Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
But there were no surprises in the time it took me to stop shaking and gasping and get into bed—after I risked death by dust and undid the curtains around my bed. Only once I was under the duvet did I realize that I’d made it so I couldn’t see anyone sneaking up on me until after they pulled back the curtains.
But my eyelids were already too heavy, my body coming down off the adrenaline high, all thoughts of Clara’s hidden messages forgotten. And even though my heart kicked as it always did these days when I slipped into the dark, I was too tired to resist.
I fell.
12
Iwoke to a spray of grayish light.
Blinking, I stared at the bed-curtains, frowned . . . then began to giggle. The things were so freaking moth-bitten that they let in the sunlight in a shower of mottled stars.
It was weirdly pretty.
Grabbing my phone from beside my head, where it had been charging overnight—because no, I didn’t care about anything blowing up while I was sleeping—I checked the time.
Eight a.m.
Wow, I’d had a solid night’s sleep.
Yawning and feeling foolish for my fear in the night hours, I pushed the curtains aside and bit back a yelp. My room was an icebox, the windows frosted over and the air so cold that it turned my breath into chill smoke. “Ugh.”
I quickly found the fluffy socks I’d kicked off at some point in the night, as well as a thick cable-knit sweater I’d had forever. A dark navy, it hung to my thighs and, together with my pajamas and socks, allowed me to retain a good percentage of my body heat.
My face, however, burned with cold.
Walking to the window, I managed to find a patch that wasn’t frosted over, looked out.
“Holy shit!” Cold forgotten, I raced to grab my cameras, thrust a knit woolen hat onto my head, and shoved my feet into the boots I’d brought along after I researched this location. I surely looked like an idiot, but I didn’t care.
Opening my door, I glanced up and down the hallway but didn’t hear or see any sign of life. So I tiptoed—as well as I could in my clunky boots—down to the staircase, not going any faster until I was over halfway.
My nose twitched at the smell of coffee as I reached the kitchen, and the warmth told me that the woodstove was likely going, but the awareness was vague at best, my attention on getting outside. The kitchen door stuck for a second and I growled under my breath, pulled again.
This time, it came away from the jamb so fast it almost smacked me in the face.
Ducking around it, I stepped out and into a wonderland.
Frost coated every single blade of golden grass, every tiny dandelion flower, every leaf on every bush. The tree with the weird octopus branches I’d noticed yesterday was today a delicate sculpture.
I couldn’t shoot fast enough—especially when the morning sun’s pale rays hit the frost and lit it on fire. The beauty of it hurt. Frost so delicate and ephemeral, it was like out of a haunted old tale.
My knee was soggy from kneeling on the ground, my sweater covered in frost from brushing against it, and my nose running from the cold when I finally came to a stop and just stood there watching the sun burn a line of fire over the frost.
A creak of the wooden boards of the veranda. “I brought you coffee.”
I startled, not at the voice, but at whose it was—I’d have expected Kaea, Vansi, almost anyone but Phoenix. “Oh, hey, thanks.” Cupping my hands around it, I winced. The heat burned my frozen fingers, but I didn’t let go, the steam a benediction against my face. “I didn’t see you when I came through.”
“I must’ve been in the lounge. Got the fire going. Ash mentioned it’ll warm up as the day goes on, but I figured we could eat breakfast in the lounge. Woodstove in the kitchen is nice, but living room fire’s bigger and we can sit around it.”
“Good idea.” I sipped on the coffee, surprised he hadn’t already left to return to the house. The two of us had never been buddies, our friendship via Vansi. “Where’s V?”
“Asleep.” His profile was perfect in the morning light, the steam from his own mug rising to brush his skin, but where I would’ve thought nothing of taking Kaea’s photo in the same situation, it was different with Nix.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he added. “Strange place, strange sounds, you know what it’s like.”
I nodded, though I’d slept like the dead. Probably my system crashing after the panic. “I thought my face was going to freeze off this morning when I got out of bed. I didn’t realize it’d be this cold here.”
His lips curved. “I restarted the fire before I left the bedroom. You know how Vansi is about the cold.” No hint of any marital disharmony in his tone, so perhaps the two of them had made up last night. “Luna, I know your memory for faces is better than the rest of us. Can I ask you something?”