We trudge through the endless cold, our feet crunching on hoarfrost. Where once there were fens full of bracken and briars, now there were only frozen bogs and unrecognizable plants encased in ice or crumbled and rotted away. When my feet manage to thaw out beside one of our meager fires, they ache. Even with two cloaks and gloves, my hands are numb, my nose frozen.

I look habitually, even obsessively, at my diamond vial. My lightning is subdued, not sparking or spiraling along the inside like it usually does. The deeper we go into the forest and the closer to Lebed, the more my power is weakening. An elemental’s magic is only as powerful as they are, and I feel about as strong as a dried husk. It scares me, and I fear the icy blight on Thornewood has permeated my mind, muddling it with doubt and dark thoughts.

A few times we find a hollow dry enough to make a fire. One night, Agate even burns a few of his arrows, although I tell him not to. He and I start to sleep with Neev between us to share her warmth, with all three of our cloaks and blankets piled on top.

Two days’ journey from Shoreana, I wake to soft whispers and Neev’s fingers twined in my hair. I normally keep it bound and out of the way, but tonight I left it loose for the added covering on my shoulders. I fell asleep imagining the dark waves had caught fire by the pale white light of Agate’s flame. I’m no longer strong enough to make fire. A cold so evil the thought of burning alive is a comfort, whispers the nagging voice in my head. What a wicked magic.

Neev is stroking my hair, whispering something. I lie still, listening intently so I can make out her words.

Be still, child, and slow.

Look out your window.

See the sky, blue and clean?

Vale so deep, heath so green?

Little lambs are in the dells.

Maids are drawing at the wells.

Be still, child, and sleep.

I see the images in the rhyme unfold like the pages of a child’s picture book: sapphire sky and emerald grass peppered with daisies, rivulets of clear water tipping over the edge of a wooden bucket, lambs snuggly with soft gray fleece. Neev’s fingers pause, still twined in my hair. She must have sensed that I’m awake.

“What was that?” I ask. “I could see all of it so vividly.”

“It’s an old Zelenean rhyming charm for children. My mother sang it when I was ill. Sorry if I overstepped. You—you had another nightmare. You were crying out in your sleep, and trembling.” She sounds sheepish.

I blow into my hands. “What a pretty charm. If it were from Lazul it would be about stunted crops and wolves at the door, and snow beasts hunting from the north. No one wants to see that playing in their head.”

Neev laughs. “Don’t forget thieves on the trade road.”

“Of course not.”

I pull my cloak up to cover my nose and mouth. My legs have gone numb, but I continue to shiver violently. Agate is snoring on the other side of Neev, damn him.

“When I fell asleep, I dreamt of being on fire. Then I had a dream that I fell through ice on the Lake of Tears. I’ve never even heard of it freezing over. I’m so cold.” I’ve probably said this a million times since we entered the forest. I’m tired of saying it, and I’m sure she is tired of hearing it.

“Here. Take off your gloves.”

She removes her gloves too and takes my bare hands beneath the pile of cloaks and blankets. She rubs my fingers and the backs of my hands with her scarred palms until the feeling comes back into them. I don’t want her to stop. Heat spreads over my body as I imagine pulling her against me and kissing her. The thought is as natural as the hunger in my belly and the longing for a fire that won’t go out.

“I doubt you’d have insisted on coming along had you known you’d be playing nursemaid to me,” I say, trying to distract myself.

“This is hardly playing nursemaid.”

“No? You were just singing a nursery rhyme to me for fun?”

She grins. “You’re so hard on yourself, but this cold is a strong enchantment. And for some reason, it weakens you the most. I think you should go back, Thedra. To Lazul. This place will be the death of you. You may be a corpse-waker, but you can’t resurrect yourself.”

I frown at being told what to do, but then I think of Zori’s words to me in the nextworld. That I’ll walk among the dead. “I can’t go back. Dette has been gone for a nearly a week. Anything could have happened to her by now. And what about you? I’m afraid you’re going to be a living torch by the time we reach Lebed.”

“A torch is better than a block of ice.”

I stare into the blackness above. The summer constellations were always so bright when I glimpsed them through a clearing here on past travels. My mouth is dry, and I swallow, trying to summon a few drops of saliva, but I drank the last of my water before I went to sleep. When I woke up this morning, my extra water skin had frozen and burst. I sewed it back together, but the water was lost.

Tomorrow, I’ll have to brave the water from the Black Stream. I try to remind myself I’m doing this for Dette, but my thoughts keep circling back to Neev and how right it felt to have her arm thrown over my waist.

Maybe it’s the sickness of the forest seeping into me, but a part of me hates Dette for leaving the palace without telling me goodbye that day. I never got to take back the harsh words I said to her by the fountain. I’d give almost anything to take them back, but I’d also give anything to get the three of us out of this place. And now Neev and I are traipsing through thick enchantments that could kill us both, all for our love of her.