Head tilted on his gargantuan shoulders, Gozen listened to the wind. The storm was intensifying. Fortunately, neither he nor his troops would be much affected by it. It could even play into their plans.

He turned to his troops. “Prepare for combat.”

Chapter 55

55

NO, FINDING ANGEL huddled inside a warm mass of penguins would be too easy.

The second we landed, Fang and I were almost knocked off our feet. I quickly pulled in my wings and leaned into the wind. My face felt like it was being sanded with tiny ice crystals, and my cheeks were already burning.

Still, I tried to keep my eyes pried open enough to see the last traces of penguin tracks. Dropping to my knees, I looked carefully. Were those boot marks amid all the faint penguin footprints? There were no dog prints as far as I could tell. Any sign at all was being obliterated. Still, it was the only thing we’d found. I’d follow the tracks to the clump of penguins and then — like, question them or something.

I motioned to Fang and he nodded, reading my mind as easily as he always did. Not in an Angel-really-reading-my-mind kind of way, but in a Fang-knew-me-too-well kind of way. He stumbled slightly getting up, and I grabbed his hand and held it as we made our way toward the penguins.

Together we staggered forward, leaning into the wind, trying to keep on the trail between us and the penguins. Regular kids wouldn’t have made it — they would have had to lie down to keep from being blown away. It was getting harder and harder to see, but the flock has a built-in navigator system that allows us to find our way places, even in the dark, even across huge distances.

It seemed like we’d been searching for hours. I was freezing, trembling with the cold, and really starting to panic. I was just beginning to think we’d never get there when with no warning, the ground gave way beneath my right foot. I yelped and stumbled, and Fang instinctively tightened his grip on my hand, hauling me up and back.

“Help!”

“Angel!” I screamed back, not knowing where her voice was coming from. I looked around blindly but could see nothing that would hide even a small bird kid.

“Max! Help!”

“We’re here! We’ll get you!” Fang kept his arms around my waist while I cupped both hands around my mouth, shouting into the wind. “Where are you?”

“Down here!” came her little voice. “You just kicked snow on me!”

With that, Fang and I both dropped cautiously to our stomachs and inched forward until we saw the deep hole my foot had gone into. I brushed away some snow, and the hole got much bigger, fast.

“You’re dumping snow on us!” Angel cried.

“I’m sorry!” I called. “I have to find you first! We can’t even see where you went in!”