He moved closer, boots dragging through the snow. “But you weren’t wrong, Helen. The Volumes don’t offer parables for no reason. Ragnashuck, bringing the Triad of Signs back together might be possible with those clues. Trust me, I should know.”

The dip in Zane’s voice was odd—I studied him as he chewed his lip like a little boy who was about to get in trouble for bad behavior.

“What do you mean, you should know?”

He fiddled with the buttons on his jacket. “I have a troubling idea about where the third piece of the Triad is.” His throat bobbed. “I mapped those snowseas from dawn to dusk. Even as a child, I steered the ships to learn the sea’s tricks. So, I know them well. But I also know there’s a thing or three out there worse than your greatest nightmares.”

The image of Zane steering a ship as a child was one I’d never be able to scrub from my imagination. “Pirates?” I asked.

“No. There are things a good measure worse than pirates in those snowseas,” he whispered, a flash of navy darkening his eyes before he tilted away.

My fingers dug into my hair. “Why didn’t you say something before?”

“Because the price for what we need will be costly, and I think I’m the only one who can pay it.”

I studied his fidgeting fingers, his stolen glances at the sky. “Why does it have to be you?”

Zane paused to shake the snow from his hair and brush it off his shoulders. I thought he wouldn’t answer, but he finally said, “The snowseas don’t forget things, Trite. And I gave them a lot to remember.”

I grabbed his restless hands, bringing him still. Zane’s blotted eyes flickered back and forth between mine. He raised his sleeve to brush the remains of moisture from my cheeks, feeling his way around the curve of my jaw, squinting. His lashes flickered down toward my mouth, and a ribbon of warmth moved through my abdomen.

A dinner fork spiralled over the wall and landed in the snow beside us. I released the breath I’d been holding and reached for it when the lock on our door rattled. A deep voice came from the path. “Take them one at a time to be interrogated. Do the Rime-blood first.”

My hand halted and my gaze fired to Zane.

THE EIGHTH INTERRUPTION

THE EIGHTH INTERRUPTION

Gathadriel Mithnus was the fairy sort to listen, obey, and heed the signs. But never did he run from a fight, for it was not within his bones to fear the spirits of darkness that whittled away at Rime souls.

He rather enjoyed quarrelling with them, truly.