“Look.” Juniper knelt at the edge, clearing the snow away from the surface. I crouched beside her, and my heart stopped with fear. Hairline fractures crisscrossed the surface, white against the thick black ice.

“That’s impossible,” I said, looking around me at the snow and the high cold sky. The lake never thawed.

“Do you think we’re light enough to make it across?” Juniper asked.

I glanced at the wolves. They had not followed the bear, and were watching me expectantly. Some of them weighed as much as I did, but they had four paws to distribute their weight, where we had only two feet. Going around would be safer, but it would add miles to our journey, and Avery was already a quarter of the way across.

“Follow me, but stay at least three meters behind,” I said, putting one foot on the ice. It held. My pup trotted out ahead of me with her nose to the ground, following a trail of her own. I took a deep breath to steady my nerves and followed.

Each step brought us closer to the castle on the far shore, and each step took us farther away from safety. I knew nothing about ice. No thaw had come to this mountain in living memory from what I could tell, and the Huntress had not spoken of the time before. The snow on the lake made it nearly impossible to judge the appearance of the surface. Even so, I could tell the difference underneath my feet. Some places were as hard and impenetrable as I remembered. Others had a soft, yielding quality that turned my stomach. In a few places, water filled my footsteps, and I prayed to whatever gods were listening that the ice would hold.

We heard the screams when we were halfway across, and heard the unmistakable crack of breaking ice. I dropped to my knees, thinking to spread my weight, but Juniper started to run toward the Locklands.

“No,” I shouted after her, and then I was running, scrambling to grab her as her foot sank through a rotten patch and she teetered, arms flailing, standing at the edge of the river of meltwater that snaked its way across the lake and separated us from the Locklands.

“I’ve got you,” I told her, hauling her back onto safer ground. She kept screaming, and I followed her line of sight, horror welling in my throat.

Several of the villagers were in the water. I could see the small dark shapes of their heads, and heard the shouts of the rest of them as ropes were thrown and lines formed to pull the freezing men and women from the black water of the lake.