The turtle began to sink, slowly, withdrawing its head under the shelf of its shell, barely disturbing the black water till its chin rested on the surface.

“I don’t know any dwarf queens,” Janet said. “You know any dwarf queens, Eliot?”

“Heck no. Because there aren’t any female dwarfs. They don’t exist.”

“She doesn’t exist,” Janet said to the turtle. “Try again.”

“Listen closer.”

The snapping turtle snapped. Its head shot out to maximum extension—Eliot wouldn’t have believed anything that big could move that fast. It was like a Mack truck coming straight at them. As it bit it turned its head on one side, to take them both in one movement.

Eliot reacted fast. His reaction was to crouch down and cover his face with his arms. From the relative safety of this position he felt the day grow colder around them, and he heard a crackle, which at first he took for the pier splintering in the turtle’s jaws. But the end didn’t come.

“You dare?” Janet said.

Her voice was loud now—it made the boards vibrate sympathetically under his feet. He looked up at her. She’d gone airborne, floating two feet above the pier, and her clothes were rimed with frost. She radiated cold; mist sheeted off her skin as it would off dry ice. Her arms were spread wide, and she had an axe in each hand. They were those twin staves she wore on her back, each one now topped with an axe-head of clear ice.

The turtle was trapped in mid-lunge. She’d stopped it cold; the swamp was frozen solid around it. Janet had called down winter, and the water of the Northern Marsh was solid ice as far as he could see, cracked and buckled up in waves. The turtle was stuck fast in it. It struggled, its head banging back and forth impotently.

“Jesus,” Eliot said. He stood up out of his defensive crouch. “Nice one.”

“You dare?” Janet said again, all imperious power. “Marvel that you live, Prince of Shit.”

The turtle didn’t seem surprised, just mad.

“I’ll have you,” it hissed, and it surged and strained. The ice squeaked and groaned and started to split. Janet leaned into the casting, however she was doing it, and froze the swamp harder and tighter.

“I will freeze your eyes,” she said, “and shatter them! I will split your shell and pick out the meat!”

Jesus, where did she get this stuff? The turtle strained once more and then was still, like a great ship frozen in arctic pack ice. It stared at them furiously, its eyes burning with murder. Janet let herself float down to the wooden boards.

“Fuck you,” Janet said. “You know better. Next time I’ll kill you.”