“Do you know Lord Norfell, Father?”
“I don’t recognize the name,” he said. “If that man was ever a Stormancer, he must have used an alias, which is not something that bodes well. There have been Stormancers barred from practicing magic. There was a man by the name of Nordock who, some years ago, was charged with sentient experimentation . . . that is, transforming human subjects against their will into a variety of gruesome forms. He fled the country before he could be arrested.”
There was a knock at the door. Her father went to answer it and spoke to someone briefly.
“I’ll be right back, my dear,” he said, returning to her side. “Some business with Professor Donnelly.” His expression was harried—Professor Donnelly, a wheezing, perpetually red-faced man who regarded himself the foremost Magician in the empire, was the ringleader of a clique that was constantly campaigning to have Lionel St. George permanently removed from Chesterfield, claiming he was a menace to the scholarly community. It was partly true, but fortunately Professor Donnelly was so unpleasant that few were inclined to listen to him.
Ember nodded, and her father disappeared, pulling the door shut behind him. Her gaze traveled around the familiar office, taking in the backward clock, the rich tapestries, the shelves of books. She had missed Chesterfield so much! And yet she couldn’t be happy to be back, not like this, which was worse than not being back at all. It was as if she had returned home as a ghost, unable to enjoy any of the things she loved. She had left part of herself back in Antarctica.
Her gaze fell on Montgomery.
Her father had left the doorknob on his visible desk, next to a pile of books. Her heart thudding slowly in her chest, Ember lifted it.
As if in a dream, she strode to the door to the secondary hallway. It wouldn’t work. It couldn’t. Could it? While she had no interest in magic herself, Ember had absorbed enough during her life at Chesterfield to recognize a number of spells—including the one her father had used on the portal to Antarctica. Removing portals took time—possibly hours. Her father hadn’t done that—he had merely closed it.
Ember removed the doorknob on the door to the secondary hallway. She turned the screws around Montgomery, her fingers trembling.
It won’t work, she thought. She wasn’t sure if she hoped for this to be true or not. Montgomery had been connected to Chesterfield—if attached to any door, it would open onto Lionel’s office. So what would happen if it was attached to the other side of the office door? Montgomery couldn’t open onto the office again—that would create a paradox. Magic, Ember knew, hated paradoxes and tried to avoid them whenever possible. The most logical thing for Montgomery to do, then, was to reverse the portal Ember had just used.
Ember turned the knob to the right, and the door swung open.
Beyond it was a dark beach, the snow a smudge upon the night. An icy breeze stirred Ember’s hair, and she shivered.
She glanced back at the cozy office—the flicker of firelight, the squashy furniture, the curtains drawn against the early summer night. Snowflakes spilled into the room and popped in the fireplace like corn. Ember’s hand went to the scale around her neck. If she returned to Chesterfield, it wouldn’t be as a ghost.
She went through the portal.
Thirteen
Penguins
Fire dragons subsisted entirely on vegetation. Grass, leaves, and birch bark were among their favorite foods. Interestingly, this has only added to their fearsome reputation, for it was often said that when a dragon kills a man, it does not do so out of hunger.
—TAKAGI’S COMPENDIUM OF EXOTIC CREATURES
Reemerging onto the beach was an awkward thing to do. While it looked as if you could simply step into Antarctica from her father’s office, this was deceptive: though the portal was stretchy, it was only the size of the birdcage door. Ember had to crouch on her hands and knees and slither and slide through. She finally tumbled onto the snow, scraping her elbows on the cage in the process.
She had retrieved Montgomery on her way back, and tucked it into her pocket. Then she closed the birdcage, and Chesterfield disappeared.
Ember sat there for a moment, half unable to believe what she had done. She had never defied her father before—not in any way that mattered. She felt ill, worse still when she thought about her father returning to his office and discovering what she’d done.
She tucked her mother’s scale beneath her sweater, and it rested against her heart, warm and oddly familiar.
Now she had to hide the empty birdcage. The penguins had gone, and the snowy beach was deserted. Ember wandered up the beach, finally finding a spot between two large stones that created a shadowed hollow. She piled more stones on top of the cage, then stood back to admire her handiwork.
She turned and nearly walked into Prince Gideon.
She stifled a yelp of surprise. The prince stood with his arms crossed, his eyes cold. His right hand was bruised and bandaged, two of the fingers set with splints. It must have hurt to set the bones—they had brought no doctors along. Behind the prince stood his second, a hulking, grim-faced man with a scar running across his face. And next to him was Lord Norfell.
“Where were you?” he demanded. “Norfell saw you come this way, but when he followed, you vanished. He thought you’d run away.”
“I . . . I just . . .” Ember fell back. She still felt sick over disobeying her father, and it took her a moment to gather her wits. Her eyes went to the glittering thing around Prince Gideon’s neck. She realized with horror that it must be the ice dragon’s heartscale. It was a blue so rich it seemed to transcend color, threaded with glittering silver. Heartbreakingly beautiful, and somehow alive in the darkness.
Gideon smiled. “Magnificent, isn’t it? The first of many, I hope. My father will be pleased.”
Ember’s hatred thrummed in her veins. “Is that all you care about?”
The prince regarded her thoughtfully. “No,” he said. “I also care about loyalty. It’s important that my subjects are loyal to me, and through me, to my grandmother, Queen Victoria. My father is always very strict in punishing disloyalty. I intend to be no different.”
Ember’s heart sped up. Had he guessed about the cannons, and everything else? Did he know she was a spy? She didn’t feel anything like a spy just then, certainly not a hardened one. The prince was gazing at her strangely, his eyes traveling from her boots to her hair and back again.
“Lord Norfell tells me that you have a spell placed on you,” he said. “A very strange spell, something he’s never seen before. Would you care to tell me what it is?”
He said it calmly enough, though his gaze was wary, as if Ember were a feral dog that might lash out at any moment.
Ember’s heart was pounding wildly now. She knew she was in greater danger than she’d ever faced in her life. She took another step back. Calmly, slowly, Prince Gideon’s second moved to stand behind her. Lord Norfell stood with his foot propped easily against a rock, surveying the landscape as if he owned it, as he always did, though his expression was an odd mixture of relief and anger. What did he know? How much had he told the prince? She guessed that he hadn’t confided in Gideon out of loyalty, but to ensure that the prince would be motivated to find her if she had indeed run off.
“No,” she said.
“No?” the prince’s face went blotchy. “You dare to say no to me?”
“My . . . my father swore me to secrecy,” Ember stammered. “I’m . . .” She swallowed. “I’m under a spell. But it isn’t a danger to anyone. My father cast it when I was a baby, to save my life.”
Prince Gideon’s eyes narrowed. “You’re going to have to do better than that. Especially given that I know what you’ve done.”
“What?” Ember made a feeble attempt at an innocent tone. She wished that someone, anyone, would come—though would it matter if they did? She faced Prince Cronus’s heir, the grandson of Queen Victoria herself. There was no one who could rescue her.
Gideon removed s
omething from his wolf-skin cloak and tossed it at Ember’s feet. It was a piece of his bow, warped and charred.
“You were in my tent this morning,” he said. “I saw you. You did something to my bow. Didn’t you? Admit it.”
Panicked as she was, Ember felt powerless to stop the truth rising in her throat. “Yes.”
Prince Gideon seemed to make a visible effort to control himself, wincing as he unclenched his injured hand. “And you were behind everything else, weren’t you? The cannons . . . those strange rashes. The thefts. You’ve been attempting to sabotage this hunt from the beginning—no doubt on the orders of your miserable aunt.”
“I wouldn’t leap to that conclusion, Your Highness,” Lord Norfell said. “Whoever—whatever—she is, she may have her own motives. I think it best to examine her thoroughly, rather than waiting to speak to her aunt.”
Gideon turned back to her with an awful smile. “Lord Norfell thinks you’re not even human,” he said conversationally. “That you’re some sort of . . . creature. I suppose that’s why you have so much sympathy for dragons.”
Before she could stop him, he grabbed her hand.
“Hmm,” he said. “I noticed this before—your skin is hot. Some side effect of your father’s spell? Or something more? What else are you hiding?” He grabbed at her hair, as if to test if it was real, and Ember jerked out of his grip. But his fingers brushed against the heartscale at the back of her neck.
Ember was paralyzed with terror. The prince’s brows knitted together in confusion. He took her by the shoulders and wrenched her around, pulling her scarf down. She jerked out of his grip, crying out. But not before he had seen.
The prince fell back a step, a strangled sound rising from his lips. His eyes were wide with horrified understanding.
“Your Highness?” said his second.
“Hold her.” The prince’s voice was hoarse.
Ember didn’t even feel the man grip her arm. She couldn’t think. She could only stare at the prince. If he told Lord Norfell what he had seen—if he told anyone what he had seen—they would kill her on the spot. She saw the same realization pass over the prince’s face as his gaze darted to Lord Norfell. His eyes clouded. For a moment, Ember thought she saw a flash of the boy who had talked to her as he tended to his dogs. The boy who had saved her on the glacier. But then it was gone, so fast that Ember thought she had imagined it.
“What is it, Your Highness?” Lord Norfell said. His dark eyes ran eagerly over Ember. She knew in that moment, with a bone-chilling certainty, that he suspected that she was a dragon. He couldn’t know for sure, though, or he would have told the prince.
Prince Gideon shook his head, as if to clear it. “Nothing.” His voice was strained. “I dislike having to touch the creature, that’s all.”
Hope blossomed in her chest. But when he turned back to her, the prince’s expression was black.
“Get yourself dressed properly,” he commanded. “Then my second will ensure that neither you nor your irritating friends are able to cause any more trouble.” With that, he was gone.
Prince Gideon ordered his men to roll a boulder over to the fire. Then he had Ember tied to it, along with Nisha and Moss.
Ember had protested. She had tried to argue that Nisha and Moss had nothing to do with sabotaging the hunt, that it had all been her idea, but the prince had acted as if she hadn’t spoken—as had the other hunters. Only Sir Abraham had objected, his dignified mustache frowning at them all, and demanded to know why the prince felt it necessary to tie up children.
“Of course it’s necessary,” Prince Gideon had snapped. He hadn’t looked at Ember once since the beach. “These criminals have confessed to sabotage. We must prevent them from doing further mischief that may endanger not just the hunt, but our lives. Don’t be so squeamish, Sir Abraham. The saboteurs are perfectly unharmed and will be safely escorted back to the ship tomorrow at first light.”
And then no doubt safely held at the castle for questioning, Ember thought darkly. Like Nisha and Moss, she was bound at the waist and hands. The chill of the ice-caked boulder seeped into her back, and if she was cold, she could only imagine how the other two felt.
Her father had been right. She never should have come back. She felt a terrible weight settle over her—the weight of her father’s disappointment. She could have borne it if it had meant the dragons were safe, but they weren’t. She had failed them and her father. Ember slumped against the rock, too miserable even to cry.
“Unfortunate business, this,” Sir Abraham said. He lifted a steaming mug of tea to Ember’s mouth. She gave him a stony look, and he sighed. “Miss St. George, given the circumstances, I think it would be advisable to show some—”
“You can just stuff it,” Nisha snapped loudly and unexpectedly, drawing stares from the hunters at the fire. She had been almost silent throughout the ordeal, her face pale with shock as the prince’s servants had bound her.
“Nisha!” Moss hissed.
“You heard me,” she went on, her voice growing louder and louder. “She doesn’t want to talk to you. You’re a beastly person—you all are. How dare you do this to us? I hope the dragons eat you alive. I hope they start with your toes and then work their way up. Good riddance, I’ll say! You might be a nobleman, but Ember has as much class in one finger as you probably do in your entire family tree!”
Sir Abraham had gone pale. Even his dignified mustache seemed whiter. With a sharp gesture, he dashed the tea against the ground and stalked off. Several of the hunters at the fire sniggered.
Ember looked at Nisha. The other girl was breathing hard, her face red. “Are you all right?” Ember whispered.
Nisha shook her head once, sharply. A tear slipped down her cheek. Finally she said, “I just c-can’t stop thinking about my parents. I n-never even told them where I was going, and now—now I’ve been arrested by the prince!”
Ember bit her lip. “I’m sorry. I hope they won’t be too angry.”
“You don’t understand,” Nisha said. “Ever since Aditi d-died, they don’t let me out of their sight! But they also don’t—they don’t talk to me, not the way they used to, and sometimes I think they wish that I had been the one who died instead of her. And I just get so angry. I wish everything could go back to how it was before.”
Ember was astonished. She hadn’t known that Nisha felt any of these things—but then, she realized with a stab of guilt, she hadn’t really been paying attention. She had been so concerned with her own worries and plans that she had barely asked Nisha anything about herself, or Moss, for that matter. Now here they were, held captive alongside her, having risked their own safety to help her.
“That’s not true,” Moss said. He had to talk past Ember, who was tied up in the middle of them. “Your parents are worried about you—just as worried as they would be for Aditi.”
Nisha sniffled. “I wish she was here. She was always braver than me. I thought I could be as brave as her by coming with you, but . . . now I just feel more alone.”
Moss said quietly, “I miss her too.”
Nisha buried her face against her knees, and would not respond to either of them again.
“I knew she shouldn’t have come along,” Moss whispered to Ember. “I should have tried to stop her.”
“It doesn’t seem fair to stop her, and then go yourself,” Ember said.
“Nobody cares where I go.” He said it in an offhand way, and then he flushed, as if hearing his own words.
Ember didn’t know what to say. Moss gazed into the darkness, the flush lingering on his cheeks.
“Do you really not remember anything before you showed up at the Firefly?” Ember said. She had been longing to ask since they’d met but hadn’t had the courage.
“No,” Moss said wearily.
“It’s just . . . my father met a man once whose memory had been altered by magic,” Ember said. “Someone had switched his memories with a vole’s, which are just about the worst memories to
have—all voles think about are tunnels and being eaten alive by birds. But when he was asleep, sometimes he’d dream about his old life. Do you ever dream?”
Moss was quiet for so long Ember didn’t think he would answer. “Sometimes,” he said.
“About what?” Ember prompted.
“It’s nothing specific, it’s just . . .” He swallowed. “Darkness. Somewhere dark—underground, maybe. I’m lost, and I’m . . . I’m hungry.”
Ember felt an odd sort of shiver trace its way down her back.
“That’s all I remember,” Moss said.
“Maybe if you tried harder,” Ember pressed, but he shook his head. “Don’t you want to get your memories back?”
“Not if they’re memories of this place.”
Ember was surprised. “I thought you liked it at the Firefly.”
Moss sighed. “I want to live where things grow. I want to see trees and flowers, and feel the rain. I’ve never even seen rain before. I’m tired of snow and ice and darkness. I don’t think I ever liked it here, even when I was . . . whoever I was before.”
“Why don’t you?” Ember said. “I’m sure the Scientists would be happy to pay for a boarding school—”
“It’s not that. I don’t know what it is. It’s like . . . it’s like there’s something holding me here.” His hand clenched at the snow. “I don’t know why, but I thought that if I joined the hunt with you, I might find some answers. I feel like they’re out here, I just don’t know where.”
“Hmm.” Ember wondered if her father would be able to sort out Moss’s memories. But thinking about her father only made her miserable again, and she said no more. The three of them sat there in silence, thinking their separate thoughts as they gazed into the darkness. Ember found herself puzzling over their conversation. Both Moss and Nisha felt alone, even though they weren’t—they weren’t the last of their kind, after all, and Nisha had both her parents. She decided eventually that there must be different kinds of alone, just as there were different species of lantern fish.
Ember and the Ice Dragons Page 15