The glacier chamber beneath Eliza's cottage had never felt so small.
Laken stood barefoot on thousand-year-old ice, arms spread, frost spiraling from her skin in frantic spirals. The air crackled with static and wintergreen. Across from her, Eliza held the original grimoire (leather bound in Astrid's own blood, pages thin as moth wings) open to a single illuminated spread.
“Again," Eliza commanded, voice soft but unyielding.
Laken closed her eyes.
She reached inward, past the place where fear lived, past the memory of Agnetha's fire licking at her throat in the atrium. She found the thread Astrid had left behind (thin, silver, unbreakable).
Ice answered.
The chamber exploded into blizzard.
Not gentle snow (razor-edged shards that screamed as they flew). The walls flashed from blue t
