I sighed and ran my fingers through my tangled hair. I couldn’t make eye contact with Porethius, but a warm breeze flitted through the room and covered my shoulders, and I knew it was her.

“I could say a lot of things about what you did,” I began. “Kaley was nearly taken. On your watch.”

Porethius looked to the floor. “I had no idea what would happen to that cathedral. It used to be fostered by one hundred and thirty plus eight believers in our fold.”

“What happened to them?” I crossed my arms, and she glanced at me.

“The same thing that happened to the Patrolmen we sent to check on them after we didn’t hear from them for a measure,” she said. “They vanished.”

My skin pebbled as I thought about how Kaley had described the Patrolmen being swallowed by a shadow. “How many believers have gone missing?”

“Many.”

“Are they alive?”

“I don’t know.”

Soft sounds of laughter drifted up from downstairs. I stared at the fairy, at her drooping wings and tightly gripped hands. “You pulled Kaley through a door into Winter while the intersects were shut. How did you do that?”

Her brows tilted in. “I opened an old door with Elowin’s blessing, but it was sealed once it served its purpose.”

I chewed on the inside of my cheek.

Porethius stood and sighed. “You should know that I did not choose your sister over you; your sister was needed in addition to you. And I knew the risks of giving her that assignment in the basement, but so did she. She did it for you. Because she wanted to help you.”

I looked off at the mirror by the door. “She shouldn’t have.”

“She’s braver than most.”

“She’s only sixteen.”

“So were you when you came.”

A long pause hung between us. Porethius came to my bedside and extended a tattooed hand. “Come, Carrier. I’d like to show you a thing.” Her other hand flicked the latch of the bedroom window and shoved it open. I released a heavy breath and lifted my hand.

The moment my Trite flesh touched her fairy skin, I was whisked through the window, and I gasped as we propelled faster than a jet through the Winter sky, the factory turning to a speck below. The fairy glowed, spiralling against the wind like a shooting star. We burst through cloud and gale, leaving no shadow, icy landscapes and deep green forests glimmering under the flecks of golden sunlight slipping by us.

After taking in Winter’s glory, my face fell as we descended over a dark, metal gate surrounding a kingdom with ruby statues; a misty city in the middle of it all.

“Porethius, why are you taking me here?” I called over the howling wind.

She didn’t answer.

We broke from the clouds and my stomach tried to scramble up into my throat as we dropped. The fairy repositioned her legs and hit the ground, snow rippling away from her sabatons, and a deep echo reverberated through the frost-kissed trees. Pure white apples clung to the branches around us. I spun to Porethius.