"Let them die," said Sorrowsap.
She sighed. "Can't you snap them out of it? Remove whatever enchantment is keeping them like this—remove it permanently? Then they could just go home.”
"No," he said, "I cannot.”
"I am going to help this guy. If he attacks me, you are going to have to stop him. And if you don't keep him turned off, he's going to attack.”
Sorrowsap's face seemed expressionless, but one of his hands curled into a fist. "Very well, pixie-who-has-my-King's-favor." He strode to the frozen man and placed his thumb on the man's forehead once more.
Kaye sat down in the snow and pulled off her own boots as Sorrowsap chanted the unfamiliar words. Taking off her socks, she wrapped them over the man's hands. Luis draped the guy in his coat and ducked out of the way of a swinging arm when the hissing chant faltered.
"It's not going to help," Corny said. "These people are screwed.”
Kaye stepped back. The cold felt like razors cutting her skin. Even wearing her coat, Corny's lips had gone blue. The frozen man would die with all the others.
"The Seelie Court's close," Luis said.
"There I cannot follow," said Sorrowsap. "If you go, you will be without my protection and that would cause my Lord deep displeasure.”
"We're going," Kaye said.
"As you say." Sorrowsap bowed his head. "I will wait for you here.”
Kaye looked at Corny. "You don't have to come. You'd warm up quickly in the car.”
"Don't be an idiot," he told her through chattering teeth.
"The next leg of the journey means getting into that,” Luis said, pointing along the shore. For a moment Kaye saw nothing. Then the wind rippled the water, setting something to rock and glisten in the moonlight. A boat, carved entirely from ice, its prow shaped like a swan ready to soar into flight. "The Bright Lady didn't exactly tell me about her frozen zombie sentries, so I'm thinking she's full of surprises.”
"Oh, great. That'll warm us right up," Corny said, stumbling over the frozen snow.
Kaye stepped gingerly onto the slippery surface of the boat and sat down. The seat was cold against her thighs. "So, would this water fix Corny's curse?”
Corny got in next to her. "I don't—”
"Corny?" Luis frowned.
"Neil," Kaye said. "I mean fix Neil's curse.”
"No," Luis pushed the boat hard and it slid out onto the water. Luis hopped in, making them rock wildly as he sat. He looked over at Corny, and there was something considering in his gaze. "Too still and not salt.”
They didn't paddle, but a strange current propelled them across the lake, past the drowned trees. Beneath the dripping hull of the boat the water was choked with vibrant green duckweed, as though a forest grew underneath the waves.
Green and gold fish darted under the boat, visible though the ice hull. Fish had to keep swimming to breathe, Kaye thought. She knew how they felt. There was nothing safe to think about, not Roiben, not her mother, not all the people slowly dying on the far shore. There was nothing to do but keep going until despair finally froze her.
"Kaye—check it out," Corny said. "It's like from a book.”
Through the mist, Kaye saw the outline of an island filled with tall firs. As they got closer, the sky grew lighter and the air became warm. Although there was no sun, the shore was lit bright as day.
Corny glanced at his watch and then held it out to show her. The digital numbers had stopped on December 21 at 6:13:52 p.m. "Bizarre.”
"At least it's warmer," Kaye said, rubbing his arms through the coat, hoping she could rub the chill out of him.
"That would be better news if we weren't in a boat made of ice.”
"I don't know about you all," Luis said. He smiled slightly, almost like he was embarrassed. "But I can't even feel my ass anymore. Swimming might be better.”
Corny laughed, but Kaye couldn't smile. She was putting Corny in danger. Again.
The last of the haze blew off and Kaye saw that each tree on the island was white with cocoon silk in place of snow. She thought she could see masses of caterpillars writhing at the peaks of the trees, and she shuddered.
The boat dug into the soft mud. They climbed out, feet sinking slightly so there was a sucking noise with each step across the shore.
Stupid mud, Kaye thought. Stupid boat. Stupid faery island. She found herself suddenly exhausted. Stupid, stupid me.
There was music, distant and faint, accompanied by the sound of laughter. They followed it into a grove of flowering cherry trees, the blooms blue instead of pink, petals falling like a shower of poison with every slight breeze.
She thought of something the Thistlewitch had told her when she had explained to Kaye that she was a changeling: The child's fey nature becomes harder and harder to conceal as it grows. In the end, they all return to Faerie.
That couldn't be true. Kaye didn't want it to be true.
Corny shivered once, hard, like his body was shaking off the cold, and toed off his sodden and mud-covered shoes. It was warm, but not hot, on the island—so perfect a temperature, in fact, that it was as though there were no weather at all.
A few of the Bright folk strolled on the grass. A boy in a skirt of silver scale mesh held the hand of a pixie with wide azure wings. Clouds of tiny buzzing faeries hovered in the air like gnats. A knight in white painted armor looked in Kaye's direction. A singing voice, heartbreakingly lovely, drifted down to where she stood. From the branches of the trees, pointed faces stared down.
A knight with eyes the color of turquoises walked up to meet them and bowed deeply. "My Lady is pleased by your arrival. She asks that you come and sit with her." He glanced at her companions. "Only you.”
Kaye nodded, worrying her lip with her teeth.