Devil's Frost, Spellspinners Series #3 (The Spellspinners of Melas County) (7 page)

“I’ll go on one condition.”

“Anything.”

“Afterward, you let them go.”

Jacob glanced toward the forest, then back at Logan, then to Mom.

“Jacob. Promise me.” She grasped his hand like he was someone to be trusted. “Let them go. Let them go.”

He passionately, but gently, kissed her forehead while I looked on, aghast. I didn’t wait for him to respond. I grabbed my mother’s hand and hurriedly pulled her onto her feet and into the forest. We broke into a sprint. Once we were far enough away, we stopped, panting.

“Are you okay to walk home?” I asked her. My mother nodded, her face so youthful, she looked like she could be my older sister, her gown fitting awkwardly on her younger body. I had a million questions about what had just happened between her and Jacob, yet she had no time to give me answers. They were looking for us and wouldn’t give up until we were found.

“I’m going with Logan to find the cure. You need to find Daisy. Stay out of sight until we can reverse this spell.” I gestured at her face and body. “If anyone sees you—Camellia, anyone—they will wonder why Jacob saved you.”

Cringing, I didn’t want to infer it, never mind say it out loud. Whatever their relationship was…or is…wasn’t something I wasn’t ready to consider.

Frantically, Iris dug into her knapsack and took out the journal. She closed her eyes and raised her palms, placing a protective spell on it. “Where you’re going, you will need this,” Iris said, pressing it to my chest, to my heart. “The clues, they are all there. The story, too. The story of us.”

I wanted to protest, pepper her with my million questions, but the frosty tear slipping down her cheek stopped me. I lifted it onto my fingertip. “Make a wish,” I whispered to this girl who looked like she could be in college, working part-time as a Witch’s Brew barista to pay for her car instead of a mother of two teenagers.

Young Iris’s breath was cool as it blew the frosty tear into the wind. It spun, glittered, glowed high above the canopy of trees, up into the clouds, above the sea. Then it hardened into a singular white stone, shiny and bright and round like the full moon over a dark sea. Iris caught it in her hand and set it in my palm, wrapping my fingers around it and cocooning it in her two warm hands. “For protection on your journey.”

She kissed the top of my head and pulled me to her breast. “You’re my baby. And now, my daughter, you are also my leader.”

Clutching my moonstone, I nodded, afraid if I spoke, the tears threatening to burst up from my swollen throat would.

We hugged. Hugged like sisters. Hugged like friends. “I’m going to find the cure for Chance. I’m going to find the key to breaking the curse, and I’ll be back for you and Daisy.”

She glanced into the forest. “Keep the journal safe. Its secrets are for your eyes only.”

“Goodbye, Mom.”

As Iris took off into the forest, looking nothing like the mother I knew, I swallowed back the horrifying thought that where I was going, she couldn’t follow. For once in the whole of my life, she wouldn’t be there if I fell.

I crept back into the clearing and what I saw stopped me dead in my tracks. Twelve hooded members of the Congression, with a taller, red-hooded man in the center, stood in a single-file line facing the angry sea. Their prisoner, Orchid, stood in front of the red-hooded man, blindfolded with a white silky cloth, hands tied behind her back. She struggled to break free as he held her arms tight.

I scanned the crowd until I saw Logan and Jacob, standing off to the side but in full view of the proceedings. When our eyes locked, Logan gestured for me to stay where I was. I took a couple steps back, ducking behind some coastal brush.

The ominous man in black spoke in a thick, Irish accent. “This young witch is charged with four counts of crimes against Congression and has been sentenced to death by drowning.”

I couldn’t keep from gasping, and I had to duck my head when twelve pairs of crimson eyes jerked my way.

“This seems sudden,” Jacob interrupted, distracting the Congression from looking for me. “Haven’t you just begun collecting the evidence?”

The black hooded man I didn’t recognize, but who looked like the child of the Grim Reaper and Death, flashed his narrowing eyes at Jacob. “She was convicted unanimously. Once a conviction is in place, there is no reason to delay the punishment.”

I couldn’t speak out, but I couldn’t look away. Not from this. Even though I wasn’t supposed to look at him directly, I sought Jacob’s eyes. Whatever Iris was protecting me from, this was more important. Saving Orchid triumphed over saving myself.

Jacob’s eyes met mine, and when they did, they widened and flashed. He blinked. Understanding my urgency, remembering his promise to Iris.

Logan noticed, clandestinely looking from him to me, with a gentle arch of his eyebrows. So many questions. So little answers.

The red-robed man jerked Orchid forward, the alternately black- and white-robed line of Congression muscle remaining a foot behind him.

The executioner yanked off her blindfold, and Orchid’s eerie egg-white eyes darted around in a blind panic. She hardly needed to be blindfolded; she couldn’t see anyway.

“Witch, you know the crimes you’ve been charged with and convicted of. What say you?”

“Please!” Her voice was so high and frightened, it made me sick. “Please. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Only the weak apologize for crimes they meant to commit. Do you have any final words, you vile, treacherous thing?”

Anguished cries bubbled out of her chest until she was bawling and scratching at her tied wrists like a frightened animal. Jacob’s eyes again met mine, commanding me to stay put.

The hooded man snapped his fingers, and two of the red-robed figures, females, stepped forward, one on each side of Orchid, and led her struggling body to the edge of the cliff.

“Help me! Help me, please!” she screamed. “It wasn’t my idea! I swear!”

Jacob, do something.

I looked at Logan, who was looking at Jacob, too.

Jacob, who obviously heard me, held his palm an inch away from his robe, telling me to be still.

I sighed in frustration. Orchid was moments away from being tossed over the cliff. We were so high up; she’d die on impact on the rocks below or soon after. In her condition, she couldn’t swim through that current.

Be still, Lily. There is no arguing with Carriag once he’s sent an executioner’s order. He will do this. You can’t save her now.

Please. Help me save her. If you don’t, I’ll go in after her, and I’ll die too.
I looked deeply into his eyes, pleading. Pressing. Then simply said:
Please, Jacob. Please.

Something shifted in him. I knew what it was. Iris. Seeing young Iris had done something to him.

He ducked my gaze to avoid suspicion, but I heard his instructions clearly.
After they throw her into the sea, you and Logan follow. I will help you all land safely, but Orchid will be too weak to swim. Find her and take her where you are going. Do you understand?

Did Jacob know Logan and I could breathe underwater? What else did he know?

Lily. Do you understand?

Yes. I understand.

How was he blocking the Congression? Especially this Carriag, who seemed incredibly powerful. But there was little time to ponder all of Jacob’s secrets, because, while Carriag held Orchid’s flailing body by the edge of the cliff, I watched in horror as two red-hooded figures, who, after tightening the rope holding her hands behind her back, ceremoniously lifted her into the air as if she were as light as a butterfly, and without a thought, tossed her, screaming, over the side of the cliff.

Now?

Wait one moment.
Jacob looked toward the sky, where the Rose Moon shifted in front of the sun. New wind whipped the trees, our hair, and our uniforms. Shadows lengthened. I understood Jacob’s plan:
We’ll be covered by night. They won’t be able to find us.

Now.

Logan and I darted to the cliff’s edge, and I clenched his hand harder than I’d ever held on to anything.

“That’s her! The witch who killed the warlock!” a Congressional voice screeched into the air.

“Get her!” another one commanded. “Do not let her escape!”

I shot a look at Jacob, who, facing the row of Congressional robes, lifted his fingers in the air in an attempt to hold them at bay with his magic so we could leap. He tried, but they were too strong and broke through his spell. When they lunged toward me, I started to slip, but Logan grabbed my arm in time. Then, inexplicably, the robed menaces slowed into trancelike states, wobbling in place like zombies and then collapsing into a pile on the dirt while we looked on, slack-jawed. Jacob looked as confused as we were, so I knew this wasn’t a result of his spell. He knew to take the opportunity, however, and shouted at me to jump. “Now, Lily! We may have only a moment before they rise.”

“Let’s go,” Logan said, squeezing my hand tightly. I nodded, and with firm conviction—what choice did I have?—we dove toward the sea.

Falling soft as feathered snow.

Falling soft as feathered snow.

I mumbled to slow our fall. It worked. Slow-motion falling. Twisting. I heard screaming above us. Something pinged my shoulder. Glancing up, I saw Carriag, rising from the dirt, his swordfinger aimed at me. My skin froze on the wound. Stung and burned with the frost. Then he held out all ten fingers, golden, blazing light against the darkness. I lit up my own fingers and couldn’t believe my eyes. Frothy foam below shifting into what looked like blankets of snow. No…not snow: sheets of ice!

Shit. Shit. I added a line to our chant.

Melting ice far below

Falling soft as feathered snow.

Carriag was freezing the ocean to break our fall. To break
us.

Together, we struggled to counter his spell, plunging through the air like Alice through her rabbit hole.

Jacob! Stop him!

Twisting my neck, I saw Jacob struggling with Carriag’s arm. Aimless bolts flew through the night sky like meteors.

I squeezed my eyes shut, struggling to hang on to Logan as our feet slammed through the ice and the cold hit our bodies like a thousand ice picks.

Swish!

We burst through mushy ice—my charm plus Jacob’s wrestling away Carriag’s aim worked!—and torpedoed deep into the ocean’s depths. Brain hurt. Feet hurt. Chest hurt. Cold. So cold. Then I realized Logan wasn’t holding on to me anymore.
Logan?

I looked to the right.
Logan?

To the left.
Logan?

Nowhere.

Water swirled. Bubbled. Ice chunks whipped around me like I was the eye of an underwater tornado. I swatted them away. Where was he?

Beginning to panic, I clawed at the freezing waters, looking for him.

I’m here. Lily, it’s okay. I’m right here.
He appeared behind me, clutching at my arms to turn me around.

Oh, Logan. When I couldn’t find you…Thank the goddesses.

I threw my arms around his neck, clinging to him. Kissing his neck and his mouth with the urgency of a widow realizing her husband had never died. With our arms wrapped around each other, we searched each other’s eyes, touched each other’s faces as if ensuring we were indeed alive and this wasn’t a hex, or a spell, or a dream.

I kissed him again and then, entwining my fingers in his again, said,
We have to find Orchid.

Logan nodded.
Wonder why Jacob helped us.

I wasn’t ready to theorize with Logan.
I don’t know. But thank the stars he did. At least now we may all have a chance.

Orchid may have betrayed me; she may have tried to steal Logan’s magic—and worse—but I still had to do everything in my power to save her. Arms arcing in powerful strides, I followed Logan toward the surface. Anticipating the feel of air, my fist smashed into extremely hard ice. I tried a few inches over. More ice. I beat at it until the water turned red, my knuckles bleeding. Logan, too, pounded on the lid of our underwater casket. His eyes, like mine, were full of concern.

Let’s swim farther south and see if we have better luck
, Logan suggested.

I nodded and then we swam along the icy surface, kicking up at it every few strides to see if it had weakened. I wasn’t sure how long our Breathing would last. If we couldn’t figure a way out, we’d take our last in this frozen grave.

I somersaulted backward and kicked up with all my might.

Nothing but pain. Sharp, brutal, punishing pain.

Lily, don’t. It’s no use
.
Just keep swimming.

Logan cradled me to him as I grimaced against the blistering ache coursing through my bones, bubbles bursting around us as I screamed. The water was cold. Bone cold. The temperature I imagined death to be. We were both feeling it.

The amulet flashed, lighting our way in the darkness. I noticed that when it swung closer to my body, I could Breathe easier. I offered it to Logan, and he noticed too.

We passed it back and forth like we were sharing some beneficial oxygen-enhancing drug.

I brought my forehead to his. With the amulet floating between us, I was able to go inward and search the waters for Orchid. I saw an image of her crashed upon the rocks a couple miles south of where we were.

Logan must have seen this vision, too, because he said,
I don’t think I can make it on the air we have left.

I had an idea.
Logan! Can you summon the totem serpents to give us a ride to her?

They’re dangerous, irrational creatures. You saw them.

I can’t think of any other way.

He nodded. It was worth the risk.

Logan closed his eyes, his eyelids fluttering as he communicated with them.

After a few harrowing moments, he opened his eyes.

The albino is close.

The one I saved?

Logan looked bashful. He had wanted it dead before. He shrugged wryly, shot me a half-apologetic glance—like a normal boy would—like I was a normal girl and we had one of those silly moments that happen between people, and I felt something so purely and clearly. I flashed back to Jude, to his kiss—and realized how meaningless that was. How likely it was that he was to blame for Orchid’s death sentence. And where was he when she was being tossed off the cliff while he roamed free to cause more trouble? I shuddered at the thought of how I’d come so close to being manipulated by Jude the way Orchid had been. Any step toward Jude was a step back from morality.