Before the Snow (6 page)

She knew what it was before he opened his palm. A ring.

It was a simple silver band with a giant chunk of diamond that looked like ice. It was stunning in its simplicity.

“So . . .” She gulped and forced the words out. “It's perfect. Ora will love it.”

But it wasn't true. The truth was Nepenthe loved it. She knew Ora would want something more ornate. Something prettier. Something that had been sculpted and “perfected” into a shape of her choosing. Something that had been touched by human hands and human tools. This looked like Lazar pulled the diamond right out of the rocks, or rather, like he'd made it himself with one wave of his Snow.

“Thank you, Nepenthe,” the Prince said, putting the ring mercifully away back in the jacket. “Thank you. You coming in?”

“Soon. I just want a couple of more minutes with the North Lights.”

But she didn't come back. She headed straight for the River. She left the jacket, with the ring in its pocket, on the railing of the patio.

14

Nepenthe returned to the River. She swam back and forth, swimming away from Lazar. From the ball. From eating and needing things that she had already said good-bye to. She wound up back at the water in front of her boat. After a few short weeks in the palace, the boat seemed smaller, but Nepenthe had never felt more grateful to see its silvery mast.

She swam for the bottom of the River beneath the current. She curled up in the fetal position and let the water embrace her. The water was her home, her friend, her breath, her life. And yet this time, it did not calm her. Nepenthe felt her chest clutch. She rose to the surface. Her lungs wanted air, but it was more than air that she really wanted. She just didn't want to name it.

The River Witch struggled to the shore and hunched over the sandy ground, gasping for air. Breathing in and out. In and out. She lay there conscious of her lungs filling with air until her heart felt like it had returned to its proper place inside her chest instead of practically outside of it.

What is happening to me?
she wondered.

Nepenthe wanted to tell someone about Lazar, but the Coven would not understand. Or worse, they would.

She gripped the side of the riverbank. And when she looked up, the Witch of the Woods was standing there.

“You made it, little fish.”

Nepenthe realized the Witch of the Woods was preparing for the Esabat—the time of year they worshipped the North Lights and the moon. Tonight the Lights were the particular shade of silvery blue that called for a celebration.

“What is it, little fish?” the Witch of the Woods asked. “I knew no good would come of this: of us mixing with them.”

“There is no cause for concern, Witch of the Woods,” Nepenthe said and went back under the surface. In the water, everything was calm and forgotten—except not tonight.

“Ora isn't here. She's never missed a moon. Did you have a quarrel?”

“No.”

The twigs above the Witch of the Woods's eyes knit together. “What is it, Nepenthe? What aren't you telling me? Nothing comes between a witch and her Coven.”

15

The Witch of the Woods looked at Nepenthe for a long beat. She was back for the full moon. She thought that was why Nepenthe was back, too.

“Where's Ora?” the ancient witch asked, looking around, her twiggy eyebrows raising in concern.

The whole story tumbled out of Nepenthe, but she left out the part about Ora and the ring.

The Witch of the Woods looked at her in silence.

“I never thought it. I thought you were different from your mother. But perhaps this runs in the blood, too.”

“What?”

“A penchant for falling in love.”

“I am not in love.”

“You just don't want to be. But I know love when I see it, like I know when good wood has been riddled by beetles. There's nothing you can do but burn it.”

“You can also drown it,” Nepenthe quipped, dunking back under.

When Nepenthe resurfaced, the Witch of the Woods was not smiling.

“People with magic and people without magic have been trying to coexist for a very long time. They just think that it is better if we keep things separate. But draw a line in the sand and children will line up to cross it.”

“But he has magic. He has Snow.”

“He spent his whole life among humans. He may have the power, but his head and his heart are nothing like ours. The willfulness . . . the hubris . . . You have seen this, Nepenthe . . .”

Nepenthe opened her mouth to protest. But she could not. He wore a crown and lived in a palace. What did he know of being a real witch?

“I am sorry, Cassia.” Nepenthe knew better, but her heart didn't.

“Don't be sorry. Go back and finish this thing. Quick. Bring Ora home.”

“I don't think she wants to come home,” Nepenthe said quietly.

The Witch of the Woods knelt down beside the River and offered her a branch up.

“Hurry up, we need to get ready for the ceremony.”

16

Ora never missed a moon ceremony or a ritual. Any chance to dress up and perform lit up her pretty face. But Ora was missing this one. Nepenthe loved them for a completely different reason. And now she needed their connection to erase the one she felt with Lazar.

The Coven passed the cake. They drank from the chalice. They danced under the Lights, but in between Nepenthe felt herself missing a step. Her hand was shaky. Her words and steps lagged behind. It was as if the Prince was still with her in every movement, every bite, every word.

When they finished the incantation, she saw him leaning against one of the Witch of the Woods's trees. She thought for a second she had conjured him up. As the moon rose, she waited for him to fade away. But he was still there.

He was real. She waited for the other witches to drift off to their own celebrations before making a beeline for Lazar.

He was breaking the witches' code. She assumed he had followed her here. That he had been watching them. Their rituals belonged to them. And to no one else. Not even a prince. Especially not a prince. No one came to the Hovel uninvited, and neither she nor Ora would ever ask him here.

“What are you doing here?” Nepenthe demanded when she reached him. “The witches have killed people for less,” she warned, pulling him away behind a tree and hoping the bark wouldn't tell the Witch of the Woods who was here and what was happening.

“What are you doing here?” Nepenthe repeated.

The Prince had found her for the second time that night. His hair was disheveled. His coat was torn.

“What happened?”

“After the ball, I told my father my intentions to marry Ora.”

“Marry . . . ,” Nepenthe blurted. “And your father . . . he did this to you?” She recovered on the outside, but big heavy drops of rain began to fall.

“He forbade it. He suggested that I keep Ora as mine . . . and that I marry someone else . . .”

“So he did this to you?”

“No, Ora and I . . . we decided. We didn't need his permission.”

Nepenthe was angry at Lazar for being here, but his posture told her that something was very, very wrong.

“What happened?” she asked. As she spoke she looked away from him, up at the North Lights. Witches believed in them more than the moon. But what was she wishing for? That Ora had broken it off with him after standing up to the King? That the Prince was here to find Nepenthe? That this night had ended with them apart and he wanted to change that? She searched his face, looking for the answer there since she did not want to address the contents of her own heart.

Lazar's shoulders hunched. His usual confidence was missing. Nepenthe was taken back to the little boy he once was. And she felt her heart go out to him.

Then there was Ora to consider. She was more than just any witch to Nepenthe. Somehow since Nepenthe had lost her parents, Ora had become a constant. She had become important to her. Not a part of Nepenthe like the water. But a fixed point on the shore that she had thought would always be there.

He
continued to try and explain himself. “We didn't know it was a trap.”

“You were going to elope.” The words cut Nepenthe as she said them, making them more real.

“We could be punished, but we could not be undone.”

The words sounded more like Ora than the Prince. It was her idea. Nepenthe was sure of it. But that didn't change what had happened. He had chosen Ora not as a dalliance, but as his wife.

“Did you—did you go through with the marriage?” Nepenthe said, water rising up in her, hating that she cared about the answer.

“No. The priestess was an Outlander. They knocked me out and they took Ora. Your sister is gone. But I don't think they will hurt her. It's me they want. Or, rather, they want me to do something in exchange for Ora.”

“Gone? NO!” Tears welled in Nepenthe's eyes and her mind raced. First her parents. Now Ora. Nepenthe might be jealous, but Ora was still her sister, and there was something she could still do to save her.

“They know I love her and would do anything to get her back.”

“What do they want in return?” Nepenthe asked, keeping her voice even, knowing very well she would pay any price for Ora.

“They said something that makes not a bit of sense. That's where I got lost,” Lazar said, frowning with confusion.

“What? Every detail matters.”

“They want a mirror. It's a part of the prophecy. Or so they say. Father won't tell me the whole of it. I am surprised that he believes in such things.”

Lines from the oracle's prophecy drifted back to Nepenthe, like a bedtime story the Witch of the Woods used to tell her.

“We should tell the Coven. They'll know what to do,” Nepenthe rationalized.

“No! We can't. The Outlanders said it has to be me. The Coven can't help.” Lazar was starting to panic. She could see it in his eyes even before the tree behind her pricked her with frost.

Nepenthe knew that she had to get Ora back. She had no idea where the Hinterlands were, but there was one way to find out. She turned with every intention of returning to the Hollow.

But Lazar put an icy hand on her arm.

“The Witch of the Woods knows every inch of Algid from the ground up,” Nepenthe said with a look that told him to let go.

“We can't involve the witches. I shouldn't have even come to you. The Outlander said . . . he would kill her, Nepenthe. Please . . .”

She relented with a heavy sigh. She did not know if his was the only way, or the path to disaster.

“We can do a Locator Spell,” she said. “But I still need something of Ora's in order for it to track her. I'll sneak in and be right back. They're so busy with the Feast, they won't notice—”

Lazar stopped me again.

“Will this do?” he said, rummaging in his pocket for his watch. He opened it and there was a lock of hair. Ora's hair.

It was something human girls did—not witches. Giving away a piece of yourself was like giving someone a weapon. A lock of hair could be used in a spell to find you or to hurt you. This
was
the kind of spell that Nepenthe's mother had taught her was only to be used if there was no other option.

At once, Nepenthe wanted to admonish Ora for breaking the witches' code, but jealousy flooded through her. Unwanted, but there all the same. She was unable to flush it out, and she pressed on. Ora was missing. And Nepenthe loved her long before whatever it was she felt for Lazar.

“Someday you will meet someone who might make you want to choose,” her mother had said over and over the years.

Nepenthe had laughed at her mother then. She had half resented the idea of the choice. Because from where she was sitting, she didn't see that there was much of one.

“I should take you back to the King,” Nepenthe said finally, calculating the risk. If Ora was lost, she did not want to take Lazar along only to lose him, too.

He looked up at her, resolute. “I would just follow you and probably freeze people in the process. Do you want that on your conscience?”

“Who says I have one?” she said, trying to joke, but the words landed awkwardly, heavy with their lack of truth.

“Ora wouldn't be in this mess if it wasn't for me. Please help me.”

“I would be looking for Ora no matter what. I don't need you to come with me.”

“Why are you fighting me on this? I could help.”

“You could hurt.”

“I won't use my Snow unless I have your permission. You have my word. But I need to come to the Hinterlands. Please, Nepenthe.”

She wished she could say that it was his word that made her said yes. But it was the way he said her name.

17

Nepenthe took Lazar to her boat. She let him steer while she began the Locator Spell. She took a piece of ribbon out of her hair, leftover from the ball, and she broke two branches off a nearby tree.

“Thank you, Witch of the Woods,” Nepenthe said.

She tied the branches together, making a cross. Then she tied the piece of Ora's hair to one end.

“Knife?” Nepenthe asked.

Lazar produced a small dagger from the sheath at his side; Nepenthe cut her hand with it and dipped the opposite side of the cross in her blood.

“What are you doing?” he said.

Nepenthe knew that he had not seen this kind of magic since the ceremony that took his memories.

“It's a blood compass. It will find Ora for us.”

Nepenthe put the tool on the ground, and it began to spin. It paused at north. She scooped it back up and put the compass on the shelf behind the wheel of the boat. It pointed upstream.

The boat rocked and shifted Lazar into Nepenthe. She stared at his profile a second too long. She didn't know if she was trying to memorize it or savor it. She did not want to think about him ever again.