My answer was quick. “No.” I turned away and focused on my teacup and the chocolates.

“You’re lying.” Zane stepped to the table. “What did you expect me to do, Trite? Did you want me to try and stop an ancient war fairy?” he asked, and my gaze darted back to him. He blinked. “Ragnashuck, you did.”

I swallowed, the glory of my chocolate-eating-monster show wearing off. “We have nothing to discuss about it,” I said. But Zane drew closer, stealing my view. A flicker of hurt crossed his face and a rush of guilt moved through me.

“Helen,” he whispered. Though we were surrounded by background noise, I heard what he said next. “I missed you more these last quarters than I’ve ever missed anyone.”

Anyone. The word struck a chord, and I thought of his first Carrier, and Mikal.

My attention flickered back. Good grief, I was a monster. Even before I’d attacked the chocolate. I opened my mouth to tell him everything, but my throat swelled, and I closed it again. Instead, I moved in and wrapped my arms around his middle until he relaxed, and his arms came around my shoulders.

“I missed you too,” was all I said.

THE SECOND INTERRUPTION

‘Twas a steamy ride for a measure of reasons, and not one had to do with the translucent puffs of shimmer frothing from the train’s pipes.

After bidding farewell to Cornelius Britley and watching as Cornelius conspicuously grinned at Eliot’s situation, Kaley Bell led her captive off the train platform and into a town she knew only as an oval-shaped mass on a map she had glanced upon a quarter or three ago. Within slender hotels of shimmering red banners and pockets of tinsel, Kaley spotted a building with an ivory door, where pale steam painted the window’s insides like milk.

“You can’t possibly know where we are,” Eliot Gray tried, grimacing at the flock of crystal toads hopping along the town’s walkways, guided gently by an elf wrapped in crimson blossoms.

Kaley ignored him, yet still Eliot went on, “If you knew the rules of Winter, you’d avoid places like this. Places that are red,” he offered. After another pinch with no response, he tried a time again. “It’s not safe for us to be here, Trite. I’m on your side, you know. I went to the dead world to offer my apologies and bring good tidings to your sister.”

Eliot Gray abandoned his natter as he was led into the building with the ivory door. He drew a puzzled face, taking in the hot drink tavern he had visited a time or three in seasons past. “How did you know about this place?”

Yet a time again, he was ignored. Kaley lowered her Trite weapon and scanned the bustling tables, grabbing faces she would never forget into her memories.

Silence often spoke greater volumes in her opinion. ‘Twas in the silence Kaley was able to recall that morning of the not-so-distant past when pale-skinned monsters had come to her grandmother’s house with their long bows and violet eyes. They had hovered over Winston as he ate his morning oats—Kaley had nearly jumped from her fair skin at the sight of them when she’d descended the stairs. One had leaned to whisper in her brother’s ear, “Season’s greetings, Trite. Blink twice!” The words still haunted Kaley’s thoughts like a bitter whiff of smoke.