“If this is her village, and the channels we crossed are part of the Baltic Ice Sea, then it makes sense that the expedition she and Daniel were part of used her home as a staging point.”

“An interesting consideration. I will ask.”

But Devyn put off Vai’s questions by insisting only the priest could answer. We rode with little conversation for the rest of the day and well into the evening.

Night wrapped the world in silence. A full moon bathed the trees and the snow-clad earth in a glamour, painting the world in contrasts: the white shine of birch bark and the heavy branches of dark spruce. I felt like a forgotten ghost drawn back to an unremembered grave. It was so cold. Vai wrapped the fur blanket around me.

The road brought us to a clearing.

The moon overhead poured light on a princely hall that sat amid untended shrubbery gone wild. Its arched doorway was staved in as if kicked by a giant. Every window had shattered, and the roof had collapsed. On the lintel above the entrance was carved a crescent moon. Though the manor house rose two stories and had wings flying back on each side, a coat of ice as clear as glass encased the entire building.

Vai sucked in a breath. The mare, taking his mood, sidestepped skittishly before he brought her back under control.

Not a single plant had woven its way inside, despite the age of the ruin. The smashed floor revealed the rubble of a hypocaust beneath. Intact corpses were caught and preserved within the ice as if they had been frozen as they tried to escape.

“Blessed Tanit!” I murmured. “Gracious Melqart, protect us. Noble Ba’al, watch over your faithful daughter.”

“The spirit knows this place because she visited here before in her other form.” Devyn signed a ward against evil tidings.

“I am not a ghost or a wolf,” I said in a choked voice, but he would not look at me. To look at his face slammed me with the axe blow of memory. As a child, I had looked into a similar face, my mother’s face, as she bent to kiss me. A scar had ripped a lightning-like seam across the right side of her face, and she was missing one eye. The hole gaped like a skull’s socket, a gate onto the pain she had suffered. Yet her expression was serene and loving.

“Tell no one. Keep silence,” she had murmured. “Just until we tell you we’ve reached the safe place we’re traveling to. Sleep, little cat. Your father and I are right here beside you.”

The memory opened a pit inside my heart. There was no safe place.

“Bad fortune to be here at midnight, haunted by spirits,” said Devyn. “Best we ride on.”

Vai did not budge. “This is the mage House that was destroyed by the Wild Hunt. Crescent House, it was called.”