Текст книги "Ice Country"

Автор книги: David Estes

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

Chapter Fifteen

“We gotta get in there,” I say. “Not just for Jolie, but for the Heaters too.”

We’re back at our place, discussing what to do next—me and Wes and Buff and my mother. Well, she’s not discussing so much as scraping a rock in a circle, marking the floor. Every time she finishes another round, she cocks her head as if to say, “Huh?” like she can’t figure out why the circle keeps on going. Then she draws another one.

“We’ve talked circles around infiltrating the palace,” Buff says, motioning to my mother’s drawing. I smirk, even though it’s a bad joke. “It’s impossible.”

“Nothing’s impossible,” I say.

“Nay. Some things are,” Buff says. “Like us getting rich. Like you getting the time of day from a White District girl.”

I stand up, clenching my fists. “I got more than the time of day, you freezin’ son of a snowblo—”

“Knock it off, you two,” Wes says.

Glaring at Buff, I take a deep breath, slowly unfurl my fingers.

“I agree with Dazz,” my brother says. “There has to be a way. We just have to think outside the snow globe.”

“Buff won’t be much help then,” I mutter.

“Dazz!” Wes says sharply. “Focus.”

I try, I really try, but Buff and I have thought about this question for a whole lot longer than Wes has. I feel like my mind’s more fried than deer bacon on a cold winter’s morning.

Jolie. Are you okay? Has Goff hurt you? Are you a slave, carrying around buckets of soap water, scrubbing the palace floors, brown-skinned Heater children doing the same beside you? Have you made friends with them?

Right when I stop thinking about the question and focus on who I’m asking it for, an idea hits me. And not a bad one either.

“We’ve got to talk to Abe,” I say.

~~~

“Not in a million years,” Abe says. “I’d just as soon be skinned and boiled by a Yag than cross the king.”

I’m alone with Abe, a good ways down the mountain—he wouldn’t talk to me any other way. Sleepy snowflakes flutter this way and that way in the wind, seeming to never reach the ground. “You owe me,” I say.

“Ha!” Abe scoffs. “How do you figger? The last time I saw you, you disobeyed a direct order and shoved me.”

“I did,” I admit. “But I was desperate. Don’t you get it? My sister’s in there. Goff’s got my sister. What am I supposed to do, just forget about it, let it go?” My voice rises over the last few words.

“That’s exactly what yer s’posed to do,” Abe says. “Just like me, you shouldn’t cross the king, especially when he’s got your loved one chained up somewhere.”

What does he mean by Just like me? I shake off the thought, continue to work on him.

“I’m not asking you to cross him,” I say. “Just help him make a hiring decision. He won’t hire me or Buff, not with our shoddy records, not for any jobs inside the palace anyway, but Wes, he’s a golden child, been nothing but a good worker everywhere he’s been.”

“Ferget it,” Abe says, folding his arms defiantly.

“What if it were your sister?” I say, changing tactics.

“I don’t have a sister,” Abe says smugly.

“A brother?”

His face changes, softens somewhat. “I’d do anything for Hightower,” he says.

Huh? “Tower’s your brother?”

“Yah. So?”

“Uh, nothing. That’s great.” I try to keep my face expressionless even though I want to ask him what in Heart’s name is wrong with his brother. “Okay. So if Tower was a prisoner somewhere, what would you do?”

“I’d freezin’ bust him out and mangle the face of whoever put him there in the first place.” He stops, wrinkles his face. “Oh,” he says, seeing my point.

“Please,” I say. “Just do this one thing and I’ll never bother you again.”

Abe cringes, looks like he’s screaming but no sound comes out, punches his fist into his palm. “Heart-ice it! Why’d I ever hafta meet an ice-sucker like you?”

I don’t think he means for me to answer him, but I do anyway. “Because this ice-sucker sucks royal ice at high stakes boulders-’n-avalanches,” I say. “So you’ll do it?”

“Yah. And then you’ll never talk to me again.”

“Deal,” I say, grinning.

~~~

We’re conspiring at Fro-Yo’s. Like we suspected he might eventually, Yo bent a little and let us back in the pub with the promise we’d pay him the last few sickles we owe him as soon as we can. He even cleared the place out so we could hold our secret meeting here. He said he’d add the lost business to our tab.

Four tinnys sit on a round wooden table, similar to the one we broke the last time we were here. They’re empty so Yo clears them away and replaces them with fresh ones, amber liquid frothing over the sides.

Abe leads the first part of the meeting. “Yer not Wes anymore,” he says to Wes. “Yer Buck, son of Huck.”

“Can I choose a different name?” Wes says.

“Nay,” Abe says, settling the matter.

“You already got him the job?” I ask, surprised.

Abe lifts the edge of his lip, the closest thing to a smile we’ll get from him tonight. “Course. I told you a million times, I got power in the palace. But I didn’t know what he could do, so they couldn’t place him. All you gotta do is tell me what yer good at.”

“Uh,” Wes says.

“He’s good at digging up rocks,” I joke, earning a sharp look from my brother.

“There ain’t much rock-diggin’ in the palace,” Abe says seriously, not getting the joke. “But there’s plenny of other stuff. Has he got any other skills?” He directs the question at me, as if I’ve suddenly become the authority on Wes’s abilities.

“I can cook,” Wes says, pulling Abe’s gaze back to him.

“Perfect,” Abe says. “The king’s near always lookin’ for kitchen workers, on account of him killin’ most of ’em off when his supper doesn’t agree with him.”

The three of us just stare at Abe, shocked by his statement.

His lip curls again. “Jokin’,” he says, smacking his leg. We all breathe out at the same time, like we’ve been collectively holding our breath. “Kitchen it is. You start tomorrow morning. Just go to the back gates and give them this.” He hands Wes a type of gold coin I’ve never seen before. “Any questions?”

Wes shakes his head. “Good. Then it’s been terrible knowin’ you all. Try not to git yerselves killed doin’ whatever it is yer doin’. An’ don’t ferget: yer name’s Buck now.” He grabs his tinny and chugs what’s left of it, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand when he finishes.

“Yah, yah, son of Huck. I got it,” Wes says.

“Thanks, Abe,” I say, just before the door slams.

“I hope I never see the likes of him again,” Buff says after he’s gone.

“You and me both,” I say, wondering whether I mean it as I take another sip of ’quiddy.

Wes slaps the gold coin on the table. “Right. I’m in. Now what’s the rest of the plan, or am I supposed to get Joles out all by myself?”

“Yah. That’s pretty much it,” I say.

Wes stares at me. “What?”

“Jokin’,” I say, imitating Abe’s voice.

“Very funny,” Wes says.

“Really? I thought it was an icin’ dumb joke,” Buff says.

“Right,” I say. “The real plan. Me and Buff, we just have to do what we do best.”

Buff cocks an eyebrow. “And what’s that?” he says.

I grin. “Fight.”

Chapter Sixteen

We watch Wes from the morning shadows of the forest. He gets in without a hitch, the gold coin Abe gave him doing the trick.

So Wes is in. My mother’s taken care of, with Clint and Looza looking after her. All that’s left is us.

It’s our turn to get in. And it’s not the easy way.

We wait an hour before making our move, so that no one links us to Buck—I mean, Wes.

When we stomp into Yo’s pub, every head in the place turns our way. The door slams off the inside wall.

It only takes a moment for us to locate our quarry. Coker and the other stonecutters sit at the end of the bar in their usual spot, sipping on ’quiddy.

This will feel good, I think, cracking my knuckles. Nothing like a good pub brawl to get the blood flowing. And with Yo’s agreement to press charges, we’ll surely end up in the dungeons.

When I take a step forward, the door thunders shut behind us. I look back, wondering why Buff closed it so hard. Five heavily armed castle guardsmen stand just inside the entrance.

“By the order of the king, you’re under arrest,” one of them says. I immediately recognize him as Burly Guard A.

Burly Guard B says, “Any resistance will be met with violence.”

Then they grab us and bind our arms, leaving Buff and I staring at each other in wonderment as to what just happened. Did Abe turn us in? Or did my constant rule-breaking finally catch up with me? In either case, we’re getting exactly what we wanted: imprisonment.

My only regret: I didn’t get to break Coker’s nose in the process.

~~~

The guards’ took more than a few shots at us as they dragged us along, and now my whole body feels like I slid into a tree. Buff didn’t fare much better than me. His face looks like he got mauled by a bear and he’s all hunched over as he staggers along beside me, dragging chained feet.

But we’re in, although I’m not sure what we’re going to do now. The plan only went so far as getting us inside the palace and Wes figuring out a way to break us out of the dungeons. For all we know, he’ll never make it down there and we’ll be left to rot with the mice and creepy-crawlies.

“When will the king sentence us?” I slur to the guard who’s prodding us along with some sharp instrument from behind. A raunchy joke comes to mind, but I swallow it down with a wad of spit.

“Consider yerself sentenced,” the guard says.

I guess it was too much to hope that the king would personally attend to a couple of lowly tradesmen, but I figured it was worth a shot.

Through vision obscured by swollen eyes, I observe the palace. Despite his condition, I can tell Buff’s doing the same. We’ll compare notes later.

The guard marches us through a high archway, made of a kind of white stone that seems to glitter pink under the barest hint of summer sunlight infiltrating the cloud cover. The hallway beyond is grand, adorned with all manner of white and blue tapestries, which hang proudly along the walls, threaded with delicate scenes from ice country. Here a snowy slope, dotted with soft pines. There a mountain peak, blanketed with clouds. On my right a town teeming with people. Houses burning? People fleeing? Dark men on black horses chasing them, cutting them down with sharp swords. Men from bedtime stories.

I glance to the left and find a similar scene, except this one’s not in ice country, it’s in a land I’ve only heard tales about, a land far, far away, where they say the sun’s bigger than here. A land of endless water and deserts that go all the way to the sea. In the tapestry there’s a giant wooden vessel—they call them ships in the stories—bobbing on a wide splash of water, tied to a tree that looks curved and funny on the shore. Men are rushing from the ship, brandishing swords and torches, charging into an army of dark warriors on black horses, who are galloping toward them, legions of dark clouds and flashing lightning at their backs.

We trudge on and the tapestries are behind us, leaving only a burning memory.

I glance at Buff and he glances back, raising a bruised eyebrow.

(Yah, you can bruise your eyebrow, Buff proved it.)

He saw the depictions too. The violence. He remembers the stories told around warm hearths. Of the Stormers. A bloodthirsty people who conquer lands for one reason and one reason alone: to kill. To drink the blood of those who would oppose them. To ravage the women and enslave the children.

Riding crazed horses that live for the thrill of the battle, they’ve fought the water people, the Soakers, for many years, trying to destroy them and take control of the Big Waters.

But they’re not real, right? Just stories. The king’s walls are just an artist’s depiction of the stories. Surely.

We pass under a smaller multi-colored stone archway, and into an even larger corridor, wider than ten men and taller than five. There’s a voice booming from an open doorway on the right. “The oldest bottle I said!” the voice erupts. “This is the second oldest. Go back to the cellars! NOW!”

As we step by the opening, I look inside the room. It’s like no room I’ve ever seen before. Constructed on white marble pillars, the room’s so big it could fit a hundred of my houses. Two hundred of Buff’s. A long blue carpet extends like a ribbon from the entranceway, all the way across the sparkling floor, where it reaches a seat. Nay, not a seat—a throne. With clawed paws like a bear, the granite throne looms upward, big enough to seat a family of Icers. But in it, basking in the exuberant daylight streaming through a dozen massive windows, is one man. Although I’ve never seen him before, he can be only one person: the king!

I stop, feeling the sharp prick of the guard’s sword on my back.

Why would they take a common criminal past the throne room on the way to the dungeons? I ask myself. It makes no sense.

The king is a big man, old, maybe forty, maybe older, with a shaved bald head and a thin, neatly trimmed graying beard. He looks even bigger sitting on the raised throne.

A thin, white-clothed man scuttles down the blue carpet, away from the king and his booming voice, gone to fetch the oldest bottle of whatever drink the king desires. For a moment King Goff watches after him, almost amused, but then he looks past his servant, to where I stand. Our eyes meet and—

“Move along!” the guard barks, jabbing me harder. Unconsciously, my feet move forward, one after the other, like they have all my life, but my head is back in the throne room, facing Goff, the man who stole my sister. I’m so close.

Moments later, we descend into the dungeons. The air thickens and moistens and a nasty smell tickles my nose. Something’s died down here. Or someone. Many maybe.

The guard plucks a torch from a wall fixture and waves it near my face, burning me. I flinch away but don’t cry out. He laughs.

Sword at my back once more, he forces me forwards into an alcove. Seated on a squat wooden chair with a broken leg is a giant of a man, wearing a black mask with only mouth and eyeholes cut out. Across his lap rests a double-sided, double-edged battle axe. All four of its razor-sharp edges gleam under the firelight.

He stands, his girth filling half the small space. We’re crammed in the other half with the guard. Wafting from his armpits is an odor that smells like what I imagine death would smell like. As I try to get a hold of my rebellious stomach, I consider yelling “I surrender!” and impaling myself on his axe, but I manage to close off my nostrils enough to regain control.

“Ain’t you a couple of tasty morsels,” he bellows, laughing before he’s even finished saying it, a growling echoing chortle that spouts a stream of rotten breath, proving that this dungeon master is more than just a one-smell act.

He takes a step closer, which means his belly touches me—not his clothing, but his actual skin, because he’s not wearing a shirt. Thankfully, I am, but the barrier seems so thin and insignificant I have to choke back another pulse of vomit.

“No funny business,” he says, showing us all his teeth, which amount to half of what he would’ve started with as an adult, yellow and chipped.

“Nothing funny here,” Buff says, and I agree wholeheartedly.

“All yers, Big,” the sword-poking guard says.

As he turns to go, I say, “See you later,” but he doesn’t look back or return the sentiment. Probably because he doesn’t expect he will.

“In,” Big says, and I wonder whether he came out so large that his mother couldn’t have possibly chosen any other name, or if the nickname was given later in life, when he quickly exceeded his peers in every physical way. Probably the former, if I had to guess.

When I forget to move, Big punches me forward, his fist like a battering ram, sending shudders through my bruised body. By the way Buff grunts behind me, I can tell he got the same treatment.

Torches line the walls of the dungeon, casting shadows in all the right places. Or the wrong places, if you’re me and you can only imagine what’s reaching out from the dark spots as you pass them.

I try to get a good look in the cells we pass, but their bars are thick and the shadows are deep, and if anyone’s in them, then they’re well hidden and quieter than a baby on its mother’s teat.

“Get in,” Big says, motioning with his axe to an open cell door on my left. I limp through, turn back to watch Buff do the same. “Not you,” Big says, stopping Buff with an axe blade to his throat. He seems to use the axe for a lot of things. Like if he were to shave his back, which clearly, based on the thick tufts of fur growing back there, he doesn’t, he would probably use his axe to do it.

He slams the cell door shut with a clang, twisting a big key in the lock in a practiced motion that I expect took him years to master given the sausage-like girth of his fingers, which clearly aren’t made for dexterity. Clobbering, yah. Pummeling, most definitely. Turning keys in locks, not so much.

“Later, buddy,” I say to Buff as Big pushes him forwards.

“Enjoy the food,” he returns with a dried-blood smile.

I take a moment to study my surroundings, which only takes a moment, because the cell is tinier than Buff’s house, and decorated with a miniscule assortment of gray stone walls, floor, and ceiling. A metal pail sits in one corner. I get the feeling I’ll be holding the urge to use the bathroom as long as possible in this place.

As I settle in on a spot on the floor that looks slightly less dirty than anywhere else, I hear a clang, the rattle of a key in a lock, and then the thud of heavy footsteps as Big lumbers past. “No funny business,” he hollers as he slams the dungeon door behind him.

I sigh. This is what I wanted. Right? Chill yah, I tell myself. It’s better being locked up on the inside, where Jolie might be somewhere nearby, than free on the outside, always wondering what happened to my sister, whether she’s alive, whether she’s safe.

“Buff?” I say.

“Yah.” His voice isn’t particularly close, but it’s not far either, maybe six or seven cells down the row.

“How you feeling?”

“Like a punching bag.”

“You’ll heal,” I say with a smile.

“I know,” he says.

“Buff.”

“Yah.”

“Thanks.”

“You owe me,” he says.

I’m about to respond when something scrapes the wall in the cell next to mine.

Chapter Seventeen

I sit statue still for a few seconds, listening intently. Was it my imagination? Was it the scrape of a rat’s tiny claws? Or was it something else entirely?

“Don’t try and avoid me, Dazz,” Buff says. “Just because we’re locked up doesn’t mean I won’t come collecting one day. And it’ll be something big, something mind-blowingly huge. You’ll wish you’d never asked for my help in the first place.”

But I’m not listening. Well, I’m listening, but not to Buff. I’m listening to the wall, because I hear the scrape again, only this time it’s louder, and it almost sounds…intentional, like someone’s trying to get my attention. Well, if so, it works, because I scoot across the stone floor, unconcerned about the dirt and whatever else has stained it so dark over the years. I shove my ear right up against the wall, willing Buff to shut his trap.

“You know, I might just ask for your firstborn at some point,” he goes on. “If you can ever find a woman who’ll tolerate you, that is.”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” I hiss.

“Or maybe you can just take my brothers and sisters off my hands for a while—or forever.”

“Shut it, Buff,” I finally say loud enough so he can hear.

“Heart of the Mountain, Dazz. No need to get testy. I was just kidding. Well, mostly.”

The wall pinches me, right on the cheek.

I pull back, expecting to feel the wetness of blood, but it’s dry. My skin stings slightly and I feel a tiny bump forming, but that’s it. I reach out to touch the wall, to see if it’ll sting me again. That’s when it jumps out at me.

A stone clatters to the floor, leaving a gap in the wall.

When I peer through, dark brown eyes stare back.

“Who in the burnin’ scorch are you?” the eyes say, as raspy as a punch to the face. “And why the scorch are you followin’ me?”

“What the chill is scorch?” I say, feeling a warm blush on my cheeks. What the chill? I’m not a blusher. I don’t blush.

“What the scorch is chill?” the icy voice says. Did I say icy? I meant raspy. Yah, just raspy.

“I’m Dazz,” I say, memories of a strong, brown-skinned girl floating through my mind. A punch to the face.

“I don’t give a burn whether yer King Goff,” the Heater girl says, which confuses me for a second, because didn’t she ask who I was? But she’s speaking so different than what I’m used to, using words that make no sense and rounding them off, almost like the curve of her hips.

“Uhh,” I say.

“Why’re you followin’ me?”

“I’m not,” I say.

“Who’re you talking to?” Buff calls.

“That Heater girl,” I reply.

“I ain’t no Heater girl,” the Heater girl says sharply. “I’m a Wild One.”

I grin. “I’m sure you are,” I say, instantly pleased with my wit.

“You are?” Buff says.

“No, you ’zard-brained baggard. Not Wild—Wilde, like with an e on the end.”

Roan’s words come back to me. The Wildes steal more and more of our women every year.

“Yah, Buff, I am. Now can you please shut your icin’ trap?” I shoot over my shoulder. I turn back to the hole in the wall and the set of mysterious brown eyes. “You’re a Wilde?” I ask stupidly, considering that’s what she just told me.

“Well, that settles it. I’m speakin’ to a searin’ fool. Sun goddess help us all.”

Well, I don’t know about the searin’ part, but the fool bit’s probably right, considering I’m in a dungeon on an impossible mission to rescue a sister who might not even be here. “Can we start over?” I say hopefully.

“Watcha mean?”

I take a deep breath. “I’m Dazz. I’m an Icer. I’m not following you.”

“Oh-ho,” the Wilde says.

“Okay, okay. I am, but not like you think. You see, my friend and me, his name’s Buff. Say hi, Buff.”

“Hi, Buff,” Buff says. The Yag.

The set of deep brown eyes just look at me and I can see what they’re thinking: his friend’s a searin’ fool too. Which is probably a fair thought to have at this point.

“Anywayyy,” I say, “we were trying to get information on what happened to the Heaters, because there were rumors flying around about bad shiver, all kind of bad shiver, and then I saw you and I thought you were a Heater and so I chased you, not because I wanted to hurt you or anything like that, but because I wanted to talk to you, to ask a couple of questions about the Heaters and whether everything was okay and whether…” I stop. I’m rambling like a river of melting snow in the summer.

“What kinda questions?” the girl says, the rasp of her voice tickling my eardrums.

“I guess just, do you know what happened to the Heaters?” I ask.

“I was there,” she says.

“But how? I thought the Wildes stole the Heaters’ children.”

“That’s a burnin’ lie,” she says. “Give me back my brick.” Because of my bumbling, arguably the most important conversation of my life is spiraling out of control.

“Wait, nay, I’m sorry, that was just what Roan told us.”

Silence. Her eyes blink. Once. Twice. Three times. I feel the blush I never knew I had coming back. Something about being under this woman’s scrutiny is like having my stones clamped in a vice.

(In a good way?)

“You know Roan?” she asks. There’s something hard in her voice.

“Not really. I met him once at the border. As part of my job. He told us a lot of things, but maybe it wasn’t all true. Do you know him?”

“Roan’s my father,” she says, pulling away from the hole.

~~~

I try for a few hours after that, trying to get her attention, to get her to come back to the hole, to talk to me, but she’s not having any of it.

Buff interjects every once in a while, but mostly he’s tossing jokes around, like the hits he took to the head have made him a little loopy.

Eventually, I get tired of speaking through the hole, so I shove the brick in, but only halfway, so I can pull it out again if I have to. I slump against the wall, force my eyes closed, try to sleep. I say one last thing before I drift off. “What’s your name?”

“Buff,” Buff says.

“Skye,” the Wilde woman says, and then she’s silent for good.

I sleep.

~~~

I’m awakened when the heavy dungeon door crashes open. For a moment I’m disoriented, scrabbling at the walls and reaching into the empty space in front of me, but then I remember where I am. In my cell, slumped against the wall, sleeping sitting up.

Big’s voice is a deep rumble of thunder. “No funny…” Well, you know the rest.

Feet scuffle on the floor. More prisoners. I wonder if this is a busy day in the dungeons or if every day is like this, prisoners in, prisoners out. Do prisoners ever go out? Or is the sentence the same regardless of the crime: life in the dungeons. I wonder if they’ll even feed us, or if we just wither away until we can’t wither no more—and then we die.

The feet trod along, at least three sets, maybe four, in addition to Big’s crashing footsteps, and I find myself shrinking into the shadows, like Skye—that’s her name, isn’t it? Or did I dream it?—musta done when we passed by her cell.

“What the scorch happened?” Skye says, her voice firm and echoing.

“Shut yer Heater pie hole!” Big roars.

“I ain’t a Heater, you great big tub o’ tug lard!” Skye retorts. I grin in the dark. She don’t take nothing from nobody, and I’ve got the black eye to prove it.

“It’s alright, Skye,” another female voice says, its tone the exact opposite of Skye’s husky timbre. Hers floats like a simple melody from a flute, calming everything and everyone that hears it.

Skye stays quiet.

Four people pass by my cell, their skin orangey-brown under the torchlight. They’re wearing light-brown skins, exactly like Skye was wearing when I first met her. They look in at me but their eyes don’t register any sort of recognition, because they can’t see me in the shadows. A few hours ago I’d have said they were Heaters, but now I have no clue, because no one except the men at the border seems to be Heaters.

Two are guys, two girls. I only get the barest glimpse, but one’s got shortish black hair, longer than Skye’s but only by a few months’ growing, and could almost be her sister, if she wasn’t so much skinnier. Still muscular, but with bones no bigger than the splinters I occasionally pull out of my feet. Next to her is a guy, lean, muscular, with a look of strength about him. Behind them is another woman, with long, black hair and a regal walk to her, almost like she’s dancing. She looks strong as chill, too, but in a way that’s more graceful than Skye. And bringing up the rear is the Marked man, every bit as full of muscle and hard edges as Buff described, covered with dark markings that shine a bit in the light, which, when combined with his dark eyes, give him an intimidating look.

Only I’m not intimidated. Not by him. Not by his posse.

The only one who might intimidate me is Skye, but I’m not admitting that just yet.

Then they’re gone and I crawl back outta the shadows. Clinks and clanks and four more prisoners are locked in.

I return to the brick, waiting until Big passes and slams the door before pulling it out. “Skye,” I hiss.

“Whaddya want, Icer?” And then her eyes are there and I’m blushing and my heart’s beating just a little bit faster.

“Why weren’t you with your friends?” I ask.

“Who’re you talking to, sis?” a voice says from nearby. Sis. Must be the thin, splinter-boned one.

“Just that searin’ Icy that tried to git us in the trees,” she calls.

“Scram, Icy,” another voice says, this one warm but full of pressure. The Marked guy. Gotta be.

“’S okay,” Skye says. “He ain’t causin’ no problems, are you, Icy?”

I almost laugh at how they continue to refer to me as Icy. To me that means they think I’m attractive, but from their tone I know they mean it in an entirely different way. And not a friendly one. “Dazz,” I say.

“What?” she says.

“My name. It’s Dazz.”

“Okay, Icy Dazz. Whaddya got to say fer yerself?” Skye says. I snort, unable to stop the laugh from escaping me.

“You laughin’ at me?” Skye says.

“Sorry, nay. It’s just…ah, never mind.” I repeat my question from before.

Skye laughs, and it sends a beautiful tremor up my spine. “I mighta been causin’ more trouble than they could handle,” she says.

“You searin’ nearly killed one of the guards,” her sister says across my cell.

She closes her eyes and laughs again. “Siena’s right,” she says. “I mighta done just that.”

“So they left you in the cell?” I ask.

“I’m here, ain’t I?” I’m racking up some sort of a record for freeze-brained questions.

“Where’d they take the others?” I ask, moving on quickly.

“How the scorch should I know?” she says. “I been sittin’ here havin’ the most unfortunate conversation with you.”

My face is becoming an unending pile of red blush.

“They took us to see the king,” Siena says.

“King Goff?” I say.

“Is there more’n one King?” Siena says. “Anyway, he’s more like King Goof if you ask me. Here we are, leaders of the new fire country Tri-Tribes, and he’s got us locked up tighter’n a hand up a tug’s blazeshooter.” Like her sister, Siena seems to have a way with words, although she has none of the grit in her voice that I admire so much about Skye.

Thankfully, Buff chimes in, because I’ve only got more stupid questions. “What happened in fire country?” he asks. “And what’s this new Tri-Tribes you’re talking about.”

“You ask too many questions,” the warm voice of the Marked guy says.

“It’s okay, Feve,” the song-like voice of the long-haired woman says. “Anyone we can tell our story to could help us.” Although there’s nothing special in her words, they seem to command attention, obedience, like she’s used to people listening to what she has to say.

“Please,” I say. “We’ve got as big a problem with Goff as anyone. Just tell us what happened.”

“My father happened,” Skye says.