My thoughts grew icy and splintered. My heartbeat echoed in my ears, slowing under cold and depth and lack of oxygen. No matter how I tried to reach up, I couldn’t find up, and I couldn’t convince my arms to move. The water became darker as I followed my flashlight to the bottom of Rangedge Lake.
All the air I’d trapped in my lungs escaped, bubble after bubble.
Water gurgled next to me, swirling where it should have been still. As my toes tapped the bottom, light drifted beyond my eyelids and something wrapped around my middle. I shot upward. The grip on my waist tightened and dragged me through black water.
The slow thud of my heart grew ever more distant. My chest jumped, as if that would trick me into inhaling. I couldn’t keep holding my breath. My lungs would explode if I didn’t let something in to ease the pressure.
I couldn’t stop myself. I breathed water and gave in to the cold.
Time drifted in an icy haze. Water moved around me, inside me, and everything grew obsidian-smooth and dark.
I was on my back.
Something pounded on my chest. A rock. A fist. Anger. Chill and wet pressed on my mouth, and heat blew in. The beating on my chest resumed and a bubble formed inside me, grew and forced its way up.
A dark and dripping face floated in my vision a heartbeat before I choked up lake water. It seared my throat like fire, but I coughed and spit until my mouth was dry. I fell to my back again as the shivers came, rattling through me like the cottage windowpanes in a storm.
I was alive. The freezing wind was colder than the lake, but I could breathe. Someone else’s air filled me. I forced my eyes open, hardly able to believe anyone would bother to rescue me.
The ice and encroaching blackness must have damaged my vision, because I saw a boy’s concerned expression shift to relief. Maybe it was my fading consciousness that made him appear to smile. At me.
Then I was gone, lost in dreams.
Wool blankets brushed my face. My bulky coat and boots were gone, and I was dry, lying on my side. My toes and fingers tingled as the numbness retreated. Already I was sore from my impact with the water, but the only thing that really hurt was the graze on my cheek. Blankets trapped me in a pocket of warm air. Foggy thoughts trapped me in this dream of safety.
Something solid pressed against my back. A body breathed in time with me, steady in and out, until I broke the unity by thinking about it. An arm was slung over my ribs, and a palm rested on my heart as if to make sure it continued beating, or to ensure that it didn’t fall out. Breath warmed the back of my neck, rustling hairs across my skin.
Just as I began to drowse further into my dream, a deep voice behind me said, “Hi.”
I held my breath, waiting for the dream to change.
“It’s been, what, four thousand years since anyone thought midwinter swimming was a good idea? It’s an awful way to go. Did you just want to see if that had changed?”
My eyes snapped open as my situation crystalized. I jumped, legs tangled in the blanket, and my elbow bumped a small heater. The tent seemed to close around me. Only a tiny lamp illuminated the space, but it was enough to show me the zipped door. I lunged for it.
The man caught my waist and pulled. I dropped to my butt, dragging the zipper with me. Winter air poured inside as I wiggled from his grasp and threw myself into the waiting night. Snow sparkled in moonlight, deceptively peaceful with its smothering silence.
Wool socks protected my feet until I got to a line of trees across a clearing, and then pine needles and pebbles stabbed through the snow. I didn’t care. Didn’t stop. I ran anywhere, as long as it was away from sylph and the strange young man. There was no telling what he wanted, but if he was anything like Li, it wouldn’t be good.
Winter caught up with me as I rounded a tower of boulders and stubby trees. Goose bumps crawled up my bare arms. I wore only a thin shirt and too-big trousers—neither were mine.
Freezing air hit the back of my throat with each ragged breath. I stumbled down a staircase of rocks and packed dirt, intent on running again, but the lake stretched wide under moonlight, right in front of me. Wavelets glinted as they lapped the shore and my toes.
I staggered backward, images of ice and a dimming flashlight on the backs of my eyelids every time I blinked. The cliff where I’d fallen—no, jumped—hung over the lake a ways to my right, silhouetted against bright starlight and snowy mountains. I should have died.
Maybe Li had paid that boy to rescue me. It wouldn’t be the first time she used me like a cat playing with a mouse until it nearly died of fright.
Pine needles rustled and snow swished underfoot. Light bled across the waves in front of my feet. I spun around. The boy held a lamp shoulder high, his gaze beyond me. “After I worked so hard saving you, I’d appreciate if you didn’t try to kill yourself again.”
I clenched my jaw against chattering teeth. Tremors wracked through me as I searched for escape, but he was blocking the only path. I could try beating him up, or swimming to another shore where he couldn’t follow. Both were unlikely to work, especially since getting back in the freezing lake was the last thing I wanted. He’d probably just save me again.
He must have been strong, dragging me from the bottom like that. Stubble darkened his chin and he towered over me, but he looked my age. Tan skin, wide-set eyes, and shaggy, shadowed hair. Those must have been his arms around me underwater, and his breath that filled me when I had none of my own.
“You might as well come back.” He offered his free hand, long fingers slightly curled in welcome. “I won’t hurt you, and you’re shivering. I’ll make tea.” He didn’t quite hide his shivers, either; no coat or gloves meant he hadn’t taken the extra time to dress for cold before following me. Perhaps his concern was genuine, though I’d thought Li sincere when she reminded me about bringing a compass. “Please?”
My other option was freezing to death, which seemed less appealing now that I was definitely alive. I would watch him, though, and if he did anything Li-like, I’d escape. He couldn’t make me stay.
I followed him through the woods. Didn’t take his hand, just hugged myself and was glad he’d brought that lantern, and that he’d paid attention to where I’d run.
The forest was black with shadows and white with snowdrifts. Fir and pine trees shuddered under the weight of a million snowflakes. I jumped at noises, straining to hear the whispers and moans that had driven me into the lake to begin with.
My cheek still throbbed where the sylph had touched me, and was hot to my bare fingers. It didn’t feel blistered, though; doubtful it would kill me. I was lucky it hadn’t gotten me more than that. Large sylph burns were said to grow and consume the entire body over time. Li had warned me it was a painful way to die.
We reached the tent. Outside, a small horse snorted and eyed us from underneath half a dozen blankets. When we didn’t do anything alarming, he tucked his head down to sleep.
My rescuer held open the tent for me. Our boots and coats hung by the door, still damp. Blankets on the left, a small solar battery heater in the center, and his bags on the other side. There was just enough room for one person to stretch out, two if they were friendly . . . or staving off hypothermia. He’d known exactly how to save my life, while I would have panicked in his position. I’d panicked enough in my position.
“Sit.” He nodded at the blankets and heater.