Текст книги "Ice Country"

Автор книги: David Estes

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

Chapter Twenny-Three

Morning comes with a quick step and a dive.

There’s plenny of energy buzzing through the dungeon. I even choke down my whole plate of cold gruel, so as to ensure I’m ready for whatever’s coming.

As quick as the morning came, the evening meal’s like a distant mountain, way off on the horizon, days and weeks and months away. We do different things to pass the time: sleep, throw Buff’s rock around (Yah. The question game again.), talk about anything and nothing. Buff even sings a little, in his deep baritone, making us all laugh with his comedic rendition of “The Woman Who Made Me Cry.” He earns a bellow from Big for that one. Out of sheer boredom, I expect, Skye tries to taunt Big into the dungeon, but he just slams the door in all our faces, with a final warning to shut the freezin’ chill up, or something along those lines.

When the door opens again, we’ve all been silent for a while, wishing away the minutes until we can carry out our plan. I look up expectantly, and I’m sure the others do too, but it’s not Big at the door. It’s a small, thin man, and I recognize him right away. The servant who King Goff screamed at on the day Buff and I were captured.

He looks like a mouse, his nose twitching as if smelling his way in, looking for food. “The king requests your audience,” he says to the dungeon.

“I’ll give you somethin’ to say to the king,” Skye murmurs.

“Um, I didn’t mean you, ma’am. I meant them.

His fingers point in two directions, one at me and one at Wes.

“Us?” I say. “Why us?” What could we possibly be to the king that he would request our audience?

“It is not my job—or your job—to ask questions,” the rat says.

“Look, you little weasel,” I say, “we’re not going anywhere until you tell us what this is all about.”

His nose twitches. “I beg to differ,” he says. Heavy feet stomp in unison on the hard stone floor as half a dozen sword-carrying guards march into the dungeon.

~~~

The king is resting his chin lazily on his fist when we enter his throne room. I try to keep my face forward, but I can’t help glancing around me, at the enormity of everything. The shiny, white pillars are even bigger, both in width and height, than I could tell when we passed from the hallway a few days back. The windows are huge too, taking up half the wall space. The other half is filled with gigantic wall hangings, similar to the tapestries we saw in the main hall, depicting similarly bloody scenes of fights between the legendary Stormers and Soakers.

When we reach a spot in front of the king, I’m still looking around, taking it all in. The soldiers leave us and step as one to the side, looking through the windows, like statues, completely disinterested in whatever’s about to happen between us and Goff.

“Who are you?” Goff says, and my gaze drifts to him. His chin’s raised now, his hands clasped easily in his lap.

We say nothing.

“Your resemblance is striking…and yet you each came to be in my dungeons by very different routes. Odd,” he says. “Wouldn’t you say?”

We say nothing.

“Why did you force me to arrest you?” Goff asks, directing his question at me.

I shrug. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

He laughs, but there’s no joy in it. He stands, descends the three steps from his throne, takes another four to stand in front of me. He’s an even bigger man than I thought—like his pillars, thick, strong, and tall. His graying facial hair buzzes as he speaks. “You’ll answer my questions or die,” he says.

I don’t doubt the truth in his words for one second.

“Then you’ll die with him,” Wes growls from beside me, tensing against his chains.

I jerk my head toward him. I’ve never heard him speak like that, so uncontrolled, so temper-driven. It reminds me of myself.

The king sidesteps to face my brother. “Don’t be ridiculous. You dare to snoop where you don’t belong?”

“I was looking for someone,” Wes says.

The king angles his head. “Really? And who might that be?”

“My sister. She was taken a few months back, not long after she turned twelve. You took her.” There’s fire in his words. Fire fueled by the kindling of truth.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Goff says, but he doesn’t even try to hide that he’s lying.

“I saw them,” Wes says.

“Your sister?” the king says, turning his back on Wes, clearly unafraid of my brother’s previous threat.

“Nay,” Wes says. “The other children. In your Heart-forsaken tower. Prisoners.”

“Are you sure you hadn’t been drinking?” the king says. “Seeing things maybe? There are children in the palace, but that’s because their fathers and mothers work here. They play in the towers while their parents earn silver to feed and clothe them. I’m a charitable man.”

“You’re a sick man,” Wes spits back.

Goff turns, smiling, as if my brother paid him a compliment. Everything about his demeanor says control, as well it should, considering he’s got all the cards on our lives.

“Ever since our forefathers hid in the caves in this very mountain, the Heart has protected them, saved them from what the Heaters call the Meteor god. My bloodline was chosen by the Heart to be your leaders. Something for you to think about while you and your brother rot away in my dungeons.”

“Is that all?” I ask, suddenly feeling anxious to get back to my cell.

“No. Before you ever stepped foot behind the castle walls I knew who both of you were. You think I’m stupid? From the moment you lost that card game, your sister’s—and your—lives were mine, part of something much bigger than the pathetic world you think you live in.”

My head starts to spin. The card game? What does that have to do with anything? A piece falls into place, then another. I stiffen, my knees locking.

“You chose Jolie because of my debt?” I say.

“Hmm,” Goff muses. “You’re smarter than you look. But that didn’t stop you from destroying yourself. I need you both, you see.”

“For what?” I growl, anger rising, cloaking the real emotion I’m feeling. My fault—it’s all my fault.

“Your sister is an important trade item, and you’re my insurance that she lives up to her expectations,” the king says cryptically.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Wes says, taking a step forward.

One of the guards kicks him in the back of the legs and he goes down.

“I can have you killed any moment I choose,” Goff says to Wes. “You’re not part of any of this. The only reason you’re still alive is because I want both your brother and sister to watch when I personally slit your throat.”

“You’ll have to kill me first,” I say, knowing even as I say it that it’s an empty threat.

“As much as I’d like that, I need you alive. Like I said, you’re insurance that your sister will do as she’s told for the rest of her life. Don’t you think you’d be dead by now otherwise? At every turn you disobeyed Abe, broke the rules, practically begged me to kill you. You were warned time and time again, but even the small, stuttering man’s death didn’t stop your insolence. I promoted the two men who were able to place his body so expertly in your path. I have to admit, I was as shocked as anyone when you tried to talk your way inside the castle. Again, my guards would have killed you if you were anyone else. Only my orders to keep you alive stayed their hands.”

I want to call him a liar, to believe that it was my own skills and strength that kept me alive all this time, but I know that’s the real lie. They killed Nebo, planted him in our path as a warning. The moment I met him he was as good as dead. It was never our fault, not really. I’m nothing but a bug under the king’s spotless black boots, to be scraped off and mounted on a board as he sees fit.

“Guards—take them,” Goff says. The guards start to move to grab us, but the king raises a hand. “Oh, yes, there is one other thing. Does anyone besides your dimwitted friend—I believe they call him Buff—know about your suspicions regarding where your sister was taken?”

“Nay,” I lie, watching Yo slide a tinny of ’quiddy to me in my head.

~~~

When Big brings our one meal, I feel like doing laps around my cell—I’m so energized. I can’t take another minute in this place, much less a rotting lifetime as Goff suggested.

And whatever he’s got planned for Jolie—her obedience cemented by my own life—I can’t let it happen.

Skye’s feeling the same, apparently, because she wastes no time throwing our plan in motion.

“Hey, Big,” she says, after he gives her a plate of gruel, balancing the others along his enormous arms.

“Shut yer—”

“Pie hole, blazeshooter, yeah, yeah, I got it,” Skye says. “I’m just tryin’ to help you. But if you don’t wanna know ’bout the weird fungus growin’ on yer back, then that’s up to you.”

Big stops, looks in at Skye, who’s already ferociously diving into her gruel, as if she don’t give two shivers about the dungeon master.

“What fungus?” Big asks, taking the bait.

Skye stops shoveling food, finishes chewing her last mouthful, says, “The flesh-eatin’ kind you got growin’ on yer back. You’d better git it removed ’fore it kills you.”

Big tries to look over his shoulder, but when that doesn’t work, he slides the plates of food to the ground, and then swats at his bare back. “Where?” he says.

“Right there,” Skye points. “In the center. No, no, you tug-brained fool. You’ll never reach it that way. ’Ere, let me. I’ve removed the nasty stuff ’fore.”

Big keeps scrabbling helplessly at his back, but then eases arse-first against the bars of Skye’s cell.

“Ooh, there it is, big fella,” Skye says. “It’s even nastier’n I thought, plumin’ out every which way. I can’t quite get to it through these ’ere bars. Maybe if you come inside I can git you cleared up right quick.”

Pretty obvious what’s going on here, right?

Yah, Big’s not heavy in the area of brains, or he’s just too obsessed with the idea of fungus eating him from the outside in, because he clinks a coupla keys and shoots that door open faster than you can say “moron dungeon master.”

Even stretching as far as I can through my cell bars, I can’t see what’s happening now, so I go to the hole. I can’t see much, just Skye’s backside, but I keep on looking.

My heart skips a beat, then starts thumping harder than before.

“C’mon over, big fella, let me have a look,” Skye says. She shifts out of view and I let out an audible sigh. A giant leg comes into view, as big as a tree trunk. What were we thinking letting Skye be the one to take on this monster? She’s half his freezin’ size!

Then the leg turns and Skye’s leg flashes out, quicker than lightning, all the bite with twice the grace, and Big cries out with a boisterous bellow that reminds me of the goats during mating season.

The ogre doesn’t go down, just staggers away from where I can see, screaming the whole way. Skye streaks past the hole and there’s a thud and another Big-sized bellow.

They’re heading for the door.

I clamber to my feet and rush to the bars, just in time to see Big plow through the opening, bashing a shoulder on one side of the metal doorframe, which twists him around so I can see his face contorted in pain, making him even uglier, if that’s possible. Skye’s work.

He grabs madly at the door and tries to close it but—

–Skye’s there already, kicking it back and—

–it swings and crashes off Big’s arm and hits the outside of the cell and—

–it’s all happening too fast but in slow motion, like they’re both walking through heavy drifts of snow, but then—

–time speeds up suddenly, with Skye a blur of fists and feet and elbows and knees, pounding, pounding, hitting Big as hard as she hit me, except again and again and—

–Big’s wailing and covering his head and staggering around like some drunk at Yo’s pub, occasionally swatting at Skye, but always missing, always a second too late or a foot too high, but finally—

–just when I think Skye’s going to win the fight without any opposition at all, he connects.

A direct hit, right on her jaw.

A blind, lucky swing that sounds like a stomp and feels, even from where I’m standing, like a bone-breaking blow that even the toughest scoundrels in ice country would have trouble getting up from.

“Skye!” Siena cries out beside me.

Skye lifts off the ground, floating, flying for an instant that might as well be an hour, and then jerks to the hard, stone floor, crumpling in a way that makes her look more like a cloth doll than a person.

My mouth’s agape and I’m staring, just staring, watching a trickle of blood meander from her nose and over her lip.

She won’t get up from that hit.

She won’t.

She gets up. Slowly at first, but then faster, almost with a spring, and I can’t see her face because I’m looking from behind her, but I know—I know—there’s fury in her brown eyes.

“Get him, Skye!” Siena says and I’m echoing the thought in my head.

Big’s got his hands away from his face, and he’s bleeding all over the place, just dripping the red liquid, but his teeth are clamped shut and he doesn’t look close to being finished either. It’s like she’s been pounding on a boulder for the last few minutes, hoping it’ll break right down the middle, but all she’s managed to do is knock off a few crumbly edges.

Big takes another wild swing, but Skye dances around it, kicks him sharply in the knee, the one he appears to be favoring, keeping his weight off it. He cries out, but steps toward her with his good leg, grabs at her, just missing when she ducks to the side, punching him with a series of quick jabs to the ribs. He hollers again, but not with pain, with anger, as if he hardly even felt the blows and Skye’s nothing more than an annoying fly he wants to crush between the flats of his palms.

He turns quicker than I expect him to, swings twice more and Skye dodges, but she’s being forced into a corner. She’s down to two options: move back into her cell or retreat toward the dungeon door, which Big locked behind him on the way in. I know she won’t go back in her cell where Big’ll just slam the door shut on our escape plan. I haven’t known Skye that long, and yet I know she won’t surrender, won’t give up. Not ever.

She backs up a few steps, toward the closed door, waits for Big to make the next move. “Finish this, Skye,” I say. Her eyes meet mine briefly, but then they’re back on her opponent, who stomps toward her.

Getting a running start she moves to meet him.

Just when he swings one of his bear-claw-sized fists at her head, she slides, feet first, skittering off the stone floor, shooting right through the mammoth gap between his legs.

He grabs at her, but she scrapes past, crying out as the harsh stone tears at her exposed flesh, but when she’s through—and icin’ right, she’s all the way through—she pushes to her feet and leaps on Big’s back, throwing her arms around his thick neck.

He starts screaming like a murderer on the hanging block, reaching over his head, grabbing at her, trying to find an angle to use to pound her into oblivion.

But he can’t find one. Can’t get a good shot in. Just like he couldn’t reach the fungus that Skye had invented.

Frantic, he runs backward, smashing Skye into the wall.

But she hangs on.

He turns and runs backward into the bars of Skye’s cell.

Her body’s taking a beating, but still she hangs on.

Skye digs her heels into his skin and pulls harder, choking the life out of him.

He starts bucking, throwing his head back, trying to crack her face with his skull, but she keeps her head low and to the side, safely out of harm’s way.

Slowly—

Ever so slowly—

Big stops bucking—

Stands there all dazed-like—

Drops to one knee—

Then to the other—

And finally—finally!—flat on his face, with Skye on top.

She did it.

She actually did it.

Chapter Twenny-Four

“You done it, Skye,” Siena says. “I knew you would.”

Others are saying similar things, encouraging words, excited words, because, well, we’re getting out of this Heart-forsaken dungeon.

Skye climbs offa Big’s back, turns to look at us, all sweat-gleaming and muscle-tightened. She wipes the blood off her chin with the back of her hand. A woman looking like this, it should be kinda gross, more than a little off-putting, but nay, it’s the exact opposite. She’s never looked more beautiful.

“Get the keys,” Feve says.

Skye nods and reaches down at Big’s belt, trying to find them.

The dungeon door swings open.

Goff stands there, filling the doorway, wearing the finest clothes that ice country taxes can buy. In the cracks and crevices between him and the door I can just make out the dozens of armed guards behind him.

“You really thought you could just walk out of here? Haven’t you learned that I control everything? Ice country is my game board, and you are the pieces.”

“Go to scorch,” Skye says, even as I’m wondering why the king himself would stoop so low as to visit the dungeons. Something about it doesn’t feel right. Doesn’t he have people to do this kind of work for him?

“Oh I will,” Goff sneers. “But not for a very long time, not with the Cure in my possession. But you, my dear fire country animal, are heading there sooner than you think.”

“Stay away from her,” I growl.

Goff glances at me, a look of surprise flashing across his royal face for a moment, but then morphing to amusement. He laughs. “Interesting,” he muses. “Making friends with the natives I see. What’s this girl to you?”

When I don’t answer, he takes a step forward. “Guards! Please escort her back into her cell.”

Skye stiffens and I think she might take on all of them, Goff included, but then she wisely steps into her cell, says, “I’m goin’,” and even closes the door herself.

A guard moves forward and locks it behind her.

“Is he dead?” Goff says, motioning to the pile of flesh at his feet.

The same guard that locked the door bends down, sticks a couple of fingers to Big’s throat, says, “Just unconscious, your highness.”

Goff smiles an ugly smile. “You couldn’t even kill him?” he says, looking in at Skye, who’s far enough back from the bars that I can’t see her.

“I chose not to,” she says.

“An important difference to you, I suppose,” the king says, “but to me, it shows your weakness just the same. In any event, attacking a palace guard and attempting to escape are sufficient crimes to leave me no choice as to the punishment.”

He pauses, looks down the row, calm as a windless day, meeting each prisoner’s eyes. I’m pretty sure none of us flinch away.

“Let this be a lesson to you all. Foolhardy escape plans and a bunch of children carrying them out will be the death of each and every one of you. Starting with her.” He points a stiff finger at Skye.

Dread fills me, blackening my soul like a fire darkens the inside of a fireplace.

“No,” Siena whispers. “No. You can’t do that.”

Goff laughs, which is beginning to annoy me. “My dear, I’m the king. I can do whatever I want. She’ll be hung at dawn.”

~~~

“Skye?” Siena says for the fourth time. There’s no answer.

I take another look through the wall hole but Skye’s tucked in a corner somewhere, outta sight.

“Skye, we’ll find a way out of this,” I say. I mean it, although I don’t have an icin’ clue how.

“There’s no way out,” Skye says, finally breaking her silence.

“There is,” Siena says, almost pleadingly. “I lost you once, I won’t again.”

“Goff’s one sick man,” Feve says. “He’ll make us watch.”

“Yeah,” Circ says, latching onto the thought. “We’ll all be there. We’ll fight. We’ll do everything we can to break you out.”

“So you can be hung right after me?” Skye says. “Sear it all to scorch, don’t be foolish. Jade and Jolie are as good as dead if we all die. We’re the only ones who know.”

“No,” Siena says. “No. You can’t die. You can’t.”

“Oh, don’t you worry, Sister, I’ll fight like a Killer. They won’t get me that easy. I’ll fight ’em with my every last breath, and then keep fightin’ even after I got none left.”

I close my eyes as reality sets in. There’s no escapin’ what’s comin’. The king probably knew exactly what would happen with all of us born fighters in the dungeon together. He wanted us to try to escape, so he could have his fun. So he could give us hope and then snatch it away. So he could make us watch him kill one of our own. With a jerk I realize that’s who these people from fire country are to me. My own. All of them, even Feve. He may not like me, and I may not much like him, but we’re in this together now.

And Skye, well, there’s something with her that’s worth exploring. I can’t let her slip away so fast. I just can’t. But there’s nothing for it. There’s no plan that’ll work. There’s no spy I can call upon. There’s just me, Dazz, who’s failed at everything I’ve tried for the longest time. Except fighting. So like Circ said, that’s what we’ll do. Every last one of us.

Fight until they stick us in the ground.

~~~

There’s no dinner tonight. My stomach’s all clenched up, aching and aching, but it’s not because I’m hungry. Every last ache is for her.

Every beat of my heart seems to ring out, louder than ever, like a dull bell ringing, counting down the moments on her life. I squeeze my chest tight, try to slow down my heart’s frantic pace, but on and on it beats, never ceasing, speeding up if anything.

Big’s gone. It took half a dozen guards to carry him out.

Siena and Skye talk across my cell, but I shy away from it, staying against the back wall, because I don’t want to intrude. I’m nobody, just an outsider, someone they met by a strange twist of fate that left me with a bloodied nose and a black eye. And Skye with a death sentence.

They talk about all kinds of things, stories from their childhood and all that, and although her voice hides it well, I can sense the tears on Siena’s cheeks. Skye, however, is herself, as tough and stalwart as ever, talking as if it’s just another night, rather than the night to end all nights for her.

“Siena,” she says. “You take good care of Circ, you hear me? Treasure him like you always have. Don’t ever take him for granted. Guys like him don’t grow on pricklers these days.”

“I will,” Siena sobs, and I feel a hot tear slip down my cheek, the first in a long time, since the Cold took my father. I wipe it away with an angry hand. Wes stares at me across the hall, brows heavy.

“And you, Circ,” Skye says, a little louder, “don’t let me hear of you doin’ anythin’ to hurt my lil sis, or you know I’ll find a way to kick yer butt from wherever I am.”

“I won’t,” Circ says.

She’s not stopping there. Everyone’s getting a turn. “Feve,” she says, “you’ve done some searin’ stupid things in yer time, and you’ve hurt me and my sister more’n anyone, save fer my father, but yer more’n yer past, more’n what you done. Throw it all behind you and be the man yer capable of.”

“I’ll make you proud,” Feve says.

“Wilde, my sister,” Skye says. “You might have a different mother, a different father, but you’ll always be my sister.” Another freezin’ tear splashes below me and I scrub at my eyes with my fists.

“I know, Skye. And you mine. Go with honor,” Wilde says.

“Buff,” Skye says, and I stop rubbing my face. I didn’t expect us to be included in her goodbyes. We’re just Icers. “You seem like a good fella, and you’ve got a good friend sittin’ ’ere ’side me. He seems like he’s got more thunder in him than a storm sometimes. Help him control it ’fore he searin’ gits himself killed, will ya?”

I can’t hold back the laugh that chokes outta my throat. “I’ll try,” Buff says, as if he’s just been given the biggest challenge of anyone.

“Uh, Dazz’s brother,” Skye says.

“Wes,” he reminds her, watching me when he says it.

“Thank you fer tryin’ to help us. When you think of me, I hope you think of someone who tried to pay you back, who tried to fight fer you the same way you fought fer me.”

“I will,” Wes says, tucking his head in his hands. He barely knows her at all, and yet I can tell he feels her, the truth in her. The realness.

“Now git yer rest everyone,” she says and I stop moving, stop fidgeting, just sit there like a stone, waiting. Has she forgotten me? She mentioned me in her speech to Buff, so maybe that was all she had to say. I hang my head, knowing full well I shouldn’t expect more than that considering we’re only a few days from having met each other.

But still—I’d hoped.

Selfishness. That’s what my thoughts are, plain and simple. She’s gonna be hung and I’m worried about whether she’s thinking of me the night before she dies.

But still—I’d hoped. I won’t sleep tonight.

Not one wink.

~~~

I musta fallen asleep because my eyes jerk open suddenly. The wall torches continue to burn, because Big’s probably not conscious enough to put them out. Everything’s quiet, except I know something woke me up.

A stone clatters around my feet, which are sticking out into the middle of my cell, away from my head, which is resting uncomfortably against the wall. I look at the rock, changing color from orange to red to yellow and back to gray as the flames flicker.

Clatter, clatter.

Another stone careens across my cell, skipping all the way to where it rests by my side. I curl my fingers around it, retrace its path to where it musta come from.

The hole in the wall. Skye’s hole.

I slide on over to it, blinking away the sleep I didn’t expect in the first place.

Skye’s looking at me. “Icy Dazz,” she says. My toes curl slightly.

“What’re you doing awake?” I say.

“Hard to sleep on yer last night,” she says. I cringe, wondering how I manage to consistently say stupid things through this hole.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t me—”

“I’m just kiddin’ ya,” Skye says. “Don’t git yer—whaddya call the small clothes you wear under yer other clothes?”

“Skivvies?” I say, like a question.

“Sure. Whatever. Don’t git yer skivvies all in a knot.”

“Skye, I—”

“No,” she says. “It’s my night to do the talkin’. ’Cause if I’m talkin’, I ain’t fallin’ apart, I ain’t losin’ the dignity I found when I left my father behind to join the Wildes. I won’t lose that, not tonight.”

“I’m sorr—”

“What’d I say?” she says, showing me the finger she’s got to her lips.

I don’t say anything. Just wait.

“Better,” she says, sending her eyes through again. “I know we ain’t hardly more’n strangers, but I’ve got feelin’s for you, Dazz, I’ll go right on out and say it, ’cause, after all, what do I have to lose, right?” I nod, feeling a burst of something good in my chest. I don’t say anything because she told me not to.

“I don’t go chasin’ after guys. I don’t got a Circ, like Siena. I’ve never…” Her voice falters for the first time. “Dazz, I’ve never kissed a guy,” she says.

Not what I expected her to say. How could a girl like her not have kissed anyone? She should have fire country guys leaping over each other to get to her. I don’t say anything, because, well, you know why.

“Well, ain’t ya gonna say somethin’?” she says.

I almost chuckle, but I hold it in. “I thought I wasn’t allowed.”

Now she does laugh. “You take my words pretty seriously, don’t you?”

“I do,” I say.

“Why?” she says. “I ain’t smart, the sun goddess knows that as well as anyone. I got things to say, but they’re probably not always the right things.”

I gawk at her brown eyes through the hole. The right things? She’s worried about saying the right things when every time we speak I’m the one bumbling along. “You’re wooloo,” I say, turning her fire country word back on her.

She laughs again. “Ain’t that the truth,” she says. “Did you see how I rode that big fella like a searin’ tugbull?”

“I did,” I laugh. “I was most impressed.”

“Ain’t you wonderin’ why I’ve never kissed nobody?” she asks, changing the subject quicker than a rabbit hopping to his hole when he hears the hoot of an owl.

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” I say. “But yah, I figured you’d have kissed dozens of guys by now.”

“You callin’ me a shilt?” she says, her tone darkening.

“What? Nay! I mean, I don’t know what that even is. All I meant was that as beautiful as you are I’d think guys would be lining up across fire country for a chance to win you over.”

“Flattery won’t git you far with me,” she says.

“How about honesty?” I say, finally feeling the words flowing the way they’re meant to.

“I wanna kiss you,” she says matter-of-factly, like she’s saying she wants another plate of gruel, or the sky is red, or ice country is cold, or any of a dozen other normal things to say.

“You—you do?”

“Scorch yes, I do, Dazz. Yer smoky, you make me laugh, I ’spect without even tryin’, and you got a good heart.” Be asleep, Buff. Be asleep.

“We should try,” I say, feeling my blood rushing all over the place, waking up my whole body.

“This is a searin’ thick wall,” she says. “And this hole ain’t big enough to git more’n a hand through.” As if to demonstrate, she sticks her fingers through. My confidence is roaring like a just-woken beast, and I feel like the old Dazz, the one who could catch girls’ attention, even if he couldn’t keep them. I grab her hand, kiss it, stars flashing behind my eyelids. Ice this wall! I’ve got the urge to pound my way through it, fist by fist, without regard for my bones breaking.

I give her hand back, look through at her. There’s a wildness in her eyes and I know everything I’m feeling is mutual, and she’s considering pounding away too, meeting me in the middle, in a big old pile of dungeon rubble. “Bars,” I say, but she’s already moving in that direction, gone from sight.

I rush along the wall to the bars, jam my head and arms through, feeling the metal poles cinch around me, stopping me. Her head’s through too, and she’s reaching for me, and our hands are touching, and now our arms—I’ve got one hand in her hair, running through it wildly, and the other on her jaw, cupping it, touching the dark bruise where Big hit her.

I strain against the tightening bars, feeling the dull pressure of the metal as it bruises my ribcage, but keep pushing, getting another inch, Skye doing the same, trying, trying, icin’ trying to—

–meet in the middle where—

–her lips can meet mine, where—

–she can get her first kiss, and me, my first real kiss, her lips closing in, so close I can see the pink tinge on them but then—

–we can’t go any further, and we’re just dangling there, hugging each other awkwardly, wishing we had another inch. Just one more inch.

The dungeon door creaks open.