The pack ice began to float in from the north. It came sparsely at first, a broken white parade dancing over the surface of the water, and it didn’t take Luce long to realize she’d underestimated how dangerous it might be. The blocks were big and heavy enough that if the waves threw one against her head, maybe in a storm, the blow would surely knock her unconscious or possibly even break her neck. The world became a waltz of ice and darkness, the pale crags of far snowy mountains traced on a black sky far taller than any mountain. And the cold was fierce enough now to bother even a mermaid a little. Luce dug Dorian’s olive parka out of its hiding place every night and slept with it wrapped around her upper body, breathing his warm, earthy smell.

Dorian had said she was all he had left. Now with Nausicaa and Dana gone he was all she had, too. She couldn’t escape the suspicion that he might be secretly glad about that, but she couldn’t stop loving him either. In the days following their confrontation with Dana, Luce and Dorian seemed to be living in the center of an infinite castle carved from black glass and white snow. Their voices echoed in each other’s minds as if through winding corridors and abandoned ballrooms. Every afternoon they sprawled together on the beach, Dorian’s breath emerging in a series of pale clouds. Sometimes Luce would drag the rowboat along the shore under crystal overhangs that dripped from the cliffs, accumulated icicles so thick that they became monstrous slabs of rippling light in the darkness. The aurora borealis hovered like shining green rain or like scarlet plumes, the colored glow caught and distorted by the ice.

It was all so beautiful and so dreamlike that it could be hard to remember how real the world was and how serious their problems were. Once or twice Dorian tried again to bring up his idea of asking Ben Ellison to find a way to turn Luce back.

“I’d rather try it without him,” Luce finally said. “Just you and me. It might kill me, maybe, but I wouldn’t be betraying anyone else that way. Even if I died at least I wouldn’t hate myself!”

Even in the dimness Luce could see that Dorian’s face had turned ashy white. “I will not let that happen! Luce, we’re not going to do this unless . . . unless it’s at least kind of safe. I mean, I’d go insane if you died because of me!”

Safe, Luce thought a little contemptuously. The word was ridiculous considering what they were talking about. “Then don’t ask me anymore, or . . . Dorian, can’t we just be together like this?”