“Win!” I shout, but Crowky squeezes my shoulder so hard that my legs slip out from under me and I slam down on the ice. He hovers over me. “Drain,” he hisses in my ear, “drain . . .” Then he turns his head so he can watch Win struggling in the water.

“Help him,” I whisper, but Crowky just smiles. “Too cold,” I add. My skin is cold. My heart is so cold that it hurts, but I’m talking about Win. His lips have gone blue and his head keeps sinking under the water. He tries to grab hold of the ice floe, but his fingers slip straight off. He tries again, and again. Then, just when I think he’s going to give up, he manages to dig his fingertips in and cling on.

For a moment we stay like this, with Win dangling in the water and Crowky draining the life out of me. Our chunk of ice has caught in a current and this, combined with the wind from Rose’s storm, is pushing us out to sea.

Win tries to pull himself up, but he keeps falling back. Eventually he stops trying and rests his face on the ice close to mine.

“Win . . . get out,” I whisper.

He shakes his head. Frost is dusted across his hair. It’s turned his eyelashes white. “Can’t.”

I want to reach out and pull him from the water, but Crowky continues to press his twig fingers into my skin. I can barely move my head. I can barely talk. Win knows this and moves his hand along the ice until our fingers are just touching.

He’s freezing in the water, but he’s still trying to help me. He knows that the touch of a friend will stop Crowky from being able to stuff me. I feel a tingle in my hand, a tiny rush of warmth, but it’s not enough.

Suddenly Crowky lets go of me and sits back. He’s deathly white and shaking. I can’t tell if he’s too tired to drain me anymore, or if he just wants to watch what will happen to Win. The T-shirt and the Box sit next to him. Two things he loves, but they’re no use to him now he’s trapped on the ice with us.

I try to look around. My one hope is that Mitch will come looking for us. But we’ve drifted even farther than I realized. I can’t see the Alisha or land. But I do see something so strange, that for a moment I stop feeling scared. Rose’s ice cloud is still above us in the sky, but it’s forming a shape. Is it a horse? I wonder. Then I see spikes appearing on its arched back. No, I think. It’s a dragon.