“Quick!” Alice said, crouched against the boulder. Flicker gave the bonfire a last, longing look and jogged across the room to squat beside her. Heat rolled off him in waves.

They waited for a while, listening to the steady crackle of the bonfire. Whatever the fire-oil was, it burned remarkably evenly, producing tall, hot flame without much smoke. Alice could feel the warmth all the way across the room.

“How big is the bluechill?” Alice whispered.

“I’ve never seen it,” Flicker said slowly. “But the men in the village said it was as tall as the corridors.”

Another pause. Alice stared into the hypnotic shifting of the flames.

“Pyros told me about your . . . spark,” Alice said carefully. “I’m sorry.”

Flicker snorted. “Don’t pretend you understand me, Reader. Or that you care.”

Alice was about to protest that she did understand, when the boy raised a hand for silence. A moment later she heard a grinding sound, quiet at first but quickly growing louder. Flicker turned his head in a half circle, then pointed to one of the arched doorways.

“There,” he said. “It’s coming.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE BLUECHILL

ALICE SQUINTED. IN the tunnel on the other side of the room, something was moving. It looked like a constellation of fireflies, lights that twisted and slid weirdly, and it took her a moment to understand what she was seeing.

Ice. The bluechill looked as though it were made entirely of ice, great curved blocks of the stuff, twisting and reflecting the glow of the bonfire like a fun-house mirror. The reflected pinpricks shifted and slid across its slick surface as it moved, letting her get a better sense of the shape of the thing. It reminded Alice of a scorpion, a triangular body with three multi-jointed legs on each side. It had no claws, but a long, curving tail arched above it, three spear-like points gleaming at its tip. At the front, where its head should be, there was a chaotic jumble of crystalline shapes, spikes, and feathery fronds, like a hundred snowflakes grown huge and mashed together.

Its body was a single, polished crystal of ice, light sliding across its curves, and its limbs were chunks of ice linked one to the next like beads on a string. The spikes on its tail were the tips of icicles, dagger-sharp. It moved with a disturbing fluidity, legs rising and falling in perfect unison, like they were powered by clockwork. Each shift of its body brought a grinding, squeaking noise.

It was big enough to scrape the corridor ceiling, nearly the size of a car, each leg as long as Alice was tall. Her heart started to beat faster. If the ward doesn’t work . . .

“Well, Reader?” Flicker whispered. “What are you waiting for?”