Miss Frost Chills the Cheater

by Painter, Kristen

  “Go for it.” While Ezreal did his thing, I wandered around, opening cabinets, looking in drawers, and generally trying to find something that would give us an idea where he’d taken Sin. I didn’t find anything interesting until I peeked into his walk-in closet.

  The back wall was blank.

  “How odd.” No shelves, no hooks, no racks of hanging clothes. Just a blank wall in a space that otherwise utilized every inch for organization.

  I flipped the light on and immediately understood why. There was a sheet covering the wall. It was hung on a slim curtain rod and, with the light off, looked very much like a regular painted wall.

  I pulled the sheet back. It took a moment for my brain to register what my eyes were seeing. “Ezreal, come in here.”

  He was at the door a few moments later. The same curse he’d used before slipped out again. “He really has been planning this for months.”

  The wall beneath the curtain was covered with notes, photos of me, Sinclair, and the three tinkers. Timelines that included our trip up here, Lyla’s visit to Sweet Acres, and the Tinkers’ Tourney. There were clippings of the biased articles from the Post.

  Next to one of them, a single white feather was tacked up. On a small hook beside that was what had to be a copy of my father’s ID badge. There was even a photo of Sin and me with Sin’s face crossed out with a black X.

  Everything was here. From how he’d set up men in the crowd at the toy reveal to cast suspicion on Sin to how he’d influenced Stanley and Terrance to make identical toys with the ultimate goal of blaming Sinclair’s influence as evil. There was even a duplicate ballot that the tinkers themselves used to nominate each other for the tourney.

  Gregory’s hands had been in all of it. The whole thing was a road map for the horrible, desperate attempt he’d made to smear Sin’s good name.

  I was breathing in deep, measured breaths as I processed the nightmare in front of me. “He’s got everything he needs to set this whole thing up, but why? Why would he want to get rid of Sin? What has he ever done to Gregory?”

  Ezreal tapped a key hanging farther down. “Including a copy of the master key that no one else was supposed to know about.” He shook his head. “I should have seen it.”

  I looked at him. “How could you have?”

  His gaze went dark with memory. “When your father hired me, there were some who were very outspoken about what a bad decision that was.”

  “Because they didn’t think a former fighter belonged in such a delicate position.”

  He snorted softly. “That was the story your father and I put forward to diffuse the harder truth.”

  “Which was what?”

  “That I was half ice troll.” His gaze returned to the wall and all its damning evidence. “Gregory was one of the loudest opponents, but your father told him in unequivocal terms to get over it.”

  “But you didn’t call him out as one of your enemies when Sin asked you.”

  “You’re right, I didn’t. Because I wanted to believe that was all in the past. But this wall, and his actions, prove otherwise.”

  “That’s why he used your personal stationery. He wanted to snare you in all this too.”

  Ezreal nodded. “Taking me down would have just been a feather in his cap.”

  “Just like preventing Sin from becoming consort would be the crown jewel.” I couldn’t believe someone I’d trusted for so long had betrayed me and my family in such a horrific way. “He must hate Sinclair. Sin doesn’t have an ounce of elf in him.”

  The steely, honed look I’d seen before returned to Ezreal’s eyes. “I’ve got all I need. Let’s bring Mr. Crowe home.”

  “There’s one more thing I need to do.” I turned and marched back through the apartment and into the hall.

  As soon as Ezreal was beside me, I pulled the door shut. He dug the key from his pocket.

  But I stopped him. “You don’t need to lock it. I’m going to do something better.”

  I raised my hands. “I’m going to seal it shut so that no one can get in to remove anything until I’m ready for that to happen. For all we know, he could still have an accomplice in the palace. I want all this evidence preserved.”

  I called up my magic and sealed the door top to bottom in a thick layer of impenetrable ice. It gleamed glacial blue in the palace lighting. Cold radiated off of it and spilled over us as I dropped my hands. In my current aggravated state, holding this kind of magic didn’t even register. It was an afterthought. As easy as breathing. “That should do it.”

  “I’ll say.” Ezreal let out a little laugh. “That should also remind anyone who sees it that you are most definitely your father’s daughter.”

  “Gregory’s about to find that out for himself in a very personal way. Which direction?”

  Ezreal’s nostrils flared as he inhaled. He turned his head, sniffing both sides of the corridor.

  Suddenly, doubt filled me. “How can you tell anything in here? This whole place must reek of him. Gregory’s haunted these halls since before I was born.”

  Ezreal’s eyes suddenly shifted from his normal gray to a deep, crystalline blue. I’d seen that happen a few times before when his emotions had been high. “I only needed Gregory’s smell as a baseline. It’s Mr. Crowe’s scent I’m tracking. I wanted to make sure he hadn’t been here. And he hasn’t. But I can find him now. They may not have left the palace.”

  “Makes sense. Getting Sin out of here would be hard to accomplish. Even for Gregory.”

  “Follow me.” Ezreal stopped short and grimaced. “I didn’t mean to command you, Princess.”

  “Command away. Now isn’t the time for protocol. Let’s go. I’m right behind you.”

  Ezreal took off back the way we came. We ended up in the freight elevator. His nostrils flared again. “They were in here, but I can’t know which floor until I smell it.”

  “Then we’ll check every floor.” I ran my hand down the panel, lighting up every button.

  The elevator moved too slowly for my mood. At each floor, Ezreal got out, sniffed, and got back in, shaking his head.

  Until we got to the sub-basement. I’d never been to this floor. It was several stories deep within the permafrost, and as a child, I’d been forbidden to come down here. Not like I’d wanted to. Not after one of my cousins had come down here on a dare and run into a trio of hibernating yetis.

  He’d escaped with a couple of deep scratches and the lingering stink of hot garbage that had taken many baths with peppermint soap to get rid of.

  They hadn’t really meant to hurt him, I’d found out later. They’d merely held him down and tried to lick the jam off him. He was a messy eater.

  And since as a child, I always had candy in my pockets, I was convinced they’d hunt me down if I ever came near here. That was enough to keep me from even thinking about exploring this level.

  Sure, the yetis had been shooed out by one of the groundskeepers trained for that sort of thing. And that had been years ago.

  But as the doors opened onto the dark, dank, freezing space, I fully expected to be attacked by small, toothy balls of fur that stank of rancid fish and sun-warmed diapers.

  Ezreal nodded, his voice a whisper. “They were here.”

  I stilled. “Yetis?” I whispered back.

  “What? No. Gregory and Mr. Crowe.” He put his hand against the door to keep it from closing.

  “Oh, right.” That bucked my courage up. “Wait, what do you mean were?”

  He shook his head. “The scent trail stops here.”

  I wanted to throw up. “We have to find them. If the trail stops here, where did they go?”

  “There’s only one explanation. They doubled back. Gregory did this to throw us off. They must have left the palace after all.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “I’ve failed you. I’m sorry.”

  “You haven’t failed me yet. If the valets haven’t seen Gregory, that means he took Sin out a different way. Probably by the staff entrance. Are
n’t there crawlers there?”

  Ezreal picked his head up. “There are. And unlike the family entrances, there’s no one monitoring the staff entrance.”

  He got back into the elevator and jabbed the button for the main floor. “Can Mr. Crowe stand the cold?”

  I nodded, thinking back to when we’d been frozen in place at Elenora Ellingham’s Black and Orange Ball by Lark and her crew of thieves. A caper that had resulted in Lark’s magic being stripped through an intense saltwater treatment program. Salt water being the winter elf’s kryptonite. “He can better than most. Being a necromancer gives him an edge there.”

  “Good. He’s going to need that edge. Because I’m pretty sure Gregory’s taken him where he thought no one would go looking.”

  I had a feeling I knew exactly where Ezreal was talking about. But at the same time, I didn’t want it to be true. “The polar forest.”

  He nodded. “Yeti country.”

  One of the best and worst things about living in a land where snow perpetually covers the ground is that it’s impossible not to leave tracks.

  That didn’t mean it was easy to find the route Gregory had taken. For one thing, the polar forest surrounded us on three sides. Any direction out of town and away from the palace except for east, which would take you to a glacier, would lead you to the polar forest eventually.

  For another thing, the staff entrance was well-used. All of the staff and some deliveries came through there, so the ground might have been covered in snow, but it was packed down, and where it wasn’t, the tracks went in every direction.

  Many sets of crawler tracks ventured far enough out to indicate they’d gone toward the forest. It was a popular place to hike and picnic. Or rather, the edges were since the yetis rarely ventured out that far. They generally preferred the deepest parts of the forest.

  We preferred them to stay there too.

  Some of the braver cooks often went deeper in to forage for specific delicacies, like the wintermint my mother so dearly loved and seasonal edibles like brisk berries and buttercaps, a mushroom that appeared after a particularly dry snowfall.

  But the third thing about living in a winter wonderland was that it snowed a lot, and not always because my father had decided it should. Today, for example. The snow that had been coming down since early morning had rendered most of the tracks nearly invisible.

  So which way to go when we were basically surrounded by snow fields and forest?

  Ezreal deduced north. That part of the forest was the least visited, as it was very dense and also one of the coldest areas. Ezreal believed Gregory would use that cold as another tool against Sinclair and that he’d count on the density to hide him and his captive.

  Fortunately, we had a tool of our own. Ezreal’s incredible ability to sniff out scents. He was as good as Birdie. Maybe even better. We rode with the crawler’s windows down, allowing the air to pass over us. We weren’t even at the tree line when he lifted his head and seemed to catch a scent.

  He steered the crawler slightly right and slowed down. “They’re here.”

  I was overjoyed, but the look on his face was odd. Not happy, as I’d have thought it would be, but concerned. I sniffed the air for myself to see if I could make sense of his expression.

  It would have hit me a second later, I’m sure. Yetis. The stink was faint but very present. That was not good. “Ezreal, I’m worried. And I can tell you are too. I see it on your face.”

  He frowned as he parked the crawler. “I don’t like what I’m smelling.”

  “I know. Me either. Yetis. But they should be deeper in than what Gregory has gone. Right? At least if he’s smart, he won’t have gone that far.”

  “If he was smart, he never would have started any of this.”

  “True, but he’s been smart enough to keep us guessing for a long time, so who knows what he’s capable of? Or how lost in his own misconceptions he is.” I was worried about that. Gregory might have gone into some kind of delusional state where he thought he was actually going to get away with this. That could make him more dangerous and unpredictable than he already was.

  Ezreal parked the crawler and grabbed a bag out of the back seat. It was an emergency pack and he’d made sure it was in the crawler before we’d left. “We have to go on foot from here. The trees are too thick.”

  “But you have the trail, right?”

  “I do.” He slung the bag across his body.

  “Then let’s run.”

  “That won’t be possible. It’s too thick here.”

  “Then let’s move at the fastest pace possible. I don’t want to waste another second.” Or make ourselves any more vulnerable to the yetis than we already would be. Getting attacked wasn’t going to help rescue Sin.

  “We’ll go as quickly as the terrain allows. And the plan for when we get there?” He opened his door.

  I opened mine too. “I’m going to hit Gregory with as much ice as I can, which should hold him long enough for you to subdue him, but beyond that, I’m going to Sin’s aid immediately.”

  “Then that’s our plan. How we actually make the approach can be determined once we find him.”

  “Works for me.”

  “Let me get my bearings on the scent line, and we’ll head in.”

  We got out and stood for a second at the forest’s edge while Ezreal breathed the trail in one more time. The wall of trees in front of us ascended into the clouds, their tops disappearing into the snow-laden sky. The deeper I looked into the woods, the darker it got. Very little sun penetrated the depths of this forest.

  A rough trek lay ahead of us.

  I glanced at Ezreal, glad this warrior of a man was on my side. I would do anything for Sin, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t afraid. “Ezreal? You’re authorized to use whatever force necessary. You understand me?”

  His gaze was dead serious. “I do, Princess.”

  “Then lead the way.”

  He went in first, and I followed as closely behind as I could. The polar forest was a unique place. Most of the trees were centuries old and twice as thick around as a crawler was wide. I’ve never seen the redwoods or sequoias in person, but I’d been told those trees were the lesser descendants of the polar pines.

  There was no running through this part of the forest. I’d been foolish to think that was possible. The trees were almost trunk to trunk in some places, the pines like soldiers standing at attention. Some of them had grown so close together there was no fitting between them, creating an obstacle we had to go around. A little light filtered through here and there, but it was as if a perpetual twilight existed in this place.

  Where the pines allowed some room, small scrub brush took over.

  We made time where we could, but it felt like a snail’s pace. A very loud snail. In the polar forest, the stillness almost hurt your ears. There was some sound, the crack of an iced branch, the whistle of wind, the scurry of an alpine squirrel. But for the most part, the snow absorbed everything, leaving behind a quiet that was a little unsettling.

  Any noise we made seemed as if it had been broadcast through a megaphone. I cringed at each snap of a twig or crunch of iced-over snow.

  Occasionally, Ezreal adjusted our course according to the scent line he was following, but for the most part, we trudged on without a word. Driven by our purpose. Curls of vapor spun out of our mouths, our breathing heavier the deeper in we got. The air was crisp and clear and scented with pine.

  Finally, the forest began to open up a little. Not much, but enough that we could quicken our pace.

  Then he stopped abruptly and raised his hand. He pointed to me, then tapped his ear.

  I listened. And heard the faint ravings of a man gone mad.

  “Gregory,” I mouthed.

  Ezreal nodded. He made more hand motions, indicating we should split up and go in separately. It was a good plan. It would create more confusion and throw Gregory off.

  After all, we were assuming he was alone with Sin, bu
t we couldn’t know that for sure.

  A few more nods and gestures and whispered words, and we went in opposite directions to circle around. Ezreal had told me to wait until I heard his call. The trolls had a deep guttural woof, and I expected that’s what I’d hear.

  Not rushing directly to Sin was killing me, but I knew this was a good plan. I went as quietly through the snow and trees as I could, finally finding a spot that allowed me to at last lay eyes on Sinclair.

  Gregory’s rantings came through in bits and pieces, all about how no foreign influence should taint the throne.

  But it was the sight of Sinclair that caused my heart to clench. He was bound to a massive pine by bands of ice at his chest, thighs, and ankles. His head lolled to one side, eyes closed. I wasn’t sure he was conscious.

  Or alive.

  Without thinking, an ice dagger appeared in my hand. That was an emotional response, my anger and magic melding. A dagger was pointless. It wouldn’t free Sin, and it wasn’t the right weapon to use against Gregory.

  That dirty double-crosser. He was pacing in the small clearing, muttering to himself and waving one hand in the air. His other arm hung limply at his side, his hand black. Sin’s death mark. It had to be.

  Occasionally, Gregory charged at Sin, only to stop and burble on again about how unseemly it was that a merchant of death should take the throne.

  Gregory, it seemed, had truly gone over the edge. Far, far over.

  I dropped the dagger and crouched, my vision red with rage and the desire to free Sin, but I held back, waiting, waiting…

  A throaty, feral howl shook the forest.

  Gregory spun toward the sound.

  I leaped forward, the power of my anger moving me with new speed. I thrust a wave of magic at Gregory’s back, knocking him into another massive pine with a punch of ice.

  At the same time, Ezreal dropped from the branches above and caught Gregory as he ricocheted off the tree. Good. Gregory was his to deal with now.

  I ran to Sin and put my hands on his face. His skin was icy, and his lashes were white with frost. A pit opened in my stomach. “Sin, Sin, are you okay?”

  No answer.