They looked at each other, sharing an unspoken thought, and then they looked at me.

In the depths of the ice, wreathed in ice, sleeps the Wild Hunt, and when it wakes, all tremble in fear. In the depths of the black abyss there drifts in a watery stupor the leviathan whose lashing tail can smash ships into splinters and drive the sundered hulks under the waves. In the depths of the smoke lies coiled in slumber the Mother of All Dragons. If she stirs, waking, the world changes. So we are told.

But none of that seemed at all frightening compared with the prospect of Bee and Andevai united in exasperation and anger, against me.

Me!

I thought about how many days it was going to take us to reach Noviomagus and how many hours of that time they were going to spend scolding and haranguing me as only they could.

“Everyone knows all the good parts except me,” groused the latch. “For instance, where are we now and where are we going? Why? How did we get here?”

There is more than one way to skin a cat. Or at least, if you’re the cat, to stay unskinned by rebuking tongues and accusing eyes for just a little longer.

“Fortunately, it’s a very expansive story and one I can tell you if you don’t mind hearing every piece of it all. At length.”

“Catherine, I believe you owe us some manner of explanation!”

“Cat, what have you been hiding from us? What did you do?”

“I don’t mind, no matter how long it takes!” said the latch, with the nearest thing to a real smile I had ever seen on its dour face. “Do you have any of that coffee stuff? That was very tasty.”

“We can get coffee along the way like we did before. Let me see. There’s a great deal you don’t know, so it’s best if I start at the beginning.”

First I peeked into the basket to see that there was indeed a jar of Serena’s most excellent yam pudding tucked to one side. Then I settled myself more comfortably on the seat and smiled at my beloved if fulminating cousin and my handsome if reproachful husband. Finally I winked at the latch that had just saved me.

The latch winked shyly back, like a child caught out on its first budding infatuation.

Never let it be said I could not talk my way out of any trouble that I could not punch.

“The history of the world begins in ice, and it will end in ice.”

extras

meet the author

April Quintanilla