The Winter King (25 page)

After that odd phone call from her friend
two nights ago, Violet had hung up feeling a little off. She’d
tried to shrug it off, but not a whole hour had gone by before
she’d checked her phone to see that Violet had left a message. Once
she heard the message, she’d known she was right to be worried.

She’d called her friend back immediately,
but the phone had done this strange crackling thing and the call
was never connected. It wasn’t that it went to voice mail. It was
that it simply didn’t work. Not one time out of the fifteen times
that Violet tried. And it was obvious to her that the reason it
wasn’t working was magical in nature.

So she fell back on her new powers as the
Shadow Queen. She sank into the Shadow Realm and began asking
around. No one in any of the shadows covering the mortal realm had
seen Poppy Nix since earlier that night, when she’d transported out
from her apartment bedroom and into some other realm, of course
taking her shadow with her.

Apparently, she hadn’t fallen asleep since
then either, because that damn shadow of hers had been just as
inaccessible as Poppy herself. Which meant it was still attached –
ergo, she was awake.

Violet’s next attempt at
locating her friend had been a scrying spell. But she’d never been
particularly fantastic with them, not without Lalura’s help, and
she came up empty-handed. All she saw in the damn scrying bowl was
snow. Snow! Tons and tons of goddamn snow. But it was snowing in
so
many
places
right now, including Seattle, which was where Poppy lived. So that
was a waste of time and magic too.

Finally, the next day she’d come to see
Lalura.

She didn’t want to show the powerful witch
any disrespect, but Violet had come to her in a kind of
desperation. She needed help with a scrying spell that could see
into the other realms and dimensions, and Lalura claimed to be
working on something far too important to put away just then.
Violet told her that was fine and that she would wait.

But whatever it was, she’d been doing it for
an hour and a half now. Why wouldn’t she hurry it up?! Why wasn’t
she more concerned?!

Violet stopped dead in her
pacing tracks. A thought had suddenly occurred to her. It felt like
a knot inside that was slowly unwinding,
un
-knotting, to reveal itself for
the thread of realization it was.

Lalura
wasn’t
concerned. She
wasn’t
hurrying. And
that was just it. That was the most telling thing Lalura could
possibly have done in this situation.

Slowly, Violet faced the ancient witch
behind the spelling table. Lalura hadn’t looked up. Like one of
Shakespeare’s three crones, she simply continued to nonchalantly
stir whatever it was that was inside that cauldron.

“
Oh my God,” said Violet.
“I know where she is.”

Lalura said nothing. But there was an
instant and opposite sensation in the magic around her that told
Violet the old woman was listening.

“
It’s just like when Poppy
wanted to follow me into the Shadow Kingdom and you wouldn’t let
her. And then I wouldn’t let her.”

Silence.
Stir
. The fire in the
hearth crackled.

“
She’s with her king, isn’t
she?”

Lalura snorted. “It took you long enough,
child.”

Violet stood there for some time, her hands
on her hips, her expression one of outright awe. Lalura always
seemed to know! She knew about everything! How did one woman manage
all of that?

“
What
are
you making, anyway?” an
exasperated and bewildered Violet asked.

“
It’s more lifeblood for
your sister.”

Violet’s eyes grew even wider. “Lifeblood”
was what they called the magical potion Lalura had created for
Dahlia, who had been turned into a vampire by the Entity. As long
as she drank one every now and then, she would not be compelled to
attack anyone for their blood.

“
You mean to tell me I’ve
been standing here for an hour and a half, worrying my brains out
while you cooked up a leisurely batch of what amounts to magical
sugar water for Dahlia? But she makes that herself! Almost every
day!”

“
True. But she says she’s
tired of the grape flavor. So I’m making her some that tastes like
root beer.” The old woman smiled, leaned forward, and took a long
whiff of the steam rising up from the pot. “That’s perfect. Root
beer’s one of my favorites.”

There were several seconds
of shocked silence before Violet finally exploded. “How on Earth
is
that
‘far too
important’ to put away?” she squealed.

Now Lalura did look up. And all at once,
Violet was reminded of just how powerful and influential an
individual she was. She felt the blood leave her face and a lump
form in her throat as Lalura stared her down.

“
My child, you try going
more than a month with a single, sweet taste on your tongue and I
promise you will very quickly find out for yourself.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

They’d spent an irresponsible but blissful
amount of time learning even more about each other on a very
personal level on the couches and rugs in the study, and then Poppy
had gone back to the food on the coffee table.

She’d eaten until she was full and
Kristopher had remained seated across from her in the study,
telling her stories of his past. She’d been content to just listen
and chew, and he’d genuinely seemed content to just open up to her.
There was so much about the history of the Norse that he could
clear up, so much about its mythology and culture and language that
he would be able to set historians straight on. Alas, his only
proof was his life. And it just wouldn’t work to walk into a
professor’s office and say, “Hey, you wanna know what that thousand
year-old text really means? I’ll tell you. I was there.”

“
How are you feeling?” he
suddenly asked as she finished off the last of her tea.

“
Honestly?” She put down
her cup and turned her attention inward. She was sore in all the
right places and sated in every possible way. “I feel really
good.”

Kristopher’s eyes flashed. “You know, it’s
been two days and almost three nights since we left Seattle.”

Poppy blinked. “What?” There was no way.
That much time had not passed.

“
Time moves a little
differently in the Winter Kingdom. But even so, if you weren’t… who
you are,” he smiled meaningfully, “you’d be dead tired right about
now.”

Poppy chewed on her cheek. “You think I
still need convincing that I’m meant to be here.”

“
Nah,” he said, shaking his
head and leaning back in his chair to lace his hands behind his
head. “Just driving the point home.”

Poppy gave him a look.

“
Now,” he said, changing
the subject smugly, “I think we should head to the vault.” He
dropped his hands and jumped out of the chair, surprising her with
a sudden display of agility.

“
What? Now? Don’t you think
we should wait for William?”

“
No, I don’t.” He moved
past her to the bookshelf that was behind her. Once there, he
pressed in a series of books, and the cracking sound she’d been
hearing in the settling ice of the castle grew slightly
louder.

“
What the –” She jumped out
of her own chair and stared as the books he’d touched sank further
into the bookshelves and something automatic somewhere began to
whir like a steam engine.

“
We’ll go this
way.”

“
You have a secret
passageway behind a set of bookshelves?” she asked incredulously.
“Activated mechanically? Why not just use magic or
transport?”

“
Because that is exactly
what others would expect me to do,” he said as the bookshelf began
sliding outward and she took a step back. It moved out about nine
inches to the sound of ice scraping against ice, then slid to the
side to reveal an opening in the ice wall behind it.

Poppy shook her head. “Just like in the
movies.”

Kristopher turned a smile on her. “This is
where I go when I don’t want my signature traced. Like now.”

Poppy eyed him warily. “You really don’t
want William following us, do you?”

Kristopher’s expression darkened just enough
that Poppy had her confirmation. But he didn’t say anything.
Instead, he stepped past the bookshelf and started his descent down
a flight of stairs. She hurried to follow him.

“
Are you thinking he’s the
traitor?” she asked.

“
I hope not.”

“
So do I,” she admitted. “I
like him.”

The wall of the winding staircase down
supported sconces holding torches at varying heights. The torches
lit up as Kristopher passed each one, and the fire they displayed
was the same rainbow-hued fire that had been in the hearths
upstairs.

“
Even if he’s on the level,
coming with us can only ruin his chances of finding his queen. I
wouldn’t willingly do that to anyone.”

The steps going down were
ice, just like the rest of the castle. However,
un
like the rest of the palace, they
were laced with something black and gold. “What is this?” Poppy
asked.

“
Runes. They will erase any
trace of us as we descend. Should give us a little time to get to
Yggdrasil before anyone is the wiser.”

Poppy’s gut tightened. Something unsettling
found its way to the base of her spine. He was suddenly taking an
awful lot of precautionary measures. “Kristopher, what’s going on?
What is it you aren’t telling me? Is it the Entity? Is he involved
after all?”

He paused on a step below her, and she
barely kept herself from running into him. He turned to look up at
her. “I’m not sure,” he said. “And that’s the truth. But better
safe than sorry.”

She caught his gaze, and something passed
between them.

“
Poppy,” he said, coming
back up a few steps until they were head to head on the staircase.
“If you believe
anything
I tell you, believe this. You are my queen,
therefore you are my world. You are the most important piece on the
chessboard. Everything I do from here on out will be about you. I
will eat, sleep, and drink you. I will
breathe
you. And I will stop
breathing without you.” He cupped her cheek, and electric warmth
surged through that touch and into her body, rushing through her
like a drug. She closed her eyes and pressed into his hand,
savoring the feel of it.

He leaned in, so his next words were
whispered across her lips. “If you go, the game is lost, my queen.
So I’m not going to do anything I believe will put you in danger.
Do you understand?”

She nodded. She
did
understand.

Right then, in that moment, on those stairs,
she understood better than ever.

When his lips touched hers, she opened them
to him, and when he pulled her against him and tasted her deeply,
it was more than her lips she was offering him. It was her
understanding, her acceptance, and her ultimate surrender. She
kissed him back with all of this and more, and he held her so tight
it hurt.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

When they came out of the transport, it was
dark and still. They were standing in the snow on a road made of
compressed ice, in a barren and empty landscape of white. Directly
in front of them stood a mountain, also covered in snow. Coming out
of that mountain, like a space age doorway to another dimension,
was a large rectangle-shaped entrance that Poppy would guesstimate
at about thirty feet tall. Near its top, it seemed to be decorated
with shards of glass or metal that almost glowed in the blue-white
light coming from lamps placed strategically in the concrete of the
doorway.

The mountain was called Spitsbergen, as was
the Norwegian island it created. The global seed vault cut half-way
into the mountain, and according to Kristopher, it then broke into
three different rooms where the seeds themselves were stored.

“
This is the mortal
entryway,” said Kristopher. “Believe it or not, it’s also the
immortal entryway. I laced one over the other as a further
safeguard. In order for any supernatural being to slip through the
wards, they’ll need to pass through the door. That includes
us.”

“
Do you have a
key?”

Kristopher laughed, and it was a little
self-deprecating. “No. Once I hid the seed inside, I figured I
would never be back to claim it. Making a key would have been a
good idea.”

“
No problem,” said Poppy.
She grinned. Breaching magic just happened to be some of the
warlock magic she was best at. “I can get us in.”

“
Well… I
was
going to just melt
the locks,” Kristopher said with a smile, “but if you’ve got a
better idea, then by all means.”

At first, Poppy wondered why he wouldn’t
decide to freeze the locks and break them instead, since using cold
magic took less of his strength than heat did. But then they
approached the door itself, and she could see that the lock on the
door was completely frozen over already. And she realized that
freezing locks would have been something the builders took into
account in the first place.

“
Right,” she said, speaking
to herself. She turned to Kristopher. “Here goes.”