Frostfire

by Amanda Hocking

  “Shit,” Ridley said, and his whole body sagged. Under the dark stubble on his cheeks, his face had gone ashen.

  “What?”

  Instead of answering, he turned and held his phone out toward me, so I could see the ominous headline that had shown up during his search for Emma’s address.

  Emma Jones, Teenage Daughter of Software Mogul Benjamin Jones, Was Found Missing from Her Bedroom

  I scanned the article below, and it went on to say that based on the ransacked state of her room, the authorities suspected foul play, and they were reaching out to the public to see if anyone knew anything about where Emma might be. Worse still, her family said Emma had only been gone since the early morning.

  My heart dropped to my stomach. “We missed her by a few hours.”

  “Then maybe we haven’t missed her.” Ridley shoved his phone back in his pocket and stood up in a flash.

  I threw a couple bills on the table, then pulled on my jacket as I hurried after Ridley. An icy drizzle had begun outside, but Ridley hardly seemed to notice.

  “We should split up,” I suggested. “We can cover more ground that way.”

  “Good. That’s smart. I’ll go back to her house, see if I can get a better sense of where she might be. You should go back to the hotel.”

  “The hotel? Why?”

  “You should get on your laptop, check out her Facebook, Tumblr, et cetera, see if her friends know anything and what people are saying online. You can also figure out what school she’s at, and then you can go down and talk to them.”

  “All right,” I agreed reluctantly.

  “If I can’t find anything at her house, I’ll head down to the police station. I might get them to tell me something.”

  That wouldn’t have sounded likely except that Ridley had mild persuasion. He only used it for tracking, and usually on people like host families or school officials. Or in this case he could get a police officer to tell us everything they knew about a missing girl.

  I didn’t like being stuck on desk duty, but it might give us a clue to what happened to her. If Konstantin Black was trailing her, her friends might have noticed, or Emma might have said something to someone.

  She might have even left with Konstantin willingly—before he’d been on the Högdragen, he’d been a tracker just like Ridley and me, and he was just as capable of talking a changeling into leaving with him as we were. And if he had done that, maybe Emma had told someone about it or where she was going.

  That didn’t seem likely, especially given how aggressive Konstantin and Bent had gotten with Ember and Charlotte, and given the alleged state of Emma’s room. But at this point we couldn’t rule anything out, and we had to work as quickly as possible to find Emma.

  Ridley and I went our separate ways, and I jogged back to the hotel, holding my jacket up over my head to keep out the rain. By the time I reached the lobby, my jeans were soaked through, and the front of my shirt was damp and sticking to me.

  The hotel was cool and modern, with complimentary bottled water and tea in the lobby and hipsters lounging around playing on their tablets in slick chairs and art deco sofas. We’d chosen it because of its proximity to Emma’s house, and the clash between our one-bedroom suite and my loft in Doldastam was staggering.

  The view of downtown Calgary from the windows was amazing, but the shades were drawn when I came in, leaving the room in relative darkness. I tossed off my soaking jacket, and then I stumbled over an ottoman in the sitting room. Ridley had offered to take the pull-out sofa, so my things were in the bedroom, and I went into it to retrieve my laptop.

  If I hadn’t been so distracted, hurrying in my worry that something bad had happened to Emma, I would’ve noticed that things weren’t right—that the shades had been open forty minutes ago when we’d dropped off our things but were closed now, and that the ottoman was now out of place, rather strategically placed in front of the bedroom doorway.

  I doubt I could’ve seen him, though—his skin had changed color, blending in with his surroundings perfectly. But if I weren’t distracted I definitely would’ve heard footsteps behind me as I was bent over the bed, digging through my duffel bag. And I’d like to believe that I would’ve felt the presence of someone standing behind me.

  But I didn’t. Not until I felt a strong hand covering my mouth, pulling me straight back against him, and a sharp cold blade pressed to my throat.

  “Don’t make a sound,” Konstantin said into my ear, whispering like we were lovers.

  TWENTY-TWO

  culpability

  I stood frozen against him. I could feel the hard contours of his chest pressed against my back, warming me through my wet shirt, and I tried to slow the rapid beating of my heart so he wouldn’t feel it. The whiskers from his beard tickled against my cheek and neck, and the skin of his hand felt rough on my lips. He smelled of cold, like ice and snow on the harshest days of winter.

  “I know you’re devising all kinds of ways that you can kill me,” Konstantin murmured in my ear. “But I want to warn you that it won’t do you any good.”

  I went limp in his arms. The blade scraped against my neck, but it didn’t slice anything open. He removed his hand from my mouth to wrap around my waist, catching me before I slipped to the floor, and now the knife was aimed at the tender skin under my chin. It would hurt if he sliced across, but it certainly wouldn’t lead to death.

  In one quick move, I stood back up and thrust my head backward, head-butting him. He groaned, and I grabbed his wrist, twisting it sharply until he released the knife. His arm was still around me, and he squeezed tighter. I leaned forward and, pulling on his arm, I flipped him forward, and he landed on the bed on his back.

  The knife was on the floor, so I grabbed it, and then I jumped on top of him. I straddled him and pressed the knife to his throat. His lip was bleeding from when I’d hit him, but he still managed to grin broadly up at me.

  “You can’t kill me,” Konstantin said. “I’m the only one who knows where Emma Costar is.”

  “How did you find her?” I demanded. “What do you want with her?”

  His smile fell away, and his steel eyes looked pained. “I’m afraid that I want nothing with her anymore.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you ever read Of Mice and Men?” Konstantin asked. “Bent has always reminded me of Lennie. He even talks about rabbits all the time, but I blame that on his fascination with the Kanin.”

  “I have a knife to your throat, and I’d like nothing more than to see you dead,” I told him, and I pressed the blade harder against his flesh, breaking the skin just slightly. “So you should really answer my questions.”

  “I will. But maybe you should ask yourself a question first,” Konstantin said. “Like, where is my companion? I don’t usually work alone.”

  I lifted my head, taking my eyes off Konstantin only for a moment, and I expected to see Bent lurking in the shadows somewhere. But there was nothing, and that moment of distraction was all Konstantin needed.

  He grabbed my shoulders and flipped me over so I was lying on my back on the bed, and he rolled on top of me. He grabbed my wrists, pinning them against the white comforter. My legs were trapped underneath him, and when I fought against his grip, he didn’t budge.

  “What do you want?” I asked, staring up at him in the dim light of the bedroom. “Why were you here waiting for me? If you have Emma, what’s the point?”

  “I remember you.” Konstantin’s eyes were searching mine, and they seemed to soften. “I’m sorry I didn’t right away, but I remembered you as soon as you punched me in the stomach in Chicago. You were the plucky tracker, trying to claw your way up to be a guard. Nobody wanted you there, but you didn’t care. You wanted to be there.”

  My heart pounded in my chest, and I swallowed back my anger, which was easier since he’d thrown me off my guard by remembering far more about me than I’d thought he’d ever known.

  “How did you…” I narrowed
my eyes at him. “How would you even know that? You didn’t know who I was.”

  “Of course I did. You were that little blond girl, and that alone made you stand out, but you were always fighting twice as hard as anybody else.” He paused, grinning down at me. “And I’d always catch you staring at me.”

  “You were on the guard,” I replied coolly. “I was watching the Högdragen.”

  “No, you were watching me. You looked at me like … like I could do no wrong.” Konstantin sounded wistful.

  “I was young and stupid.” I looked away.

  “I’m sorry,” Konstantin said softly. “For what happened with your father.”

  I snapped my head back to glare up at him. “What happened with my father? You tried to kill him,” I snarled, and I tried to fight him off, but he had me pinned.

  “Bryn!” Konstantin was calm and firm. “Stop fighting.”

  “What do you want with me?” I shouted. “If you’re gonna kill me, then just kill me.”

  “I’m not gonna kill you,” Konstantin said with an annoyed sigh. “I want you to…” He hung his head for a moment.

  “Do you even know what you want with me?” I asked.

  “I’m trying to protect you!” he yelled in exasperation.

  I laughed darkly. “Protect me? Why in hell would you do that? I want to kill you, and you want to kill me. You even told Ember you’re coming after me.”

  “What? I never told anyone I was coming after you.”

  “You told her to ‘tell that white rabbit to watch out,’” I said, repeating what Ember had told me.

  “That wasn’t a threat.” He shook his head. “I was warning you. You need to stop this.”

  “Stop what?” I asked, incredulous.

  “Dammit,” he muttered.

  Konstantin pulled the knife from my grip, then he let go of me. I stayed where I was, lying on my back on the bed, because I wanted to get a read on what was happening before I made a move. He sat on the edge of the bed, his back to me with the knife in his hand, and he ran a hand through his dark tangles of hair.

  “I feel terrible about what happened with your father. And now everything that’s happening here.” He shook his head. “I made a choice a long time ago, and I’m still trying to make things right.” He looked back at me over his shoulder. “But things are in motion, and there’s going to be a lot of casualties, and I don’t want you to be one of them.”

  “Why?” I asked in disbelief. I moved so I was sitting on my knees. “Why would you even care what happens to me?”

  “Because you saw good in me that wasn’t there.” He turned away and stood up. “Forget about me. Forget about everything here. Just go back to Doldastam … No, don’t go there. Just go. Forget about the Kanin and everything.”

  “I’m not forgetting about my family or friends or my people,” I told him. “I can’t just run off, like you did. And I’m not leaving without Emma Costar.”

  He rubbed his forehead. “It’s better for you if you leave without her.”

  “Where is she, Konstantin?” I asked.

  “Bent just doesn’t know his own strength,” Konstantin replied, almost sadly.

  “What happened to her? If you hurt her, I’ll—”

  He groaned. “This was going so well. Can we stop with the threats?”

  “Not if you won’t tell me where she is.”

  “I don’t know where he left her, but it won’t do you any good to find her,” Konstantin said in a way that made my blood run cold.

  “You killed her,” I said, my voice trembling with barely contained rage. “You son of a bitch.”

  I dove at him and punched him in the face, and I think he let me at first, allowing me to hit him in the face and chest a few times before he tried to grab my wrists. Then I kicked him in the stomach, and he grabbed me and twisted my arm behind my back. I tried to buck him off, but he pushed me forward, slamming me against the wall.

  “Let me go,” I growled, but I was trapped between him and the wall.

  “Stop, Bryn. I can’t undo what’s already been done.”

  “I’m going to kill you,” I warned him.

  “I’m trying to make things right. I know you don’t believe me, but I’m trying.” His words were low and filled with regret, and his beard brushed against my cheek. He let go of my arm, and I pressed my palms against the wall, but I didn’t turn around. I didn’t fight him. “I know you have no reason to trust me, but please, trust me on this.”

  I closed my eyes, wishing I didn’t trust him, but I did. I didn’t know why. Maybe it was the sincerity in his voice, or the fact that he could kill me but didn’t, or maybe it was just the memory of the good I thought I’d seen in him when I was younger.

  His breath felt warm and ragged on my cheek, and his hand was on my arm. He didn’t have me pinned, exactly, but his body was pressed against me, holding me in place. I could push him off, but I didn’t.

  “I can’t let you go,” I told him.

  “I can’t let you follow me,” he said softly.

  I looked back at him over my shoulder. The curtain had been pulled back a bit in our struggle, and the light landed on his face, so I could clearly see the hurt and regret in his stormy gray eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Bryn,” he said simply, and before I could ask him why, I felt a sharp pain in the back of my head as he hit me with the butt of the knife, and then everything went black.

  TWENTY-THREE

  commiserate

  When I closed my eyes, I still saw her body. On a riverbank, where ice and snow still clung to the earth, even as a cold spring rain fell around us. Her eyes were open, unblinking as the drops of water fell into them. She was fifteen, but with her full cheeks and tangles in her curly hair, she looked younger.

  Her face stared upward, but her body had been turned at an unnatural angle—her neck had been snapped. The pajamas—pink shorts and a long-sleeve top with hearts and flowers—had been torn, and her knees were scraped.

  Emma Costar had put up a fight, and despite Konstantin’s proclamations that he was sorry and he was making things right, this young girl had been killed and left on a cold riverbank.

  Ridley had come back to the hotel later in the afternoon and found me unconscious on the bed, where Konstantin had left me. I told him that Konstantin had implied that she was dead, and Ridley had redoubled his efforts to track her. He’d gotten a sweater from her bedroom—using his persuasion to get a detective to hand it off to him. Using something recently worn by her, he’d finally been able to get a stronger sense of her.

  She hadn’t been dead long, and that was the only reason he’d been able to get a read on her at all. We’d finally found her along the riverbank, and I’d wanted to carry her away or cover her up, but Ridley had made me leave her just as we’d found her. He called and left an anonymous tip to the police, and soon her host family would be able to bury her.

  Her real parents would get nothing. As soon as we got back to Doldastam, we went to make the notification. They seemed to know as soon as they saw us, Emma’s mother collapsing into sobs as her husband struggled to hold her up. We told them everything we knew, and promised that we would bring Konstantin Black and Bent Stum to justice. I wasn’t sure if they believed us, or even if they cared.

  They hadn’t raised her, but they still loved her. They still dreamed of the day when she would come home and their family would be united again. But now that day would never come, and they were left mourning something they had never had.

  “This has been one long, shitty week,” Ridley said, speaking for the first time since we’d left the Costars’ house.

  Our boots crunched heavily on the cobblestone road. The temperature had dropped sharply, leaving the town frigid and the streets empty and quiet. It was just as well. Neither Ridley nor I were in the mood to run into anyone.

  “The last few days have been some of the longest of my life,” I agreed wearily.

  “I don’t know about you, but I
could really use a drink.” Ridley stopped, and I realized that we’d reached his house. I’d been so lost in my thoughts that I hadn’t noticed where we were.

  He didn’t actually live that far from the Costars, but his cottage was much smaller than the royals’ mansions that populated his neighborhood. It was a very short and squat little place made of stone, with a thatched roof. Small round windows in the front gave it the appearance of a face, with the windows for eyes and the door for a mouth.

  “I’d rather not drink tonight,” I told him.

  “Come in anyway.” His hair cascaded across his forehead, and dark circles had formed under his eyes. He still hadn’t shaved, but that somehow made his face more appealing. Though he looked just as exhausted as I felt, there was a sincerity and yearning in his eyes that I didn’t have the strength to deny.

  Ridley saw my resistance fading, and he smiled before turning around and opening the door. His cottage was built half in the ground, almost like a rabbit burrow, and that’s why it had such a squat look. Only a few feet of it actually sat above the ground, and I had to go down several steps when I went in.

  Inside, it was cozy, with a living room attached to a nice little kitchen, and the door was open to his bedroom in the back. As soon as we came in, Ridley kicked off his shoes and peeled off his scarf, then went over to throw a few logs in the fireplace to get the place warmed up.

  “Sure I can’t interest you in a drink?” Ridley asked when he went into the kitchen.

  “I’ll pass.” I took off my jacket and sat back on his couch before sliding off my own boots.

  I’d been inside his cottage a couple times before, but usually only for very brief visits to ask him a question about work. This was my first real social call, and I took the opportunity to really take his place in.

  The coffee table was handmade from a tree trunk, made into an uneven rectangle with bark still on the edges. The bookshelf on the far wall was overflowing with books, and next to it he had a very cluttered desk. On the mantel, there was a picture of a grade-school-aged Ridley posing with his father, who was all decked out in his Högdragen uniform.