Lying on my stomach with my face pressed through the velvet curtain, I watch as the others load up. Hyla’s next, settling onto the bench, her thigh blocking much of my view. Mars follows, a gust of wind lifting him into the passenger seat. Winter rankles at the command and I roll my eyes at his petty, unnecessary use of magic.
Kyn can’t decide what to do with his gun. He eyes the rack over Hyla’s head, but Drypp’s old shotgun is mounted there. I offer to stow his in the sleeper, but he slides it under Mars’s seat so it’s close at hand. How he plans to shoot and drive is beyond me, but I don’t care. We need to go.
“It’s a blind turn out of the lot,” I say. “Ease off the brake slowly or you’ll—”
“Skid? Slide? Tumble down the mountainside?” Kyn’s eyes sparkle in the mirror and he flashes me a grin. “Yeah, snowflake. I know. I grew up in these mountains same as you.”
That smile. If I was the kind of girl who took to melting, he’d be dangerous.
“Just be careful with her, all right?”
“Sleep, Miss Quine. When you wake, your rig will be hitched to a trailer full of things you’d rather not know about, and you’ll need all your wits to get us to the rebel camp.”
Mars knows a lot about me for a man who’s only been hanging around Whistletop a few months, but he’s right. As a policy, I don’t ask my clients what they need hauled. I learned the hard way that knowing doesn’t bring peace of mind, and it certainly doesn’t help me get where I’m going.
“Sleep,” he commands.
I flick my cheek at him—a crass gesture common in the Kol Mountains—but he just smiles and reaches past Hyla.
“One day I’ll tell you what that means,” he says, yanking the curtain shut.
My eyes close against the whipping drape and though I’d like to take Mars’s head off, that hot burn in my stomach says Winter’s close.
REST, she tells me. I’LL KEEP WATCH.
So instead of arguing with the snake-eyed smuggler, I curl into a nest of blankets, say a quick prayer asking Winter to wake me if Kyn-the-Shiv takes his eyes off the road, and I sleep.
CHAPTER 2
On the inside of my eyelids, I see Old Man Drypp. Ratted gray beard, bright eyes, red nose and cheeks, lanky arms and legs covered with mismatched scraps of material. He swings his pickaxe over and over, breaking apart the thick ice that’s encased his ale barrels.
Every strike of the axe sets my body trembling, pain leaking from my elbows and knees down toward my hands, my feet. My fists ball, my toes curl, but the dream never changes. Just slap-happy Drypp swinging that axe, my joints splitting like the ice, feeling Winter’s pain, wishing with everything in me that he’d stop.
When at last, I think I won’t survive another strike of it, I wake.
And I flail.
There’s a hand over my mouth. The fingers firm, the knuckles stone.
Kyn.
His other arm comes down on my shins, pressing hard. “Stay still,” he says.
He’s too close, something that might have me biting off his fingers in another scenario, but Winter’s wrapping me tight as well—I recognize her frigid hold on my arms, the burning singe of her against my breastbone—and I understand danger is near.
Gunshots ring out and my eyes widen to match Kyn’s. I nod, more intention than movement, and he releases the grip he has on my face.
“Who’s shooting?” I whisper.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I was back here with you. Grabbing a sleep.”
“You slept back here? With me?”
“Next to you, little ice witch. Just while they finished hitching up the trailer.”
“But it’s a one-man sleeper.”
His lips quirk and a dimple appears. “There was only one man back here, I promise.”
Heat climbs my face and this time, it’s not Winter.
“All right in there, Kyndel?” Hyla calls from somewhere outside.
“We’re good,” he calls back. “You?”
“We’re not good,” I hiss, panic rising at his proximity. I’ve got to get off my back. It’s a posture that gives me nightmares.
“Nothing to concern yourself with,” Hyla yells. “Mars is taking care of it.”
“Get off,” I tell Kyn, bringing up my knee, fast and sharp.
“Whoa, whoa!” he says, dodging. “Relax.” He releases my legs and backs out of the sleeper. “You cried out when the shooting started. I was just trying to keep us hidden.”
“I’m sure,” I say, sitting up, the knives at my waist a reminder that even when I’m on my own, I’m not helpless. I place my palm flat against their hilts, my heart banging around in my chest.
I’ve both my knife and Lenore’s—identical except for the names etched into the bone handles. They were gifts from Drypp and it bothers me that she left hers behind.
“Hand me the gun, yeah?”
I swipe a shaking hand over my face and yank the half-open drape to the side. Outside the windshield, morning glare fights its way through the thick, ever-present cloud cover and I blink back at it. We’re at a familiar truck stop in Hex Landing, a solid seven-hour drive from the garage in Whistletop. The lot’s only half full, but it’s early.
“Gunshots,” I say, pulling Drypp’s shotgun from the rack and passing it to Kyn. “Is that common when you collect a haul?”
“Nah. Most people are smarter than that. Not this guy though.” Kyn presses his eye to the sight. “You know him?”
Just this side of the refueling station, I see Mars. He’s facing off with a man nearly twice his size, beer belly pushing at the zipper on his parka, spit flying as he issues demands.
“It’s Jymy Leff,” I say, suddenly understanding Winter’s concern. My last experience with him is not one either of us would like to relive.
“A Ranger, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
White trousers, white parkas, white guns. But dirty as kol, every single one of them. The Rangers are the closest thing we have to law in the Kol Mountains. They report to the Majority, and while it’s true their information has, at times, made it down into the valley, the bribes they take to look the other way never do.
“Jymy’s captain of the squad here in the Landing,” I say. “His greatest talent is showing up at the worst possible moment.”
Jymy’s pickup is parked just beyond the two men, tailpipe still pumping exhaust, driver’s door wide open. The front bumper has seen better days, but it’s a sturdy truck. Squat with thick snow tires and a harpoon gun mounted to the roof. A gray wolf stands at attention in the bed.
“Pretty ballsy, waving that gun in Mars’s face,” Kyn says.
And then he isn’t. Hyla strides into our line of sight and yanks the weapon from Jymy’s hand. She releases the mag and drops it to the ground. Then she ejects the loaded round and chucks the gun to the edge of the lot.
It happens so fast, Jymy’s hands are left grasping for air. His face turns red and he takes a step toward Mars, points at Hyla. He waves his arms, pounds his fist, demanding things Mars looks very reluctant to give. We’re too far away to hear anything from here, but it’s not uncommon for a Ranger to stop a rig out on a run. It’s expected.