Ember and the Ice Dragons

by Heather Fawcett

  “Ember St. George,” she said. Her left wing, often more attuned to danger than she was, gave a twitch as she met the man’s gaze. “Why did you do that?”

  Lord Norfell raised an eyebrow. He was graceful and handsome, and around the same age as Ember’s father. But in his eyes was a glint of mischief that Ember found unsettling. His face was red from the cold, almost the color of his hair. “Oh, a bit of sport, you know. My men and I are in want of entertainment.” He glanced at the dead bird at his feet. “Forgive me—you no doubt have a sensitive disposition. A gentleman should spare young ladies such sights.”

  “I wouldn’t know what a gentleman should do,” Ember said. “But I would like you to leave these penguins alone.”

  His eyes flashed—they were the murky green of algae or boiled vegetables. Then he smiled, as if he found Ember amusing, which she did not like at all.

  “Where did you get all that fireglass?” she said. She had never seen so much worn by one person before, and much of it seemed rough-cut, nothing like what they sold at high-end London boutiques and canal markets.

  The man touched one of the pendants around his neck. “These are trophies.”

  Ember felt cold. “Yours?”

  “I was a prodigious dragon hunter in my day,” the man said. “I slayed twenty-one beasts with my own hands.”

  Ember didn’t trust herself to reply. Her heart thudded, slow and heavy.

  “St. George,” he murmured, staring at her. “Not Lord St. George’s daughter?”

  It was odd to hear her father referred to that way—he had been made a baron years ago by Queen Victoria, but he never used his title, and generally behaved as if he’d forgotten about it. “Yes,” Ember said unwillingly, because she suspected he was the sort of man who would like her better if she had the word “lord” attached to her. She didn’t want him to like her. She wanted to be his enemy.

  “Lovely,” Lord Norfell said, his smile growing. “Here to visit your aunt, are you?” He took her hand in his clean one, bowing over it. “Well, Miss St. George, you can rest assured that these penguins will be safe from me. After all, I am here for bigger quarry.”

  Ember pulled away. She hoped Lord Norfell hadn’t felt the unnatural warmth of her hand through her glove. “Quarry?”

  “Ember,” Professor Rosenberg called. He stood a little ways back, his expression dark. “Come along, child.”

  “Mustn’t keep Auntie waiting.” Lord Norfell tipped his hat, the gesture bringing out his slyness again. “Good day, Ember St. George.”

  As he walked away, Ember slowly relaxed her hands, which had been balled into fists in her pockets. She was taken aback by her own gumption. She generally avoided talking to people, let alone starting arguments, but Lord Norfell had made her so angry.

  She turned up her coat collar, wishing she could make herself invisible the way she did at Chesterfield. There was no point in being angry—Lord Norfell was a nobleman, and a dragon hunter. He would do what he liked, even if that meant shooting penguins when he got bored again.

  Nevertheless, from that moment on, she vowed that Lord Norfell was her sworn enemy, and if she could find a way, she would become his.

  Ember and Professor Rosenberg continued along the path from the harbor, but before they could reach the station, they were accosted by a man with fogged-up glasses and wires of gray hair. It was clear that he was a Scientist, for he wore a spyglass on a chain around his neck, and also had the word “FIREFLY” stitched into his jacket, which was what the Scientists called the research station. He balked at the sight of Professor Rosenberg’s divining stick, fixing the man with an indignant glare, and peered suspiciously into Ember’s face when she introduced herself, as if she might be an imposter. Without a word, he hefted her suitcase and strode up the path. Ember had to say a hasty farewell to Professor Rosenberg. He touched her on the head and bid her goodbye in his grave voice.

  “Hello?” Ember called after the man with her suitcase, who was traveling at a reckless pace over the beaten snow. “You haven’t given me your name. And where is my aunt?”

  “You’re not supposed to be here,” the man said. “Your ship was due on Saturday.”

  “That’s not an answer,” Ember said. It wasn’t her fault that sea ice had delayed the Orpheus by four days.

  The man twisted his head, swiping a finger over his glasses so that he could squint his blue eyes at Ember. “Name’s Mac. That’s it. Not Macdonald. Not Mackenzie. Not Macanythingelseyoucanthinkof. Just Mac. Em, eh, see. Got it?”

  Ember couldn’t help thinking back to what First Officer Jack had said about madness and too much snow. “Think so.”

  “I’ve no idea where Myra is. Thundering about somewhere, no doubt. She’ll be mad as hops about this—she’s gone down to the harbor every day to wait for you.” He squinted at her. “Red sky this morning. Bad omen. Bad, bad omen.”

  “Oh,” Ember said. She wished someone else had been there to greet her. She began to wonder if Mac was leading her to the station at all, or if they were just going to keep wandering over the ice forever, when finally they reached the crest of the hill, and there it was.

  Ember’s first impression was of a long metal caterpillar crouched over the snow. The station was composed of eleven joined-up hexagons, each mounted on four skinny stilts that bore an eerie resemblance to legs. A British flag had been painted onto the largest section, the one in the middle of the caterpillar, where there was a ramp leading down to the ground. Lights shone from several of the hexagons, which all seemed to be lined with windows.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Mac murmured, swiping at his glasses again. His prickliness seemed to dissipate.

  Ember wasn’t sure she’d use that word. The station had no elegance whatsoever, and was, compared with the stately buildings of London, rather ugly. But it was absolutely unique, and possessed a certain charm, for somehow the station gave off the impression that it was aware of its ugliness, but too practical to care.

  Mac turned to her. “What do you think?”

  Ember bit her tongue. She had a natural inclination toward the truth—trying not to answer questions honestly was like suppressing a sneeze. She was also inconveniently incapable of lying. Perhaps it was a side effect of the spell that had turned her into a human girl, or perhaps it was that, as her father sometimes said, lying was a uniquely human power—a dark one, but useful. Ember often wished she could lie. Her honesty was always getting her in trouble.

  Fortunately, Mac misinterpreted Ember’s silence, as people tended to do. “Quite the sight, I know. I still find myself staring at it sometimes, and I’ve lived here for years. I wouldn’t leave it. Not for a place on the Queen’s Senate!”

  Ember couldn’t imagine Mac on the Queen’s Senate, which was made up of six Magicians and six Scientists, including the prime minister. The Senate advised the queen, but they were elected, and almost as powerful as the queen herself. Ember’s father had been asked to run for a spot on the Senate more than once, but he always said he wouldn’t be able to stand being a member of such a stuffy group, particularly as it would take him away from his experiments.

  Mac led her to the very last hexagon. Apparently the station had been designed in its piecemeal way so that the Scientists could take it apart and move it to another place if they wanted to. The windows, he said vaguely, had been magically strengthened through Stormancy. This immediately piqued Ember’s interest.

  “Are there any Stormancers at the station?” she said.

  Mac snorted. “Stormancers, here? Why would we need them, girl?”

  “But you just said—”

  “This is a place of Science,” Mac said.

  “Even though there’s a Stormancer stationed down at Port Gloaming to melt the sea ice?” Ember said. One of the sailors had told her that it would be impossible to have a proper dock in Antarctica without Stormancy—the ice would crush it.

  Mac pretended not to hear this. “No magic is allowed at the station. S
o don’t get any ideas.”

  “I’m not a Stormancer,” Ember said.

  Mac tossed a suspicious look over his shoulder. “Your father is. Quite the tales I hear about him.”

  “That doesn’t have anything to do with me. Stormancy isn’t inherited—it’s random, and rare.”

  Mac made a skeptical noise. “All I can say is, if I see any books floating through the air, or catch a whiff of any strange potions . . .”

  Ember sighed. She considered telling Mac that wasn’t how magic worked—all magic was transformative in nature. Stormancers could change the shape of matter with a spell, but that was as far as their powers extended. They couldn’t move things with their minds, or brew love potions, or do anything else equally silly. At the core, every spell simply transformed one thing into something else. Most Stormancers, in fact, could barely change a spoon into a fork. Only a few, like her father, could perform more complicated feats. The spell that made Ember’s wings invisible changed how people saw her—or their ability to see her. Those were the trickiest spells of all, and the most dangerous. If miscast, they could drive a person mad, and were thus considered dark magic, which was illegal. Or, as Lionel St. George put it, technically illegal.

  “As I was saying,” Mac said, “each of the stilts is powered by hydraulics. . . .”

  Ember followed him up the small ramp, which was painted bright yellow. She recognized the disdainful note in Mac’s voice when he spoke of magic. It had been over a hundred years since the conflict that had pitted Magicians and Stormancers against Scientists, nearly tearing apart the empire in the process, but bitter feelings remained on both sides. It was why Chesterfield, which had once been a school dedicated solely to Stormancy, had begun teaching Science as well. Many Magicians and Scientists there now worked side by side in an attempt to reconcile the two disciplines, with little success. Science, so far, could not understand magic, while magic could not understand the value of Science.

  Mac led her through two sets of doors into a hexagon that was little more than a hallway lined with more doors, all closed.

  “Here we are,” he said. “This is one of the sleeping sections—you’re in number five, at the end of the hall.”

  Mac swung one of the doors open. “Told you it wasn’t much.”

  Ember didn’t reply—she was too busy staring. The room was an odd triangular shape, being nestled into a corner of the hexagon, and quite small, only large enough for a bed and a wardrobe, and that was about it. But one of the three walls was glass, and beyond the glass were miles of snow and mountains and toothy rock, vast as the night sky.

  “It’s—” Ember paused. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Hmmph,” Mac said, but Ember could tell he was pleased.

  “It’s getting late,” Ember said, surprised. The sky was darkening, and a single star hung in the violet blue.

  “No, it isn’t.” Mac gave her a knowing look. “You’ll have to get used to that, too. This close to the Pole, heading into winter, we only see a few hours of sunlight each day. In a couple weeks, even that will be gone, and we’ll be left with the moon and the stars.” He didn’t sound at all displeased by this.

  “Bathroom’s that way,” he said, pointing. “I’ll see if I can find any trace of Myra.”

  Ember noticed again the odd way that he spoke of her aunt, as if she were some sort of wild creature that could be observed if one was lucky, but not predicted. He deposited Ember’s suitcase by the bed and left, closing the door behind him.

  Ember sat on the edge of her bed, which was squashy and piled with blankets. Then she burst into tears.

  It was some time before she stopped. The horizon had become the color of crushed violets. The twilight felt clean and free here, not smothered between buildings or grimed with soot and gaslight. Though the view was breathtaking, she could not appreciate it. All she wanted was her little bedroom, with the sounds of Chesterfield coming in through the window, and Puff curled up on the bed, and her father muttering to his books in the drawing room.

  Ember wiped her face. Dully, she took off her coat, first removing the flagstone from her pocket and arranging it on the bedside table so that the lettering was facing her. Then she set about unpacking her suitcase. But once she had put her clothes and books away, she discovered an odd lump at the very bottom. She pulled back the leather lining and found a small compartment, which held a folded piece of paper—and a doorknob.

  The doorknob, to be sure, was unexpected, but Ember paid it little attention. She unfolded the paper at once, and immediately recognized her father’s handwriting. My dear Ember, it said at the top, and then Ember could read no more, for she had burst into tears again.

  When she stopped, she took up the letter and read.

  My dear Ember,

  I hope you had a safe journey, and that you have found the research station welcoming and comfortable. Your aunt has a unique manner, and as we know, an unusual history, and I ask that you inform me immediately if you experience anything concerning during your stay. As I write this, you are asleep in your bedroom and Puff is glowering at me from the bookcase, as if convinced I am to blame for your looming departure. I wish I could tell her differently, but I confess I continue to feel guilty for this entire situation, my dear. I wish you to know that I have the beginnings of a plan, which I shall hopefully be able to tell you about by the time you read this. Speaking of which, please make use of the enclosed doorknob at your earliest convenience. You’ll find that it will work on any door, though do ensure that you only turn it to the right.

  With much love, as always, your father,

  L. S.-G.

  P.S. Please do not show the doorknob to anyone. Myra has informed me that some of the Scientists do not look kindly on the use of magic at the station.

  P.P.S. Please excuse the doorknob’s manners.

  The letter smelled of Chesterfield. The university had, naturally, hired her father back—barely a week after firing him, a new record. Ember leaped up, seizing the doorknob. She considered the door leading to the hallway first, and had just taken a step toward it when the doorknob gave a strange jerk.

  Ember almost dropped it. She exhaled slowly, reminding herself that she’d seen far stranger things at Chesterfield than irascible doorknobs.

  “Not that one?” she said politely, trying to start things off on the right foot. The doorknob made no reply. Ember next considered her wardrobe. It was finely carved and clearly expensive, and in that sense, it matched the doorknob, which was decorated with a delicate leafy pattern and gold filigree. The magical doorknob did not protest as Ember began to loosen the ordinary doorknob on the wardrobe—which was also inlaid with gold—nor when she lifted the magical doorknob to the screws. It twirled the screws into place, seeming rather pleased with itself.

  Ember paused. Had the sun set back in London? It wasn’t safe for her to go back during the day, when she was at risk of bursting into flames. She tried to calculate the hours, but her thoughts were a whirlwind. She supposed she could at least poke her head through to check.

  She was just about to turn the knob when someone thundered alarmingly on her door. It was closer to an assault than a request for entry, and Ember was too startled to reply. After a moment of silence, the door flew open.

  A young woman strode into the room, her expression so fierce that Ember fell back a step.

  “Oh, I will strangle Mac this time, truly I will,” Aunt Myra growled, and then she pulled Ember into a hug so strong it lifted her off her feet.

  Ember was so surprised that she struggled, which made for an extremely awkward hug. Aunt Myra half dropped her, and when Ember’s wings flapped automatically, the gust blew her aunt’s shapeless hat into the hallway.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Ember,” Myra said. “What a mess this is! I was down at the harbor all day yesterday, and the one before, and this morning, but then there was an incident with the soil samples, and I had to—”

  “Yes, I know,” Ember said abruptly,
put off by the hug. “Mac told me. It’s all right.”

  “No, it isn’t. I was supposed to greet you, and instead, you got that surly old badger—oh, this is just my luck!”

  Her voice was so despairing that Ember was perplexed. She gazed at her aunt properly for the first time. Myra, Ember knew, was two years younger than Lionel, and looked very much like him, with her ruddy complexion and mass of golden curls, though these were pulled back from her face in a severe bun. She was dressed in the sort of hideously respectable clothing—a shapeless gray skirt suit—that Ember only saw on the fustiest of Chesterfield’s professors, who were, on the whole, a fusty sort. Her clothing was odd because it didn’t seem to match anything else about her.

  “It was a poor introduction, but we’ll just have to make up for it as best we can,” her aunt continued in the same voice. “How about I introduce you to the Scientists? Some of them have their children here. You’ll like that—children your own age! And how about some hot chocolate? Winston makes the best you’ve ever tasted—”

  Ember, who felt too homesick to enjoy hot chocolate and who never wanted to meet other children, made an involuntary noise of protest, which caused her aunt to stutter to a confused stop before launching off again in another direction like a spooked horse. She told Ember about the governess who worked at the station, and how Ember was certain to like her, as she had won several awards for her teaching methods back in Paris. Aunt Myra went on for some time about these awards. When Ember was able to get a word in edgewise, she asked her aunt when she might learn about her research, which she understood focused on Antarctic wildlife, including ice dragons. That set her aunt off again at a mile a minute, and she informed Ember of the many dangers of straying too far from the Firefly. Ember eventually understood that she would be spending most of her time inside, taking lessons from the award-winning governess, where she would be unlikely to learn anything about dragons.

  “Well, how about a tour?” Aunt Myra said, seeming disturbed by Ember’s silence when she finally paused for breath. “You must be curious about this place. We can have a good chat, just the two of us. It’s such a pity that we’ve never known each other, though of course I have been in—ah, I’ve been unavailable during a large part of your life. . . .”