Devil's Frost, Spellspinners Series #3 (The Spellspinners of Melas County) (8 page)

Not Logan.

Logan was real.

Our love was real.

Ice-crusted bubbles slipped out of my mouth when I smiled, slung my arms around his neck, and nestled in close.
Thank you.
I kissed the words into his neck.

Logan spotted the serpent first. Its red eyes were beady in the silver darkness of our frozen trap.
There’s our ride
. He pulled me along to the nape of the serpent’s neck. It was big enough for both of us to climb onto, but Logan helped me up and then held on to the beast’s fin.

As we weaved through the midnight waters, so fast, so dreamlike fast, I thought about him. Logan.

How could I have ever wondered if he was the Chosen? It was obvious from the first moment we met, the way he looked at me under that wild mop of black hair on that rock overlooking the sea.

The way he was looking at me now.

He’ll get us to the surface on time.

He patted my thigh, then touched the serpent’s back appreciatively.

Is it a boy or a girl?
I asked.

The serpent?

Yeah.

Logan was quiet, speaking to it.
They aren’t defined by their genders the way we are. It said it was a sea serpent, a totem of the warlocks.

Does it have a name?

Logan grinned like I was asking something silly.
No. They don’t have names.

Ask it if it wants a name.

Lily.

What?

He groaned and was quiet for a second as we cruised through the water. Then he said,
It doesn’t understand the request, but if you would like to give it a title, it will accept it.

Good,
I said.
I want to call it Bubblegum.

Logan rolled his eyes, and I could tell he didn’t pass on this fabulous news to his serpent. I was getting light-headed. Big-time. Logan’s body, heavy, slumped into my side. He looped his arm around my leg while continuing to hold on to Bubblegum’s fin with his other hand.

We’d been under water at least thirty minutes.

Our lungs half full. But also half empty.

Over the years, I’d swum with the local dolphins under the turquoise sea, and I could hold my breath twice as long as they could. I wasn’t sure how this worked with our evolution, but today, in this moment, I was sure glad I’d made Daisy sit with a stopwatch on the beach while I experimented, hovering close to the surface just in case, discovering just how long I could last without oxygen.

Maybe I was always preparing for this moment. Maybe somehow I knew one day my Breathing would be tested—in a battle of life and death, between good and evil—but I always imagined I would be alone.

We had a half hour more—maybe longer with the amulet on our side—with this serpent whipping us through the water. An age-old question filled my mind: if you had only an hour to live, what would you do?

The serpent dove deeper.

Come up with me
. I pulled on Logan’s shoulder, and he slung his leg over our ride’s meaty back. I curled my arms around him, holding him close.

I don’t know if it was from lack of oxygen or what, but our view was now an underwater dream of rainbows and natural magic hidden deep below the ice. We weaved through schools of apricot fish that morphed into mermaids and, giggling, swam away. We darted through brilliant blue coral castles where seahorse villages perched. I heard singing. Garbled, eerie, and a sort of beautiful song. A ballad of sirens, of lost fisherman? The source of the voices was unknown, but I felt they were calling to me, keeping me awake, keeping me alive.

Even though I knew I was probably hallucinating most of it, the truth was, my brain was fading and I was succumbing slowly to a new state of being. Hope crept into my heart.

I pressed my cheek into the serpent’s back, soaking in its warmth.
We’re going to make it, Logan. I can feel it.

Logan’s skin was so cold. From behind, I wrapped my arms around him as tightly as I could, rubbing his arms, his back; his pulse had slowed. The serpent changed his position and headed toward the surface, and I knew once we were under the sheet of ice, Logan would suffer even more. I shifted my weight, swinging my legs around to the front of him. Straddling the serpent, I faced him, burying my chest into Logan’s. I wrapped my arms around his waist and focused on a spell, a warming, healing spell.

He dipped his face into my neck, body slumped and worn.

The amulet throbbed between us, but even its magic was running out.

I could give Logan my warmth, and I could give him my magic, but I couldn’t give him my breath.

I couldn’t help him Breathe.

Everything was growing spotty.

Lights flickered. Lack of oxygen. The bends.

Even in my disoriented state I felt the breakneck speed at which we were now traveling. I bent forward as I braced for the ice.

The ice was thinner here. It shifted, cracked.

The moon shone brilliantly through. Beckoning us.

Break through. Please break through.

A clap loud as thunder. And then everything went black.

Dark blue sky. Stars. Waves crashing, not over us, but in the distance. My fingers grasped a handful of wet sand.

“Logan?”

I tried to sit up. I tried to scream his name, but all that rose from my throat was a desperate whisper.

“I’m here, Lily. I’m right here.” He bent over me. His face was blurry. I clawed at the air, swiping at his face, sure it was part of my dream. Part of my death.

My fingers stopped on something warm. Warm skin. Warm hands covered my freezing ones.

“I’m here, Lily. I’m here.”

I heard those words over and over again until my eyes finally were able to focus, and it was true. There he was.

“Are we okay?”

A small smile. “I think so.”

His face was inches away from mine now. Then his head was on my chest and I moved stray, wet hair from his forehead. When he looked up at me, I saw his eyes. So stormy-ocean blue before—now they flickered orange and red. Flickered Fire. Sad and furious all at once, these new eyes. I was lost in them for a long, long time as I felt my breath even out under the stars. As I felt my lungs fill with oxygen, as my outer extremities, my fingertips, my toes, began to tingle, and until I felt more parts alive than dead. Reflected in Logan’s eyes, I saw my own. Pools of frustration, of uncertainty, and then sparks of hope urging me to go on, to be brave, to believe even though there was so little left to believe in.

We made it out of the ice. Logan was here, next to me, in the sand.

“Where’s Orchid?” I finally asked. “Is she alive?”

“I think so. Bubblegum said she’s down the beach a ways. Are you okay to stand?”

My lips tingled when he called the serpent its pet name. So the time below hadn’t all been a dream. “He broke us out of the ice just in time,” I said, stating the obvious, the sound of real words on my tongue feeling so foreign. My real voice scratchy, raw.

Logan nodded briskly, like all of that time below was already a shoved-away memory he never wanted to recall.

He helped me up, and with the hand that wasn’t holding mine, sparked a fireball in his palm, using it to light our way along the shore. He didn’t let go of my hand until we found her.

She was lying on a flat rock. The back of her head was bleeding, and she was pale. So pale. Lapping waves covered her bare legs and the hems of her torn uniform.

I felt her pulse, weak but there.

My bare knees scratched against the wet rock as I bent over her listless body. I didn’t dare take it off my neck, so I lay the amulet on her chest, pressing it between my cheek and her heart and waited.

I moved a swatch of wet, tangled hair from her beautiful face and held her to me.
Please, Orchid. Please wake up. Please.

Orchid was the girl who’d saved me from the St. Patrick’s Day bully who’d pinched me too hard when I didn’t know to wear green; who’d gotten the wad of Bubble Yum out of my hair with peanut butter—tried anyway—who let me borrow her favorite T-shirt to wipe my tears when I flubbed up my first spell and turned my hair purple; who snuck some Forget Me potion from Iris’s highest cabinet when Dad left and I couldn’t bear it. Who sat by me when I puked my guts out from the vile taste. No matter what she had done, she was my best friend.

“We need to warm her up.”

Logan ripped off what was left of his uniform, and I did the same. He reached out his hand and dried the fabric. I watched as the water particles floated into the sky like fireflies.

Silently, we wrapped Orchid in the now-warm garments.

Logan scooped her up into his arms. “I saw a cave by that cove,” he said, jerking his chin to indicate a place behind me. I ran ahead while he carried her and blew the dust and spiderwebs from the hiding place in the rock so she had a clean place to lie down.

After we collected some dry wood and starter materials, Logan made a fire. Together we sat with her, watching her damaged body curl up in a ball like a baby, the orange flames reflecting off her quiet face.

“Her pulse is weak, but it is there,” Logan said, his long fingers on her delicate wrist.

I nodded with relief. “She must’ve been underwater a long time. She’s so cold. Lay your hands on her, Logan.”

He met my eyes. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. Your eyes…You may have healing magic she needs.”

Logan gently ripped away the front of her wet gown and laid one of his large hands on her chest and the other on her flat stomach. Closing his eyes, he mumbled,
“Hands of fire, hands of fire, melt this ice; hands of fire, melt this ice.”

Steam rose from the tiny space between his hands and her skin.

“It’s working. Keep going.”

“Hands of fire, melt this ice; hands of fire, melt this ice.”

As he chanted, I felt my palms heat up…not with ice, but with fire. Only a warlock could generate this much heat.

“Logan, my hands.”

I held them up. He blinked, a bit confused, but then moved his palm over. “Maybe the Sisters need you to help us heal her,” he guessed. “Press here.”

He lifted my palm and pressed it on her soft belly, moving his other hand to the side near her kidneys.

“Hands of fire, melt this ice; hands of fire; melt this ice.”

I joined him in chanting.

Orchid shuddered beneath our combined chanting. “Keep going!” I said.

“Hands of fire, melt this ice. Hands of fire, melt this ice.”

She shuddered again, her torso jerking upright and causing Logan and me to flinch backward. Looking at us and…not…her lids jerked open, revealing the same eerie white eyes as before. Then she collapsed in a heap and started to gently snore.

“Holy goddesses, what in the world?”

“I guess…she’s going to make it?” Logan shook his head ironically. “You’re a good friend, kid.”

“And you are the best boyfriend in the world.” Then I glared at him. “But if you ever touch her again, I’ll kill you.”

He tossed a piece of light driftwood at me. I caught it in my fist, and it immediately ignited. I dropped it onto the ground and blew it out, but my breath was coming out like one of those jacked-up water faucets…cold, then hot, then cold, then hot.

What the hell?

“Your powers are probably all out of whack from the stuff that happened today. Don’t worry about it.” But he looked sort of worried too.

Twisting my mouth, I looked down at my red-hot hands.

“Logan?”

“Yeah? “Can you go make a fire for us down by the beach?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks. I just want to sit with her for a few minutes.”

He leaned over and kissed my forehead. “See you in a bit.”

I watched him disappear out the cave’s mouth, wishing he never had to be outside my vision.

I sat with her for a long time. Thinking. Thanking the Seven Sisters for their interventions of the day. Replaying the crazy events. I guess I just needed a moment to process.

When I felt Orchid was stable enough to be left in the cave and that I was strong enough to leave, I crawled out of the hole and joined Logan on the star-spotted beach. I twined my hands through his and he held me close. Then, without discussing it out loud, we held the amulet clasped between our hands and protected the cove from outsiders with a simple spell Iris taught me many years ago:
“This is a very special spell, Lily. It’s like a prayer you can use only three times in your life. It takes a lot of magic, so use it only in case of an emergency.”
I figured this was an emergency, so after filling Logan in on the backstory, I used it.

It would take all our remaining strength, but we needed this night—this one night—to feel at ease, to sleep. To be together, to rest free of worry that Carriag and his cronies would catch up with us and finish what they started.

Seven Sisters, protect our space.

Guard us with your unyielding grace.

As we chanted, the magic’s energy made the waves dance in the moonlight. Dolphins flipped and spun in their now-thawed sea. The albino serpent glided across the water’s surface, and we waved to him, thanking him for saving our lives.

I knew the water was warmer now but didn’t want to go back in just yet. Logan didn’t move toward the water either. The sand under my toes felt safe, and in Logan’s warm arms was the only place I wanted to be.

After we finished the spell, Logan kissed the tip of my nose and started collecting driftwood. I offered to help, but he told me to sit tight, that he was building something for me. “A present,” he said with a grin.

Hugging my knees to my chest, I watched his every move, locking it all away, every sway of his sure arms and every muscle in his confident back as he laid another log on the fire. He knew I was watching him, and he looked up at me, catching my eye with a smile.

I shivered, not because I was scared, but because I was happy.

Against all odds, we were alive. We were together. For now, we were safe.

He stood opposite me, shirtless, wearing only the torn black pants he’d worn to the Gleaning. His color was back in his skin; he looked like his healthy, gorgeous self again, and I lost my breath, this time in a great way. Like some kind of ancient god, he raised his hands toward the pyre, tiny energy balls sparking from his fingertips. Soon a fire was roaring.