He hesitated. She could have sworn he hesitated. But that was all. Her hand fell away. The Bear had won.

Tendrils of black mist crept around the edges of her vision. Her wrist was cut deeply, her hand useless, blood sliding down to bless the boards of this house.

“I came to find you,” she said. “But if you do not remember me, then I have failed.” There was a roaring in her ears. “If you ever see your horse again, tell her what happened to me.” She swayed and fell, on the edge of consciousness.

He caught her before she fell. In his cold grip, she remembered a road from which there was no turning back, a road in a forest full of stars. She could have sworn he cursed, under his breath. Then she could feel his arm beneath her knees, beneath her shoulders, and he picked her up.

Carrying her, he strode out of the great feasting-hall.

17.

Memory

SHE WASN’T UNCONSCIOUS, EXACTLY, BUT the world had gone gray and still. She smelled smoke-tinged night and pine. When she tipped her head back she saw stars—a whole world of stars—as though she flew between heaven and earth, like that wandering devil. The frost-demon’s feet did not groan in the snow, his breath made no plume in the cold night. She heard the creak of cold-stiffened hinges. New smells—fresh birch and fire and rot. She was deposited unceremoniously onto something hard, and hissed when the shock of it jarred both her bones and her bruises. She lifted her arm, and saw her hand sticky with blood, the wrist cut deep.

Then she remembered. “Midnight,” she gasped. “Is it still midnight?”

“It is still midnight.” Candles flared suddenly: waxen lumps in niches in the wall. Her gaze flew up and found the frost-demon watching her.

The air was hot and close. To her surprise, she saw they were in a bathhouse. She tried to sit up, but she was bleeding too fast; it was a struggle to stay conscious. Gritting her teeth, she reached to tear a strip of her skirt, found that she could not with one hand useless.

Raising her head, she snapped at him, “Did you bring me here to watch me bleed to death? You are going to be disappointed. I am getting used to spiting people by surviving.”

“I can imagine,” he returned mildly. He was standing over her. His gaze, sardonic, still curious, took in her damaged face, dropped to her bloody wrist. She was holding it in an iron grip, trying to halt the flow of blood. Her blood was on his cheek, on his robe, his white hands. He wore his power like another skin.

“Why a bathhouse?” she asked him, trying to control her breathing. “Only witches or wicked sorcerers go to a bathhouse at midnight.”

“Appropriate then,” he said, his voice dry. “And you are still not afraid? With your blood pouring out of you? Where have you come from, wanderer?”