Page 96 of Horn of Winter

I stepped away from the ladder, drank more water, then tucked it back into my pocket and pulled out the chocolate again. I was starting to feel a little more “human” even if the aching weariness was probably three times worse than it had been.

I followed him down the stairs, and we headed out the back of the building where Ingrid, the staff, and most of our customers waited.

“Clear?” she asked.

I nodded. “Give everyone a free drink for the inconvenience.”

A cheer went up at that bit of news. I smiled and continued down the lane. Mathi’s car waited in a no-standing zone, but he motioned the driver to remain and turned right, hurrying down to the next lane.

“There’s no rear or rooftop entry to the bank building from here,” I said, a little confused. Which wasn’t surprising given my brain was still spinning out every now and again, forcing me to run my fingers against the side of a building to regain my center.

“Not directly. But there’s an old fire escape up ahead, and we can use that to get up to its roof then make our way across.”

I had no idea there was a fire escape in this lane and I’d certainly traversed it plenty of times over the decades. As it turned out, there was a good reason why—it was one of those ones where the ladder retracted back up to the first landing if it wasn’t in use. If you didn’t look up, you wouldn’t see it.

He lightly leapt high, pulled the ladder down, and then climbed up. I followed at a slower pace, not trusting the rather rusted-looking framework. It held my weight even if it creakedominously. Once he’d retracted the ladder again, we continued up the rest of the fire escape until we reached the roof and then carefully made our way across to the bank building next door.

There was no sign of our witch on this side of the roof, so I caught the wind and spun it lightly forward. Even that had tears stinging my eyes. I blinked them away and, after a few seconds, the wind came back with the news she remained. It couldn’t tell me if she was alive or dead, of course, but the fact she wasn’t moving did point to her being seriously injured. But then, Ihadaimed two bolts of lightning at her. At the very least, her respiratory system would have been momentarily paralyzed, and she might have even suffered secondary burns as her hair or clothes cindered.

“She’s still there,” I told Mathi.

“Good. Let’s keep moving, before someone reports us.”

“Like you’re actually worried about that,” I said dryly.

“I’m not, but it is the sort of thing you tend to get overly concerned about.”

Given I couldn’t actually argue that point, I simply motioned him to continue. We cautiously climbed to the roof ridge, then paused again, keeping low as we scanned the other side. She was lying right where the wind had said, near the old chimney, and had one arm stretched out above her head and a pool of water surrounding her fingers—the melted remnants of her ice attack, perhaps? A strangely pale circle of what looked like ash surrounded the rest of her body. I suspected it was a result of my lightning, and if it could do that to slate then there was very little chance she’d survived.

Which was in truth a relief.

I might not have any choice about handing over this woman or my aunt, but I just couldn’t stomach the thought of doing so when they were alive.

Of course, that also led to another major problem—killing my aunt. That was something I still didn’t want to contemplate, even in self-defense.

“I’m not seeing the horn,” Mathi commented. “So it’s either under her body or Riayn has beaten us here.”

“I can’t see my aunt physically coming up here, but I certainly wouldn’t put it past her to have hired a shifter to keep an eye on Martha’s movements. She’s obviously developed serious trust issues?—”

“And just as obviously leapt off sanity’s edge.”

“—and is wealthy enough to be able to afford a twenty-four-hour watch.”

“The IIT would have frozen her accounts when she was supposedly killed, but that does not mean she has no access to money. Not these days.” Mathi glanced skyward. “I’m not seeing any indication we’ve a winged watcher.”

“The wind agrees, but maybe that’s because they’ve already taken the horn to my aunt.”

“Possibly.”

He carefully slipped down the other side. I followed him over to our witch and stopped close to her feet. The soles of her shoes, I noted, had been burned out and her feet blackened. I gulped, not really sure I wanted to see anything more, but we needed to know whether the horn was here or not, and to do that, we needed to turn her over.

“If the hornisunderneath her,” I said. “You can’t touch it with bare skin. Borrhás might have said it’s only when you use the horn with hatred or revenge in your heart that your fate is sealed to ice, but let’s not take any chances.”

He nodded. “She looks as stiff as a board, and it’s too soon for rigor mortis to have set in.”

“Perhaps when he mentioned being wrapped in ice, he meantimmediatelyupon death.” I rubbed my arms. “They’re not going to get her into a body bag like that.”

“They’ll probably use a shroud.”

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