What if the chimney gets clogged with snow? she thought to herself. And the smoke backs up into the room? And we can’t escape, because snow is blocking the door? She felt the weight of the hill above, imagined the hill collapsing, dirt clogging her nose and mouth. She imagined dying here, buried inside the ground. Her friends would never find her. They’d never know.

She threw her blankets off, crossed to the door, and pulled. It crashed open, cold air rushing in. When she stepped out and down, she understood suddenly that the door in the hill was positioned at the hill’s steepest point, and partly up its slope, where snow was unlikely to accumulate. And then she remembered the long chimney, protected from snow by its chimney cap.

I should trust the locals, she thought, going back inside, shivering, crawling into her bed. Giddon? I’m scared of me dying, or you dying, or Hava dying, now that I’m so close.

I know, he said. It isn’t going to happen.

Do you promise?

Yes, he said. I promise.

But no one can promise that, she cried, almost triumphantly, as if she’d caught him out in a lie.

I know, he said. But I’m promising it anyway, and you should believe me. Who’s more trustworthy, me or your anxiety?

That made Bitterblue laugh a little. And then her mind started playing with ideas of Giddon again. Sitting with him in his chair, pressed against him. Touching his chest. Touching his beard, which was scratchy. Kissing his mouth. Being kissed back.

Kissing Giddon, Bitterblue fell asleep.

—

The storm lasted the whole next day and night.

“The single good thing about it is that my foot is healing,” Bitterblue said grumpily. The hut was beginning to feel like her attic prison all over again. Only her fear of encouraging Lovisa’s gloom kept her from devolving into constant complaints. That and the books, which told amusingly heroic stories about the Keeper and showed pictures of her in many shapes and forms, sometimes with innumerable eyes and arms, sometimes more of a blob.

Lovisa wasn’t interested in the books, actually scowled when Bitterblue showed her one of the drawings, and hardly spoke. She ate, drank the tiny cups of tea Bitterblue made from melted snow, slept, and stared at the ceiling. “When we get to the town,” she said, “I’m going to send a signal message to the Ledra Magistry. Do you know what that means?”

“Only vaguely.”

“It means that soon, all of Winterkeep will know what my parents did.”

“All of Winterkeep?”