Page 22 of A Killing Frost

“So anything could be behind it,” I concluded. “Awesome. Well, this is where the knowe wants us, so we might as well go inside.” I reached out, running my fingers along the surface of the crystals as I searched for anything resembling a doorknob. There wasn’t one, but one of the crystals nicked my index finger, bringing a bright, quick bead of blood to the surface. “Ow!” I yelped, yanking my hand away.

Quentin stared at me in obvious disbelief. “You get stabbed like it’s the hot new thing, andthat’swhat makes you show some self-preservation?”

“I wasn’t expecting it!”

“Are you usually expecting to getstabbed?”

“When we’re out in public, yes.” My finger was already healed. I lowered my hand and stared as the drop of blood that had beenleft on the crystal was absorbed into its glistening surface, leaving a faint pink sheen behind.

Slowly at first, and then with increasing speed, that sheen spread to the crystals around it, and then to the crystals around them, until every crystal in the improbable door was tinted a faint, unmistakable shade of pink. I blinked. “Well, that’s new.”

“You’re redecorating with blood now?” May shrugged. “I guess that’s a natural next step for you.”

“Ha, ha.” The crystals shivered, emitting another of those soft chiming sounds, before the door swung slowly inward, revealing a room overrun with roses. I blinked again. “Whoa.”

“Whoa is right.” Quentin stepped forward, sticking his head through the open door. “Toby, you need to come see this.”

“Quentin!” I grabbed him by the collar, hauling him away from the opening. He made a bewildered squawking sound. I released him and glared. “Dude, you’re with two functionally unkillable women.Whywould you stick your head through a mysterious, blood-drinking door when we’re right here to do it for you?”

“I guess I didn’t think,” he said sheepishly.

“That’s one more thing he learned from watching you,” said May airily, before she stepped through the open door and into the green room on the other side. “All right, I’m going to be the third one to throw a ‘whoa’ in here. Toby, come on.”

“Coming.” I shot Quentin one last quelling look and followed my Fetch through the open door.

My first impression, that the room on the other side was full of roses, was more correct than I could have imagined. We were in what was essentially an overgrown greenhouse, the original flowerbeds and walkways completely overtaken by tangled vines and loops of thorns. Roses the size of dinner plates hung heavy on their stems, seeming to almost nod as we passed them, done in by the weight of their own splendor. There were no lights, only the dim gleam of moonlight passing through the mostly blocked panes of glass.

And everywhere, the scent of roses.

It wasn’t a cultivar I’d encountered before, but itwasa cultivar. They lacked the deep, primal scent of wild roses. This wasn’t one of Maeve’s places. I took another step forward, Quentin close behind me, and there was a chiming sound as the door swung closed.I whirled, intending to catch it before it could shut fully. I was too slow. The door clicked back into its frame and trembled before disappearing, leaving us with no visible way out of the room.

“Oops,” said Quentin.

“Very succinct.” I turned back to the roses. They appeared to have grown with no intervention, wrapping their vines around whatever they desired and flowering with no regard for where people would need to walk. Despite this, there was a clear, if narrow, path through the greenery. I frowned as I considered it. Whatever this was, it seemed too easy.

“Okay,” I said finally. “This probably isn’t a trap. Wherever we are, it’s still in Shadowed Hills. If we have to break a window to get out of here, that’s what we’ll do.” The fields around the knowe were still familiar, even if it had been a long time since I’d been a feral child running wild through them in the company of my friends. The grounds have never changed as often as the interior did, and I’d be able to find my way.

Carefully, I began working my way along the narrow path, doing my best to dodge the thorns. There were so many of them, though, that it was inevitable that a branch would scrape across the back of my hand, leaving a series of shallow scratches behind. I winced and sucked air through my teeth, continuing to pick my way through. I could hear May and Quentin moving behind me; hopefully, I would be the one to block all the thorns, since I would recover quickly.

The branch that had grazed me withdrew of its own accord, twisting up on itself into a fernlike spiral. The branches around it began to do the same, a ripple of sudden withdrawal that more than doubled the width of the path. I rubbed the back of my hand, smearing the blood remaining there, and watched the roses move.

“Roses don’t normally do this, right?” asked May. “I’m not misremembering the way plants behave?”

“Roses don’t normally move unless there’s a good wind blowing,” I said.

“Cool. Good to know. We’re all going to be eaten by weird magic flowers.”

“Let’s face it,” said Quentin. “This isn’t much of a surprise.”

I didn’t have an answer to that. I just snorted, and watched the roses pull further and further away, until we could see the shapesof the overgrown planter beds, and the light had brightened considerably as they unblocked the windows, and...

Oh.

And the glass coffin at the center of the growth was fully revealed. It was an ornate, geometric thing, almost a miniature greenhouse, and every inch of it shone, somehow clear of either dirt or sap. In the coffin was a woman with hair the color of fox fur, dull only in comparison to the roses, which were a richer, bloodier red; she would have blazed against any other setting, but here, she was dimmed down, reduced, made less than she should have been. Her hands were folded across her chest, like a princess out of a fairy tale, and her gown was green, seeming to have been made entirely out of rose leaves, each one connected to the one beside it with a delicate silver loop.

May’s eyes widened. “Is that...?”

“It is.” I was the only one of the three of us who’d seen her like this, features sharp and beautiful and flawless, ears as sharply pointed as Quentin’s. If her eyes had been open, they would have been the color of summer honey, perfectly golden and utterly inhuman.

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