It was worse than anything she could have imagined Dana would say. And it was impossible to answer, because she knew that Dana was right. Luce was knocked into silence and darkness. Her thoughts billowed like smoky clouds, and she stared helplessly at the rocks and the icy, domineering sea. The unforgivable thing wasn’t that she’d let Dorian live, but rather that she’d treated one of her few real friends as if she were an enemy, as someone who deserved to be fooled.

Apologizing wouldn’t help, Luce realized. Dana’s face was buckling in pain, smeared with tears. For a full minute no one spoke.

“Violet,” Dana murmured at last, “let’s get out of here. We’re never coming back. “Well never even think about this . . .”

“I still want Luce to come with us,” Violet whispered. “She’s still my queen.” Despite the words there was something horribly raw in Violet’s face, Luce saw: the dull grief of disillusionment.

“That is no one’s queen,” Dana replied coldly. She wouldn’t look at Luce anymore.

“But . . .” Violet gazed at Luce in urgent appeal, her childish gray-green eyes washed by tides of heartache. “Luce, don’t you want to be with us?”

“Luce isn’t going anywhere,” Dorian suddenly put in loudly. There was something disruptive about the sound of his voice, as if they’d all forgotten he was still there or that he was capable of speech. “She belongs with me.”

For the first time Luce wasn’t so sure. Hadn’t Dorian asked her to talk to the FBI? If Dana felt this betrayed now, what on earth would she think if Luce became an informant for the humans?

Violet was crying as she swam up and kissed Luce on the seeping welt that striped her cheek. The kiss stung, and Luce knew that the taste of her blood would linger on Violet’s lips through her long journey south.

Then Violet and Dana were gone. The waves closed behind them. Luce gazed out beyond the spot where they’d vanished, and the sea appeared like a vast field crowded with the black silk tents of a lost army.

Luce swirled over to the shore and stretched out face-up, her fins dragging weakly across the stones of the seabed. Dorian drew close and softly washed the blood from her face. “Luce?” he said. “You know they had to find out sometime, right?”

Luce didn’t answer, and Dorian gave up trying to talk to her and wrapped his arms around his knees, staring out to sea. Luce turned her head until she couldn’t see even a sliver of his clothing. Nothing but the racing snow. She knew Dorian was still sitting silent beside her, and she knew she had to take him home, but it was hours before she moved or spoke.

17

Ice