When Alice tried to back away, however, she found that her horns were stuck. Before she could shake herself free, the bluechill recovered itself, and reached around to grab hold of her. Icy claws dug into Spike’s tough, pebbly hide, drawing blood while they scrabbled for purchase. The thing’s arching tail stabbed down, punching into the thick plating along Alice’s back. It hurt, but only for a moment; then her flesh went numb, as though the blue-chill had injected the essence of cold into her veins. Alice tossed her head, trying to break free, and the stinger struck again and again.

She realized that if she didn’t do something, she was going to die. After facing down a labyrinthine, she’d been overconfident here on Flicker’s world. The bluechill terrified the fire-sprites, but she’d taken it for granted that she could handle it. Now she could feel the venom spreading through her body, chilling Spike’s tough flesh as it reached for her heart. Do something!

Alice let go of Spike’s thread, letting the transformation slip away. The bluechill lurched as she returned to her real body, smaller and lighter than Spike’s, spread-eagled and clinging to her opponent. The poison was still in her, spreading faster now that she was only a girl, and Alice felt as though she’d been tossed into a pond in mid-winter. Her teeth began to chatter.

She dug in her pouch for her acorns. Her fingers were stiff and shaking, but she managed to extract one, and with all the strength she had left she rammed it into one of the holes Spike’s horns had left in the bluechill’s hide. A moment later, the bluechill righted itself, and Alice slumped to the stone, curled up against the cold as the monster turned away from her and toward Flicker’s hiding spot.

Grow, Alice urged the acorn. Grow as fast as you can.

The ice-creature paused. Alice could see something spreading inside the bluechill’s translucent carapace, a dark network worming through the cracks Spike had left, pressing through the ice with the strength that sends a tree root burrowing through concrete.

The bluechill screeched, body flexing as it tried to contain the vegetable invader. Then, all at once, it exploded, with a crack like the shattering of a mountain. Fragments of ice blew across the room and pinged off the walls, raining down around Alice like a strange, dense snow.

Alice closed her eyes, knees pressed against her chest. Her whole body shuddered with the cold, but she couldn’t feel it anymore, as though it were a far-off thing that didn’t really concern her. She’d wrapped herself in the Swarm thread, hoping their toughness extended to poisons, but it didn’t seem to have helped. Each breath felt like it was going to freeze in her throat.