Capricious, Ellison had said. Lacking any conscience. Luce wasn’t like that at all, actually. But weren’t there plenty of human beings you could describe that way?

Even worse: what if Luce became convinced that Dorian had betrayed her? After all, how else could Ellison know so much? Dorian had never really promised Luce that he wouldn’t talk to the FBI. So what was she supposed to think?

The cold seeped through his parka until he shivered, and the wind came rushing faster from the wild black sea. A few drops of sleet spattered against Dorian’s face.

People kept saying it would be a bad winter.

∗ ∗ ∗

When Luce and Nausicaa slipped out late that evening to look for dinner, snow was falling in thick plumes that dissolved the instant they hit the coal black sea. Luce felt like she was swimming through an endless maze stitched from pale lace and crisp billowing silks. Even Nausicaa stopped and spun in circles, gazing around at the white frills drifting down the black sky. It was all magnificently beautiful. The snow pranced in each gust of wind, and Luce could just make out the subtle tinkling sound of the huge flakes crumpling into water. Luce and Nausicaa floated slowly together to the beach, where they ate, both of them silent from wonder.

“Soon enough the ice will come,” Nausicaa observed at last. She was nibbling seaweed, and the green-gold shine of her skin reflected in each snowflake that swirled past her. “We will have to swim south, far past the peninsula. Some years ago I knew the queen of a tribe that lived there—”

“It didn’t get that bad last winter,” Luce objected. She had cracked her first oyster, but she was too perturbed by what Nausicaa had just said to eat it. “I mean, I wasn’t a mermaid yet then, but everybody told me there wasn’t too much ice. They all just stayed here.”

Nausicaa glanced at Luce with sardonic affection. Of course she knew why Luce didn’t want to think about migrating. “This winter will be worse. I can almost feel the breath coming off the pack ice already. And we have not even reached the darkest days.” Nausicaa paused. Snow clung to the fringes of her black wild hair in a kind of icy halo, the flakes sparked with gold here and there by her soft brilliance. “I may think of leaving soon, Luce. And you should come with me.”

Luce’s heart jarred in her chest. Nausicaa’s words felt almost like a threat. “I’m not going to leave here. And I wish you’d stay, too. I don’t care about the ice.”