Queen of Frost Page 15

  There had been a time, and it wasn’t even that long ago, when she and Eli had never fought. If they disagreed — which wasn’t terribly uncommon, given how stubborn they both could be — they would’ve moved on to a different topic or found some compromise that suited them both. There had been a time when Ember thought there was nothing that they couldn’t work through.

  And then, at the beginning of the summer, some line had been crossed, some unspoken pact broken. Eli had mentioned love and marriage, and, since then, Ember had begun to see the cracks spreading across their friendship. For the first time, there was a topic they couldn’t touch, a disagreement they could compromise away.

  And now, with the simple motion of pulling her hand out of his, she saw the cracks between them opening into a chasm she wasn’t sure either of them would be able to cross.

  She looked at Eli, forcing herself to meet his eyes — because, if she was going to do this, she deserved to see the hurt it would leave in its wake. Her vision blurred through tears. “I’m sorry, Eli,” she whispered, meaning it. “But I can’t go with you.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ember left the room as quickly as she could without feeling too much like the ice-cold bitch she sensed that she might actually be and scurried down the spiral staircase and out into the street before her regret could catch up with her. She did her best to put Eli’s hurt as far from her mind as she could.

  She couldn’t think about it now. If she did, that sparkling resolve, that shining sense of purpose she had, would vanish, leaving her feeling useless, with no way to bring herself back from the loss.

  The consequences of her decision would have to wait until after she’d seen things through; she knew they would be there, waiting. Eager to pounce when she least expected them. They could wait.

  No one stopped her as she left the building and headed down the street. Somehow, she still kept expecting that there would be, that at some point, someone would have to finally decide that she had no business out on Frost’s peaceful streets and to go back to her room and wait for a summons like a good little girl. But either someone hadn’t hadn’t had the time or the power to put someone to the task, or nobody really cared.

  She wasn’t sure which option was worse.

  The lights came on as she hurried down the street, flickering once or twice as the electricity passed into the bulb and then steadied. She paused for a moment to admire the seeming magic of it, then shook herself and continued on.

  It was science, not magic. She knew about electricity, even if she wasn’t clear on exactly how it worked. There were machines somewhere in the city that produced the electricity, just the same as there were machines making the force field that shimmered faintly blue in the waning twilight. Just because something was hard to understand didn’t mean it was magic.

  She hesitated then, unsure of what her next steps should be. If she spent any time fetching Felix, would that interrupt the resolve she’d finally found in knowing what she was supposed to do?

  Maybe. But she’d promised him that they would fly over the wall together. He was just as invested in what he’d see on the other side as she was, and she didn’t feel like she could deny him that.

  Ember turned down a few more blocks and eventually onto Felix’s street. His apartment was above the place with the sign that read Alabaster Trading Co.

  A stray thought crossed her mind as she took the stairs up from the Alabaster Trading Co. If Frost was the edge of the world, who was Alabaster trading with? It wasn’t Dusk — there was nothing to trade in Dusk.

  She doubted anyone in Frost even bothered to ask such questions. It was that, that lack of curiosity, that kept the queen able to control and lie to them all.

  No one stopped her as she went up to the top floor where Felix lived, not even to ask what she was doing strolling into a building that anyone on the street must know wasn’t her own place.

  Maybe they assumed it was. Maybe Frost was big enough, populated enough, that no random person walking down the street would know who did and did not belong in any particular building. The idea was strangely comforting, given the fact that she was trying to be at least somewhat illicit.

  The door at the top of the stairs, Felix’s door, was cracked open a few finger-widths, the top hinge a bit bent so the latch didn’t fit correctly into place.

  Suspicion burned through Ember’s core. Had someone forced the door? The suspicions turned almost immediately to worry. If the hinge was bent recently by someone forcing open the door, maybe she shouldn’t go in.

  But if there was someone in there, someone worrisome enough to force a closed door with enough strength to bend a hinge, maybe she needed to go in. Maybe Felix was in trouble.

  Ember tapped on the door with the back of one finger. It was a compromise that felt almost cowardly — if Felix needed her help, if there was someone inside who shouldn’t be there, surely announcing herself was the least smart of her options. But if the bent hinge was just a bent hinge, the slightly opened door only opened because Felix or his father hadn’t shut the door more carefully, then her bursting in expecting a fight would be unspeakably rude.

  The moment of silence that followed her timid knock felt like it lasted a lifetime, but then, thankfully, she heard footsteps and saw through the gap between the door and the frame a splash of fire-red hair. Felix opened the door a moment after that.

  “Ember,” he said like he was surprised to see her. “What are you doing here?”

  “I thought…” She began, but then hesitated, unsure. What was she doing there? She’d known when she left her room, but now that she was being asked, she couldn’t quite remember why it had felt so important, so right, to come. “Can I come in?”

  Felix glanced over his shoulder, the same sort of quick, furtive look he gave when he was checking them for a tail. “Um … if you want to.”

  She looked over his shoulder as well. The apartment, at least what she could see of it, was empty. “Should I not? Maybe we can take this to the cathedral?”

  “No. No, it’s fine. Come in.” He stepped back and opened the door wider in invitation.

  She went in, but the moment of hesitation and the way he hadn’t yet smiled, as though he didn’t really want her here, raised her antenna again.

  It was an old saying, apparently common Before, when things like antennae existed. She wasn’t sure why she thought of it now, except that it felt right. People raised their antennae when they thought there was something they needed to hear, a signal that was going out across the air that might pertain to them. You raised your antenna, and you got a message.

  Ember felt her own antenna going up, waiting for whatever message Felix had for her and already certain that, whatever it was, it wasn’t going to be good news.

  He led her into the apartment. It was much bigger than her own, a central room with many doors — not quite as many as the living quarters of the palace, but not a lot fewer, either. The central room was wide open, studded with places to sit and tables covered in messy piles of paper. White tile floors decorated with small, patterned carpets. The ever-present glass wall on the far side.

  She looked out the wall toward the palace. Though she now towered over the street, being five floors up as she was, she still couldn’t see all the way out. The height made her dizzy; when Felix sat on one of the dull red chairs in the room and motioned for her to take the other, faintly yellow chair beside it, she was glad to get off her newly-liquid knees and not have to look down at the roof of the building directly across the street.

  “Is there something you wanted?” Felix asked after a moment. He was sitting on the very edge of his chair, his feet flat on the floor and his legs bunched up beneath him like he thought he might need to jump up at a moment’s notice.

  Ember felt herself echoing the position. He still hadn’t smiled, not even once, and his eyes kept straying away from her and flickering toward the front door, now fully shut, and then making quick circuits around the
room before he seemed to recall himself and focus again on her. “I think it’s time we go,” she said after the silence got so heavy as to be oppressive.

  “Go?”

  “Over the wall.”

  That brought a smile, but not one of the warm, genuine ones she expected from him. This one was tight, too big, like something a doll might offer. “How do you plan to do that?”

  “The copter.” She followed his next circuit around the room, wondering what he was looking for. “I thought tonight, but now I don’t think we should wait.”

  Another long moment of painful silence. The new false smile didn’t drop off Felix’s face. “Is this about…” He hesitated; the smile flickered. He had to reach for it again, hard. “What you wanted to do today?”

  “I—”

  “Because, if it is, you should know: I can’t help you. What you want to do — it’s not possible.”

  “Felix.” She leaned forward, trying to close the distance between them without looking or sounding overly suspicious to whoever he seemed to think was watching or listening to them. Because it struck her, as his eyes made another nervous circuit around the room, that was what was wrong.

  Someone, somewhere, maybe even inside this very apartment, was watching or listening. Waiting for one of them to say something they shouldn’t say, do something they shouldn’t do.

  She couldn’t see them — perhaps they were behind one of the numerous doors set into the walls around them — but she suddenly felt their eyes on her. She’d have to tread carefully.

  “We’ve been working so hard.”

  He shook his head. “It won’t work. There’s nothing to see. Just forget about it.”

  “I can’t.” She felt that tugging, deep down inside her, pulling at her, begging her to follow. “It’s not just about … that. It’s Eli, too.”

  There. She said it. The reason it had to be now, why she couldn’t let herself get talked out of it under any circumstances.

  Felix’s eyebrows pulled down into a frown, and while Ember didn’t think Felix’s face was meant for frowning, at least it was better than that doll smile. “What’s wrong with Eli?”

  “That’s just it — I don’t know. But he … he’s not himself.”

  That wasn’t close to it by half, but it was the best she could manage without actually saying words that might cause trouble.

  “And you think … that … will help?”

  “It has to. Frost … it’s not good for him.”

  “My father will be home soon,” Felix said, changing the subject with an abruptness that actually threw her a little off balance. He stood. “You should go.”

  Ember stood, too, and followed him to the door. It drooped on the bent hinge, twisting the entire thing askew.

  Ember glanced at the hinge. “When did that happen?”

  Felix shrugged. “It was like this when I came in.”

  She looked at him, eyebrows raised.

  He shook his head. “This hinge has been falling out of place ever since we moved in.”

  That was a lie, but one told very deliberately, to be heard as a lie.

  “Can it be fixed?” She hoped he could hear the question she actually meant underneath the words. Are you okay?

  He looked her straight in the eyes, and his expression did something she couldn’t quite understand, but that suggested he did hear her real concern. “Probably.” Yes. Probably.

  “Should I take a look at it?” Should I stay?

  “No!” He nearly shouted the word, then cleared his throat and tried again, more levelly. “I mean, there’s no need.”

  Ember looked around the apartment again. It was still just as empty as it had appeared this entire time, but she again felt the invisible eyes that must be on them. She needed to get him out of this place, to somewhere safe, before something happened to him.

  The possibility hadn’t occurred to her until this moment, but now that it was in her head, it seemed like a very real threat. It wasn’t just her own hide that could be in trouble — Felix could be, too. Maybe someone was already in the apartment, just waiting for her to leave, before they swapped him out with a mechanical double and brought him who-knew-where to do who-knew-what to him.

  She reached for his hand suddenly, grateful that he didn’t flinch away, and closed her fingers tight around it.

  He squeezed her hand and gave her half a smile — a half-smile that looked nothing short of terribly frightened.

  “Ember—” he began.

  “Let’s go,” she interrupted in a whisper that hopefully wouldn’t carry past his ear. “Please. Before something happens.”

  “I can’t.”

  “It’s not safe here. You know that. Please. I can’t lose you.”

  He blinked, once, twice, as if struggling with the implications of that statement. She hadn’t meant for the words to come out, but they were out now, and she didn’t want to take them back.

  He lifted his free hand and slowly, hesitantly, let the tips of his fingers brush against her cheek. Light as the touch was, Ember felt it down to her bones, down to the deepest part of her that tugged her toward something she didn’t understand.

  She didn’t think that something was him, exactly, but that hardly mattered. He was a part of it. Meant to be there. Meant to be tangled up with whatever that something really was.

  She leaned into the touch and closed her eyes. In the darkness, the sound of her heart thumping madly in her ears was nearly the only thing she could focus on.

  That, and the faint brush of Felix’s fingers against her skin.

  “Please don’t,” he breathed, and he was so close that she could feel the words tickle against her face. “Please. It’s not possible.”

  She opened her eyes. His gaze was fixed on her, expression equal parts worry and pleading.

  And, in that expression, the spell broke.

  Ember pulled away. Felix let his hands drop back to his sides. “You won’t come.”

  “I’m sorry. Ember, please—”

  “No, it’s okay. I understand.”

  “Please don’t. Please, I’m begging you, forget about it. Isn’t Frost enough?”

  This summer, she would’ve said yes. Frost was more than she could ever imagine. A place with food enough that strangers offered people apples just to be friendly, where they built amazing buildings five levels high full of warmth that came from everywhere, where the streets were clear of snow without anyone having to shovel them and people sat outside of cafes sipping hot chocolate and eating muffins and nights were lit with electricity. It was incredible, and just a couple of months ago, it absolutely would’ve been enough.

  But there was more out there, more that the queen wasn’t sharing and the people weren’t asking about. Ember was restless, desperate to find out what that more was. She needed to see over the wall. Find Sand. Break whatever spell was holding her friends captive to the city.

  She wanted Felix to come with her, but she couldn’t force him. If he chose to stay, that was his decision to make, and it was her responsibility to accept that and not push.

  “Don’t go, Ember. Please.”

  She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Thank you for everything. Take care of yourself, okay?”

  She was on the trolley heading toward the old city before the next round of tears caught up with her. She tried to stifle them, mindful as she was of the people riding the trolley with her, including half a dozen blank-eyed, smiling dolls. She leaned against the window of the trolley, pointed her face deliberately toward the street, and made herself swallow back the noises that wanted to escape her mouth. The faint hum of conversation rippled around her, and the wind whipping through the trolley helped to cover what sounds did manage to escape.

  This was a bad idea — the whole thing, from top to bottom. If only she hadn’t let Eli talk her into this mad fantasy of his, none of this would’ve happened.

  But she knew, even as she felt regret settle heavy and painful in he
r gut, that she couldn’t go back. Not to Dusk, maybe not ever again. She’d had a taste of what life could be like outside of the cold, dark, dying walls of that stubborn, hopeless village, and she knew that she could never go back to that again, and still find the will to live like that.

  She had to go forward. Get over the wall. Find out what else was out there — for herself, for Eli and Felix, perhaps even for the whole world of people she didn’t even know.

  She had to get to the copter.

  “Hey.”

  Someone in the seat across the trolley’s aisle shouted above the rattle of wheels and hum of wind and conversation. His eyes were fixed on the driver, as nondescript and grinning a doll as he’d looked when Ember boarded.

  “Hey, driver! This isn’t the Queen’s Line.”

  Ember blinked. She hadn’t been paying any attention to their surroundings, caught up as she was in her own thoughts, but as soon as the other passenger pointed it out, the fact became disturbingly obvious. Usually on the trolley to the old city, a route she’d learned was called the Queen’s Line, they’d have entered the older streets by now, the ones built with the old city, perhaps even Before, where the cobbles weren’t quite so perfect and there was sometimes a misplaced brick poking out of its place. She ought to be able to see the dome of the cathedral in the distance by now, its faded colors just visible between the newer glass buildings.

  Instead, they were headed too far south, and in the distance where the cathedral ought to be, there was nothing but a sheer ice wall.

  “Driver!” Another voice, a woman’s, joined the man across the aisle in trying to get the driver’s attention. “Why have we detoured from the route?”

  “The wall is cracking. It’s time to go.”

  Ember sat forward, nearly leaped to her feet, at the familiar words.

  The driver had caught the doll madness.