The Winter King
So she fell back on her new powers as the Shadow Queen. She sank into the Shadow Realm and began asking around. No one in any of the shadows covering the mortal realm had seen Poppy Nix since earlier that night, when she’d transported out from her apartment bedroom and into some other realm, of course taking her shadow with her.
Apparently, she hadn’t fallen asleep since then either, because that damn shadow of hers had been just as inaccessible as Poppy herself. Which meant it was still attached – ergo, she was awake.
Violet’s next attempt at locating her friend had been a scrying spell. But she’d never been particularly fantastic with them, not without Lalura’s help, and she came up empty-handed. All she saw in the damn scrying bowl was snow. Snow! Tons and tons of goddamn snow. But it was snowing in so many places right now, including Seattle, which was where Poppy lived. So that was a waste of time and magic too.
Finally, the next day she’d come to see Lalura.
She didn’t want to show the powerful witch any disrespect, but Violet had come to her in a kind of desperation. She needed help with a scrying spell that could see into the other realms and dimensions, and Lalura claimed to be working on something far too important to put away just then. Violet told her that was fine and that she would wait.
But whatever it was, she’d been doing it for an hour and a half now. Why wouldn’t she hurry it up?! Why wasn’t she more concerned?!
Violet stopped dead in her pacing tracks. A thought had suddenly occurred to her. It felt like a knot inside that was slowly unwinding, un-knotting, to reveal itself for the thread of realization it was.
Lalura wasn’t concerned. She wasn’t hurrying. And that was just it. That was the most telling thing Lalura could possibly have done in this situation.
Slowly, Violet faced the ancient witch behind the spelling table. Lalura hadn’t looked up. Like one of Shakespeare’s three crones, she simply continued to nonchalantly stir whatever it was that was inside that cauldron.
“Oh my God,” said Violet. “I know where she is.”
Lalura said nothing. But there was an instant and opposite sensation in the magic around her that told Violet the old woman was listening.
“It’s just like when Poppy wanted to follow me into the Shadow Kingdom and you wouldn’t let her. And then I wouldn’t let her.”
Silence. Stir. The fire in the hearth crackled.
“She’s with her king, isn’t she?”
Lalura snorted. “It took you long enough, child.”
Violet stood there for some time, her hands on her hips, her expression one of outright awe. Lalura always seemed to know! She knew about everything! How did one woman manage all of that?
“What are you making, anyway?” an exasperated and bewildered Violet asked.
“It’s more lifeblood for your sister.”
Violet’s eyes grew even wider. “Lifeblood” was what they called the magical potion Lalura had created for Dahlia, who had been turned into a vampire by the Entity. As long as she drank one every now and then, she would not be compelled to attack anyone for their blood.
“You mean to tell me I’ve been standing here for an hour and a half, worrying my brains out while you cooked up a leisurely batch of what amounts to magical sugar water for Dahlia? But she makes that herself! Almost every day!”
“True. But she says she’s tired of the grape flavor. So I’m making her some that tastes like root beer.” The old woman smiled, leaned forward, and took a long whiff of the steam rising up from the pot. “That’s perfect. Root beer’s one of my favorites.”
There were several seconds of shocked silence before Violet finally exploded. “How on Earth is that ‘far too important’ to put away?” she squealed.
Now Lalura did look up. And all at once, Violet was reminded of just how powerful and influential an individual she was. She felt the blood leave her face and a lump form in her throat as Lalura stared her down.
“My child, you try going more than a month with a single, sweet taste on your tongue and I promise you will very quickly find out for yourself.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
They’d spent an irresponsible but blissful amount of time learning even more about each other on a very personal level on the couches and rugs in the study, and then Poppy had gone back to the food on the coffee table.
She’d eaten until she was full and Kristopher had remained seated across from her in the study, telling her stories of his past. She’d been content to just listen and chew, and he’d genuinely seemed content to just open up to her. There was so much about the history of the Norse that he could clear up, so much about its mythology and culture and language that he would be able to set historians straight on. Alas, his only proof was his life. And it just wouldn’t work to walk into a professor’s office and say, “Hey, you wanna know what that thousand year-old text really means? I’ll tell you. I was there.”
“How are you feeling?” he suddenly asked as she finished off the last of her tea.
“Honestly?” She put down her cup and turned her attention inward. She was sore in all the right places and sated in every possible way. “I feel really good.”
Kristopher’s eyes flashed. “You know, it’s been two days and almost three nights since we left Seattle.”
Poppy blinked. “What?” There was no way. That much time had not passed.
“Time moves a little differently in the Winter Kingdom. But even so, if you weren’t… who you are,” he smiled meaningfully, “you’d be dead tired right about now.”
Poppy chewed on her cheek. “You think I still need convincing that I’m meant to be here.”
“Nah,” he said, shaking his head and leaning back in his chair to lace his hands behind his head. “Just driving the point home.”
Poppy gave him a look.
“Now,” he said, changing the subject smugly, “I think we should head to the vault.” He dropped his hands and jumped out of the chair, surprising her with a sudden display of agility.
“What? Now? Don’t you think we should wait for William?”
“No, I don’t.” He moved past her to the bookshelf that was behind her. Once there, he pressed in a series of books, and the cracking sound she’d been hearing in the settling ice of the castle grew slightly louder.
“What the –” She jumped out of her own chair and stared as the books he’d touched sank further into the bookshelves and something automatic somewhere began to whir like a steam engine.
“We’ll go this way.”
“You have a secret passageway behind a set of bookshelves?” she asked incredulously. “Activated mechanically? Why not just use magic or transport?”
“Because that is exactly what others would expect me to do,” he said as the bookshelf began sliding outward and she took a step back. It moved out about nine inches to the sound of ice scraping against ice, then slid to the side to reveal an opening in the ice wall behind it.
Poppy shook her head. “Just like in the movies.”
Kristopher turned a smile on her. “This is where I go when I don’t want my signature traced. Like now.”
Poppy eyed him warily. “You really don’t want William following us, do you?”
Kristopher’s expression darkened just enough that Poppy had her confirmation. But he didn’t say anything. Instead, he stepped past the bookshelf and started his descent down a flight of stairs. She hurried to follow him.
“Are you thinking he’s the traitor?” she asked.
“I hope not.”
“So do I,” she admitted. “I like him.”
The wall of the winding staircase down supported sconces holding torches at varying heights. The torches lit up as Kristopher passed each one, and the fire they displayed was the same rainbow-hued fire that had been in the hearths upstairs.
“Even if he’s on the level, coming with us can only ruin his chances of finding his queen. I wouldn’t willingly do that to anyone.”
The steps going down
were ice, just like the rest of the castle. However, unlike the rest of the palace, they were laced with something black and gold. “What is this?” Poppy asked.
“Runes. They will erase any trace of us as we descend. Should give us a little time to get to Yggdrasil before anyone is the wiser.”
Poppy’s gut tightened. Something unsettling found its way to the base of her spine. He was suddenly taking an awful lot of precautionary measures. “Kristopher, what’s going on? What is it you aren’t telling me? Is it the Entity? Is he involved after all?”
He paused on a step below her, and she barely kept herself from running into him. He turned to look up at her. “I’m not sure,” he said. “And that’s the truth. But better safe than sorry.”
She caught his gaze, and something passed between them.
“Poppy,” he said, coming back up a few steps until they were head to head on the staircase. “If you believe anything I tell you, believe this. You are my queen, therefore you are my world. You are the most important piece on the chessboard. Everything I do from here on out will be about you. I will eat, sleep, and drink you. I will breathe you. And I will stop breathing without you.” He cupped her cheek, and electric warmth surged through that touch and into her body, rushing through her like a drug. She closed her eyes and pressed into his hand, savoring the feel of it.
He leaned in, so his next words were whispered across her lips. “If you go, the game is lost, my queen. So I’m not going to do anything I believe will put you in danger. Do you understand?”
She nodded. She did understand.
Right then, in that moment, on those stairs, she understood better than ever.
When his lips touched hers, she opened them to him, and when he pulled her against him and tasted her deeply, it was more than her lips she was offering him. It was her understanding, her acceptance, and her ultimate surrender. She kissed him back with all of this and more, and he held her so tight it hurt.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
When they came out of the transport, it was dark and still. They were standing in the snow on a road made of compressed ice, in a barren and empty landscape of white. Directly in front of them stood a mountain, also covered in snow. Coming out of that mountain, like a space age doorway to another dimension, was a large rectangle-shaped entrance that Poppy would guesstimate at about thirty feet tall. Near its top, it seemed to be decorated with shards of glass or metal that almost glowed in the blue-white light coming from lamps placed strategically in the concrete of the doorway.
The mountain was called Spitsbergen, as was the Norwegian island it created. The global seed vault cut half-way into the mountain, and according to Kristopher, it then broke into three different rooms where the seeds themselves were stored.
“This is the mortal entryway,” said Kristopher. “Believe it or not, it’s also the immortal entryway. I laced one over the other as a further safeguard. In order for any supernatural being to slip through the wards, they’ll need to pass through the door. That includes us.”
“Do you have a key?”
Kristopher laughed, and it was a little self-deprecating. “No. Once I hid the seed inside, I figured I would never be back to claim it. Making a key would have been a good idea.”
“No problem,” said Poppy. She grinned. Breaching magic just happened to be some of the warlock magic she was best at. “I can get us in.”
“Well… I was going to just melt the locks,” Kristopher said with a smile, “but if you’ve got a better idea, then by all means.”
At first, Poppy wondered why he wouldn’t decide to freeze the locks and break them instead, since using cold magic took less of his strength than heat did. But then they approached the door itself, and she could see that the lock on the door was completely frozen over already. And she realized that freezing locks would have been something the builders took into account in the first place.
“Right,” she said, speaking to herself. She turned to Kristopher. “Here goes.”
He smiled reassuringly. Poppy placed her bare hand over the white frozen lock and closed her eyes. She began to speak, giving voice to a kind of magic that slipped into the smallest cracks, infiltrated the most secret spaces, and twisted things around. The air around Poppy became agitated. There was a popping sound, a thunk, and what sounded like metal sliding against metal.
Poppy opened her eyes and took a deep breath. “We’re in.” She reached for the handle, but Kristopher stopped her with a hand over hers.
“Remember the wards.”
“Oh. Right,” she said again, letting her arms drop.
Kris pulled her a few feet from the door, and his eyes lit up. He began to whisper ancient magic of his own in a language she didn’t recognize. She watched his blue eyes take on an eerie, wicked glow, and suddenly blue-white runes began to appear around the Svalbard doorway. They floated in the ice as if floating on water, but as Kristopher’s words rose in volume, they unwound from their initial shapes, floated around some more, and re-shaped into new runes.
Kris opened his eyes and stopped speaking. The runes vanished, fading back into the ice and concrete. “It’s safe.”
Poppy reached for the door handle and pulled the door open. It swung outward just like any door to any building, and the two stepped inside.
Just as he’d described, the interior of the vault was quite plain and very simple. Directly before the front door was a long hallway. Built into the hallway were three metal doors, two on the side, and one at the end. Each door would lead to a separate room containing stored seeds.
The feel of the place was cold and hard. Poppy could imagine that if anyone spent any real length of time here, depression would set in. It reminded her of a prison cell with its white wall on one side and locked doors on the other, and nothing else for the eye to see but the gray of the concrete ground.
Something was amiss, however. She couldn’t put her finger on it exactly; the place just felt disturbed. “Where are your guards?” she asked. Kris had told her he employed more guards to protect the seed vault as well as Yggdrasil.
Kristopher’s expression was grim. “That’s exactly what I was wondering. They would have remained invisible to human workers, but I don’t even see them.” He moved to the second door on the side, which was effectively the middle door. “This way.”
But when they approached the door and were afforded a closer look, Poppy could immediately see what was amiss. The lock on the door was not frozen as the other two were.
“Someone has been here,” Poppy whispered, speaking quietly on the off chance that whoever had been there was there still. “It would have had to be very recently.” The temperature in the vault was cold enough to ice things over in minutes flat.
“Stand back,” he told her, keeping his voice low and motioning for her to step out of the way. By his stance, Poppy could see that he fully planned on breaking the door down, probably to catch whoever was on the other side by surprise.
“Wait,” she said. “I have a better idea.” He looked at her questioningly. “Breaching magic is something I happen to be very good at,” she told him. She glanced back at the door down the hall that they’d just come through, and raised a brow.
“I see,” Kristopher said, and a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Let me deal with the ward, then.” Just as he had done for the main vault door, Kristopher drew the protective runes of his ward out of the building’s construction and rearranged them. When he was finished, he gestured to the door. “Your turn.”
During their lessons, Lalura had often muttered to herself that if she didn’t keep Poppy on the straight and narrow, one day she would wind up working for someone as a world class thief. Dahlia, on the other hand, was good at summoning magic. And Violet had been good at improvising. They all had their talents. Right now, Poppy was pretty happy this happened to be hers.
This particular spell was one of Poppy’s favorites, and truthfully, she hadn’t thought she’d ever have a chance to us
e it. It was sure to draw attention here on the mortal realm. It took a lot of strength to cast it.
She stared at the door and the wall around it and imagined that they were pervious, made of something like bubbles or water. As she imagined this, she felt her body change. One second, she was standing before the door, fully formed and solid. The next second, she looked like a ghost of herself, transparent and wavering.
Kristopher looked her up and down, and his smile broadened. “Impressive,” he admitted.
She wasted no time, however. There was no telling how long the spell would last. She grabbed ahold of his hand, making sure that rather than force her hand to be solid, the contact instead forced his hand to become transparent like hers. With a bigger push of her magic, his arm took on the same transparency – and then his entire body.
At once, Poppy was stepping through the door, passing right through it and on to the other side, Kristopher in tow. She felt Kristopher’s initial hesitation beside her, but then his trust won out, and they were both through.
As it turned out however, there was no one on the other side to surprise.
Up against the opposite wall were metal shelves. Stacked three-high on each shelf were small metal and plastic boxes. Poppy assumed these contained the seeds Svalbard was famous for. Hanging on the wall adjacent to her were hooks with parkas, rubber gloves, and hard hats. The storage space was boring and nondescript, just as was the hall outside. The only thing out of the ordinary, in fact was the massive hole and rubble directly in the center of the room – and the dead body lying four feet away from it.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“Gargoyles,” Kristopher muttered after feeling the body for a pulse. There was none. The man had been dressed in the same jacket and gloves that were hanging on the wall. Clearly, he’d been one of the humans in charge of taking care of the seeds.