they get let in. They look too defeated to fight. A cluster has begun to sing “Amazing Grace.” Before long fifty voices lift in song.

“Maybe you could talk some sense into your ‘boyfriend’ and get him to let those folks inside,” I say.

“I will,” she says. “Or we could bus them to the abbey.”

“What about WeCare? Don’t they fecking care? Aren’t they supposed to be giving away generators left and right?”

“Even if they are,” Jo says, “some of these people are too old to get out and hunt down enough gas to keep one running. You’ve been gone for weeks. A lot changed in that time. The weather is all anybody talks about anymore. Making it through last winter wasn’t as hard because the stores were all still stocked and the nights were mild. But supplies have been wiped out. We didn’t expect winter in June. All the generators are gone. People are changing. They’re fighting each other to survive. We need a long warm summer to give us enough time to grow and stockpile food before winter comes again. We need to get out and hunt for supplies in other towns.”

“They’re going to die, Jo. If we don’t stop the Hoar Frost King, we’re going to lose the other half of our world.” I look back at the crowd huddled around the fire cans above Chester’s. A mom is helping her kids get closer to one of the barrels so they can rub their hands together over the flames. Old folks that look too frail to be hiking through this ice and snow watch the kids with weary eyes that have seen three-quarters of a century of change but never anything like what’s been happening since last Halloween. Men that look like they were office workers at desk jobs before the walls fell hold the perimeter, encircling the women, kids, and old folks. They’re all displaced now. No jobs. No paychecks. None of the rules they used to live by. They look exhausted. Desperate. It fecking slays me. They’ve moved on to a new song, another hymn. Folks need faith in times like these. You can’t give somebody faith. They either got it or they don’t. But you sure can try to give them hope.

She gives me a bleak look. “If there was ever a time for you to dazzle us with your brilliance, it’s now.”

“I’m working on it. But I need stuff. Let’s go. We’ll make it back before anybody even knows we’re gone.”

We turn and begin walking down the street. I’m going to have to leave her aboveground. I’m not about to give away Dublin-down’s secrets. But I’ll take her as close as I can and leave her someplace sheltered. The snow crunches beneath my boots twice, as I sink through snow then ice, snow then ice. I hear Jo going through three layers because she weighs more than me. The sky is white with thick flakes swirling down in a dizzying display if you look up at them too long. They melt on my face, the only part of me exposed. We raided Chester’s coatroom before we left, bundling in layers, tugging on hats and mittens and boots. If this weather keeps up, we could end up with ten feet of ice and drifts in the next day or two and it will totally shut the city down. Folks that didn’t think to come out somewhere for warmth will freeze, snowed into their hidey-holes. If the sun doesn’t start shining soon, this stuff’ll never melt. It’ll just keep piling. Time is getting more critical with each passing day. I can’t believe I lost almost a whole month in the White Mansion with Christian! Speaking of which, I look around warily, checking all the rooftops, making sure the Hag isn’t sitting on one of them, knitting away, or worse, getting ready to swoop down on us. The crazy blood and guts bitch creeps me out. I shiver. “We need to freeze-frame, Jo. Take my hand.”

She gives me a look like I’m deranged. “There’s no way you’re doing that to me! Especially not on ice. Half your face is a bruise and the other half is recovering from one. Have you looked in a mirror lately?”

“That ain’t because I’m a sloppy freeze-framer. It’s because of stupid jerk-ass Ryodan.”

“Stupid jerk-ass Ryodan is going to break both your legs if you take one more step,” Ryodan says right behind us.

I whirl on him. “Why are you always stalking me?”

“You’re always making me.”

“How do you keep finding me?” Do I have a blinking beacon on my forehead that sends a signal straight to him every time I disobey an order? I refuse to believe since he bit me, he can track me wherever I go. That’s a suffocating thought. It’s wrong and unfair.

“Get back inside. Now.”

“You didn’t find me in the White Mansion.” A lightbulb goes off in my head. I been busy with other worries, or I’d have clued into it sooner. “You can’t track me in Faery!” That’s why he was so mad. I almost punch air I’m so happy. I have a safety zone. If I ever need to hide from him, Faery’s the place to go. “And you’re the one who’s always making me do stuff that makes me have to do other stuff that ain’t what you want me to do. It’s not my fault. I’m just reacting to you.”

“There’s your first mistake. Learn to act, kid.”

“I am acting. I’m trying to do something about our problems.”

“And you, Jo,” he says soft, “you should have known better.”

“Leave her out of this,” I say.

“She helped you disobey me.”

“She did not. ’Cause, see, I didn’t disobey you. You said I could leave with one of ‘your people.’ You’re boinking her every day, and if that doesn’t make her one of your people then you need to quit boinking her. Either she is or she ain’t, and you can’t have it both ways. You don’t get to have sex with folks then discount them. So. Is Jo one of your people? Or just another piece of booty in your endless lineup?”

“Dani, stop it,” Jo warns.

“Feck no, I’m not stopping it.” I’m so pissed, I’m vibrating. “He doesn’t deserve you and you deserve so much better!” It doesn’t help that behind Ryodan the fire-can folks have switched songs again and are now booming out a rousing rendition of “Hail Glorious St. Patrick,” clapping their hands and banging on cans with pieces of wood, getting all rambunctious. The louder they sing, the hotter my temper gets. “He’s always pushing everybody else around but nobody ever calls him out on the carpet. I say it’s way past time. Either you matter to him or you don’t, and he needs to say which one it is. I want to know which one it is.”

“She matters,” Ryodan says.

Jo looks stunned.

It pisses me off even more. She’s looking all dreamy-eyed and in love again. Anybody can see she ain’t his type. “You liar, she does not!”

“Dani, stow it,” Jo says.

I know him. I know how he tricked me. He’s splitting verbal hairs. Of course she matters. But he didn’t say “to me.” She matters to the club, for mercenary reasons, because she’s a waitress. “Does she, like, matter to you emotionally? Do you love her?”

“Dani, stop it right now!” Jo says, horrified. To Ryodan she says, “Don’t answer her. I’m sorry. Just ignore her. This is so embarrassing.”

“Answer me,” I say to Ryodan. The hymn folks are really rocking it now, dancing and swaying, and I’m almost having to yell to be heard. But that’s okay. I feel like yelling.

“For fuck’s sake,” Ryodan growls over his shoulder, “can’t they go sing somewhere else.”

“They want in,” I say. “They’re going to die on your doorstep because you’re too much of a prick to save them.”

“The world is not my responsibility.”

“Obviously.” I put twenty kinds of verbal condemnation in the single word.

“She just wanted to find Dancer,” Jo says. “I think it’s important. Sometimes you have to trust her.”

“Do you love her?” I push.

Jo groans likes she’s going to die of embarrassment. “Oh God, Dani, shut up!”

I expect him to scoff at me, say something bullying, throw an insult back in my face, but he just says, “Define love.”

I stare straight into those clear, cool eyes. There’s some kind of challenge there. I don’t get this dude. But the definition he wants is easy. I had a lot of time in a cage to think about it. I saw a TV show once that gave the perfect definition, and I say it to him now: “The active caring and concern for the health and well-being of another person’s body and heart. Active. Not passive.” In a nutshell, you remember that person all the time. You never forget them. You factor their existence into yours every single hour of every single day. No matter what you’re doing. And you never leave them locked up somewhere to die.

“Think about what that entails,” he says. “Providing food. Shelter. Protection from one’s enemies. A place to rest and heal.”

“You forgot about the heart part. But I didn’t expect anything else. ’Cause you ain’t got one. All you got are rules. Oh, and yeah, more rules.”

Jo says, “Dani, can we just—”

Ryodan cuts her off. “Those rules keep people alive.”

Jo tries again. “Look, guys, I think—”

“Those rules strangle folks who need to breathe,” I say, talking right over her. Nobody’s listening to her anyway.

All the sudden he has me by the collar, hanging in the air, my feet dangling off the ground, our noses touching.

“By your own definition,” he says, “you don’t love anyone either. An argument could be made that you only ever do one of three things to the people closest to you: make enemies of them, kill the people they love, or get them killed. Careful. You’re on thinner ice than you’ve ever been with me.”

“Because I’m asking if you love Jo?” I say coolly, like I’m not hanging helpless by my shirt. Like he didn’t just take a mean shot at me below the belt.

“It’s not your business, Dani,” Jo says. “I can take care of my—”

“Pull your head out of your ass and see the world,” Ryodan says.

“I do see the world,” I say. “I see it better than most folks and you know it. Put me down.”

“—self just fine.” Jo is sounding kind of pissed now, too.

“And for that very reason, you’re blinder than most,” Ryodan says.

“That doesn’t make sense. Still dangling here, dude.” I try to toe the ground by pointing my foot but I think I’m a few feet above it.

“You don’t see the forest for the trees.”

“Ain’t no forest. Shades ate it. Let me go. You don’t get to just dangle folks in the air when you feel like it.”

He drops me so abruptly I stumble on the ice and almost fall, but he catches me and puts me back on my feet. I shake his hand off my arm.

“There doesn’t need to be love,” Jo says. “Sometimes it’s not about that.”

“Then you shouldn’t be boinking him!”

“It’s my own business who I boink,” Jo says.

“I don’t ‘boink’ anyone. I fuck,” Ryodan says.

“Thank you for that much-needed clarification,” I say with saccharine pissiness. “Hear that, Jo? You get fucked by him. Not even the decency of a boinking. Screwed. Plain and simple.” I’m beyond irate. I’m seeing through a red haze. The fecking fire-can folks are singing so loud they’re hampering my ability to think straight. I want Dancer. Ryodan drives me insane. Jo’s a hopeless case. Dublin’s dying.

I can’t stand things anymore so I punch Ryodan in the nose.

We all kind of freeze for a second and even I can’t believe I just hauled off and decked Ryodan with no warning and no real provocation. At least no more than he’s always giving me.

Then Ryodan manacles my arm and starts dragging me back toward Chester’s, looking madder than I ever seen him, but Jo gets my other arm, trying to make him stop, yelling at him and yelling at me. I’m slipping and skidding on the ice, trying to get them both off me.

We stumble across snowdrifts, fighting each other, when all the sudden the day gets foggy and I can’t hear a sound any of us are making. My mouth’s moving and nothing’s coming out. I can’t hear the fire-can folks either. I can’t even hear my breath in my ears. Panic compresses my chest.

Me and Ryodan look at each other and have a moment of perfect communion like me and Dancer do sometimes. No words necessary. We’re made of the same stuff. In battle there’s nobody else I’d rather be hanging with. Not even Christian or Dancer.

I grab Ryodan and he grabs me and we sandwich Jo between us.

Then we freeze-frame the hell out of there like the devil is on our heels.

Or more precisely, the Hoar Frost King.