Page 66 of Golden Star

“Except I’m not a winter fae,” I remind her. “I’m a summer fae. My control is overliquidwater—not ice.”

“But you were able to warm up the ice to melt it,” she says. “Maybe you can shape the water into icicles, then make it colder, so it turns to ice.”

“I don’t know if it’ll work the other way around,” I tell her, since I have no idea how the technicalities behind my magic work. “But I can try.”

So, we sit down, and Zoey carves deep grooves into the soles of our boots with her dagger, cutting in precise, crisscross patterns.

I glance at Riven as she does, to try seeing what he thinks about our makeshift plan.

His expression, unsurprisingly, reveals nothing. I don’t know why I bothered in the first place.

“Okay,” Zoey says when she’s done, sitting in a way that allows me to access one of her boots. “Your turn. Pick up some of the snow and… do your thing.”

Staring at the soles, I call on my magic to melt the snow, shaping droplets between my hands. Then, focusing as hard as I can, I send the droplets into the grooves she carved, trying to make the ends as pointy as possible.

Miraculously, they bend to my will and take on the correct shapes.

From there, I will them to freeze.

Nothing happens. They just sit there, rippling slightly as I try and fail to push the magic through them.

“It’s not working,” I tell her, letting the droplets fall back onto the snow in a huff.

“Try again,” she pushes. “Try to freeze the air around them. It’ll be like how you heated it up to melt the ice covering the lake—just opposite.”

“Easy for you to say,” I snap. “You’re not the onetrying to do fancy things with magic you just gota week ago.”

She flinches, darkness crossing over her eyes, then gets ahold of herself.

“You just turned yourself into a mermaid to swim to the bottom of a lake,” she says steadily. “That had to have been harder than creating a few icicles.”

I’m not too sure about that. Especially given how tired I feel after that stunt I pulled with breathing in the water.

But it’s either try harder to do this right, or give up and likely fall into the ravine.

“Fine.” I re-center myself, focusing on the magic Istillhave in me instead of on the magic I’ve already expended. “I’ll try again.”

“Good,” she says. “Because I’mnotdying at the bottom of that ravine simply because you gave up after one try.”

“I’ll do my best,” I tell her, since it’s the most I can promise without lying. “Now, be quiet and let me work.”

Like before, I shape the water like liquid icicles sticking out of the boots.

So far, so good.

Next step—turn them intoactualice.

Per Zoey’s advice, I focus on making the air around them colder—not warmer.

The droplets tremble, resisting, and frustration rushes through me. But I don’t give up.

As I continue to push, the air around the water feels different. Colder. As if something in the atmosphere is changing in response to my magic.

The droplets harden, becoming tiny icicles sticking out of the notches Zoey carved into the soles, like little spikes ready to grip into the slippery snow.

“Yes!” Zoey grins, brightening in that contagious way of hers. “You did it! Go, Sapphire! Now—do it three more times.”

“You’re not going to let me relish in my victory for a few seconds?” I tease.

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