3. The Rift

The residents of Lilydale woke to the terrible roar of the ice wall fracturing like a calving glacier.

Tearing out of her hut still tangled in blankets, Ingrid reached the western wall before the thundering of the ice even echoed away. She watched the massive lip of her ice wall crumble, turning to white snow as it cascaded onto the cobblestone fence below. The magical seal between Lilydale and the winter night popped like a soap bubble. Cold air gusted inside, screaming through the jagged crack in the ice, blowing back Ingrid's loose red curls and making her instinctively shield her face in her blankets. Fionna howled in alarm, bursting out of the tent flaps followed closely by Andrew and Micah. In the frenzy of alarmed and confused Folk, Andrew slid barefoot down a slope of snow to reach Ingrid. He had his seax in hand, no shirt on, and hastily pulled on sweatpants.

Blade at the ready, he exclaimed, "What the hell happened to your wall? Oh my god, it's so cold!" Goosebumps raced up his arms and chest, shaking a deep shudder out of him. Micah, birchwood staff sparking bright spring green in the dark, spun in a circle on a limestone landing over them with his eyes on the heavens. Ingrid looked eastward and spotted Chamomile on the roof of her hut. Bow in hand, the goblin scanned the horizon, the edges of her cardigan flapping over silk pajamas. Her arm whipped up; she aimed an arrow toward the stars, shooting it off with a whistle audible across the compound. Faintly on the wind was a female cry, bit off as soon as it began.

Ingrid strode quickly away from Andrew and the other Folk examining the fractured ice wall. She rushed past her brother, who turned to watch her with a furrowed brow and his mouth in a thin line.

As Chamomile dropped to the ground outside her door, Ingrid demanded, "What did you see?"

Chamomile shook her head gravely. "Only a silhouette."

"But in the air."

Without confirming, Chamomile glared past Ingrid down at Micah and Andrew by the wall. "Hey, Heartwood!"

Micah straightened when Andrew nudged him. He twirled the staff in his hand and watched Chamomile stalk down the compound toward him with Ingrid a step behind her. Folk skittered out of their path.

Chamomile jumped on a wooden apple barrel. She grabbed Micah by the nape of his neck, yanking him close despite protests from both Andrew and Fionna. Level with his face, Chamomile snarled, "Did you forget to tell us something, Your Lordship?" She spat his title with a sneer.

"Back off." Glowering, Micah swiped his staff against her arm to break her grip on his neck.

"What is going on?" demanded Andrew, one hand raised toward Chamomile in warning.

"I just shot a witch on a broom." Each word from her mouth was sharp as the broken ice littering the compound. Chamomile slapped Andrew's hand down. "And Lord Heartwood here just looked a little disappointed, not terrified like the rest of us."

"What." The word dropped from Ingrid's mouth like a sword clattering.

"A witch did that?" Andrew pointed at the fissure in the ice wall.

"How was I supposed to predict their next move would be attacking Lilydale?" Micah shot back at Chamomile.

Ingrid stiffened, eyes narrowing. She looked down at Fionna, prowling in a circle around them with hackles still raised. Ingrid made a short, sharp noise, and Fionna lurched into action. She snapped her jaws at the Folk still gathered near the damaged wall. The signal was clear, and the gawking faeries slunk back to their resting spots and left the four of them alone.

When her job was done, Fionna discarded her wolfskin and clung to Andrew's leg, eyes on the jagged ice overhead like it was going to fall to pieces until the whole thing crumbled.

Ingrid gazed coolly at Micah. "What do you mean, their ‘next' move?"

Still scowling with her bright blue eyes fixed on Micah, Chamomile dug into the deep pocket of her cardigan. She pulled out the black-painted doll and thrust it into Ingrid's hands.

Ingrid gasped and dropped it as if burned. She stared at the doll in the snow, flexing and extending her fingers with her shoulders hunched. "Where did you find this?"

"Northern corner of Cherokee," said Chamomile. "Clearly you two found it as well, since I saw your footprints." She took a step on the barrel so her bare toes curled over the edge, chest to chest with Micah. "Now, I'll tell you how you could have predicted this, Lord Heartwood."

Micah straightened, the muscles in his jaw working and the grip on his staff tightening. He remained silent only because of the hand Andrew placed on his shoulder.

"If you hadn't kept that obvious threata secret," she said, pointing at the doll, "I would have been able to tell you that Lilydale has gone up against the witches in the city before."

Micah's brows rose quickly, and then lowered again. "Th-these witches are my problem. I'll take care of them."

Chamomile's rosy lips curled back from jagged, silver-bright teeth. "You only get to say that when it's clear you actually will!"

"Hey." Ingrid held up a long hand. "This isn't productive."

"Tell us what to do next," said Andrew hurriedly.

Chamomile stepped off the barrel and thumped onto the ground. She pulled her cardigan further up on her shoulders, keeping her furious gaze on Micah. "I think we should ask Micah what to do next. Since he's going to take care of them."

"Chamomile, spitefulness is also not productive," warned Ingrid.

"It's not spiteful! I am angry because my village has been threatened and I wasn't prepared. I could have been, if someone my people now see as a leader hadn't kept critical information to himself." Her voice suddenly dropped and her expression cooled. She tilted up her chin in a challenge. "So don't stop now. Lead."

Ingrid remained silent and still as a winter night.

Micah ran his tongue over his lips. "I was going to go find the barista I fired." He managed to keep the tremor out of his voice. "She turned the attention of these witches on me, so she's going to take some responsibility for this."

"Good." Chamomile nodded once, sharply, and Andrew thought he noticed the goblin's shoulders relax slightly. "Are you bringing anyone besides your knight?" Her eyes flicked briefly toward Andrew. Micah shook his head. "Fine." Chamomile spun in the snow and trudged eastward up the stairs.

"Chamomile," Micah called after her.

She paused, but did not turn around to look at him.

Glancing at Ingrid to include her, he said, "I messed up. I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry." Chamomile's icy blue eyes flashed at him. "Be better." Chamomile disappeared into her hut, a glow of light rising in her round paned windows.

Ingrid tucked a burgundy curl behind her ear and then crossed her arms. She lifted her gaze back to the fractured wall, releasing a quiet sigh through her nose. Then she turned away and went back to her hut, the bronze door echoing as it closed behind her. Her departure served as a silent reprimand to Micah, making his skin prickle with shame. Scraping his hair back off his forehead, he surveyed Lilydale without speaking. He wanted to kick something, or spew profanities. But when he glanced toward the baskets in the trees, he spotted one, two…five, six sets of eyes blinking, shining, staring down at him, watching him, waiting to see what he would do next.

As if he had any goddamn clue.

Andrew stuck his sword in a snowbank and propped a hand on his hip, absentmindedly stroking Fionna's hair. He looked up at the height of the ten-foot ice wall. "Do we know how Ingrid made this?"

"Of course not," grumbled Micah. "I don't know anything, clearly."

Andrew raised his eyebrows. "I can't imagine Chamomile would bother with a conversation like that if she thought you were an idiot."

"Also—" Micah's voice came out sharp with frustration. "I thought you said earlier that the Gort stave was a metaphorical threat, Andrew." He jabbed at the wall with the end of his staff, more to jab at something than to investigate.

Andrew set his jaw, eyes narrowing slightly. "There's no need to lash out at me. I was very upfront about the inexactitude of the staves."

Micah glared up at him, shoulders hunched in the manner of a cat braced for a clawed strike. His throat bobbed. Scoffing, he looked away. "Sorry." He brushed his palms over the wall, bending to scoop up a handful of the ice shaved off.

Andrew's gaze didn't shift as he stared at Micah for several more moments. Micah sounded about as sorry as a child forced to apologize, and it made his muscles clench in his shoulders. Andrew imagined what he'd get to say if he were still a hot-headed teenager with a big mouth. "How did a woman half your height wound your fragile pride?" was on the tip of his tongue, second being a reminder that Andrew had suggested telling Ingrid about the doll mere hours ago.

He shut his eyes, running a strand of Fionna's coarse hair through his fingers to collect himself. He just hadn't expected to be teaching his partner how to hold emotions respectfully, especially when Micah was eight years his senior. Then again, Andrew thought, perhaps Micah was quite young by Fae standards. Perhaps that's what the duir stave suggested: forthcoming growth into leadership. But forthcoming meant not now, which made Andrew wish he was petty enough to be snide.

Micah glanced Andrew's way with wine-splashed irises still boiling with frustration. But the longer he held Andrew's gaze, the more his shoulders slumped. "I am. Sorry. You wanted to tell her."

Andrew's own anger melted away like an ice cube inside Micah's sun-baked voice. He shrugged. "Live and learn."

Micah's brow crinkled slightly. "‘Live and learn?'" he repeated. "Is that really what you were thinking just now?"

Andrew paused. "I…kind of."

"Kind of."

"I know you're trying," said Andrew carefully.

"All right then." Micah grinned, humorless, a little bit feral, like the Cheshire cat. "Forget it."

He turned his back on Andrew and his focus to the wall. He was going to do something about this. There was no way he would sleep before Lilydale was in better shape than this—unprepared for the cold and exposed to the elements because of…whoever broke the wall. Imagining Diana going this far was difficult, but then again, he hadn't anticipated she would try to have him murdered by her coven, either.

Mind racing, Micah looked up the hill behind the firepit. He turned on his heel and hurried past Andrew, whose face contorted in confusion. Micah had neither the interest nor the patience needed to communicate.

Using his staff to take large and loping steps up the limestone amphitheater stairs like his sister did, he climbed over the picket fence around the evergreen garden, startling Syabira on her bark and moss bed tucked behind the kiln throne. Even though she was wrapped in a heavy wool blanket, she shivered with a red cold-bitten nose as she surveyed Micah with curiosity. Giving her a quick nod, he leaned over the blanket of English ivy growing near her and dug his hand inside, feeling around for a large cluster of aerial roots and gently coaxing them off the bricks of the kiln.

Down below, Andrew stood watching Micah while Fionna hung onto his waist. He slowly took a step toward the ice fissure. Promptly, Fionna howled, dropping her weight and holding him in place, tightening her hold on him and squeezing her eyes closed.

"Fionna?" Andrew gasped. "What is it? Are you all right?" He tried to pry her arms off him—her grip hurt like a tourniquet—but she wailed louder. "Hey, hey, hey. Breathe, little pup." Awkwardly swinging his leg around and bringing Fionna with him, he changed routes, moving up to the steps past the fire pit. Thrusting his seax through a slat in a hollow log, he dropped onto the limestone and started to rub Fionna's back. "Come here, a stór," he murmured. Fionna lifted her flushed and soaking face, then climbed Andrew's leg to curl up in his lap, trembling wildly.

Shushing and rocking her, he said softly, "What is scaring you, little pup?"

"Witches," yelped Fionna. Choking on snot and tears, she gasped and hiccupped, "Witches want Micah hurt. Like Big Fionnas hurt."

"‘Big Fionnas?'" repeated Andrew. "Your parents?"

Still shuddering, Fionna blinked around tears and nodded. "Parents. Witches say, ‘parents, obey us!'" She bared her teeth. "Parents say no." Fionna shrank into herself, vibrating on his lap. The golden coins of her eyes dimmed into cautionary yellow.

Andrew thought immediately of the faoladh his grandparents rescued. Was it possible…? He swallowed."Fi, did they…did your parents die?"

When she blinked, a tear flicked off her lashes. The question seemed to push her into a place void of feeling, a place where she was too frightened to cry anymore. "Parents hide Fionna, fight witch. But…witch use, uh—sharp." She mimed the hilt and blade of a weapon. Maybe an athame. She mimed spurting, trickling. "Blood."

Resuming his rocking, Andrew let out a sigh of, "Oh, little pup."

She was stiff now in his arms, eyes round and expression blank as a single shudder wracked her body. "Fionna sat and sat, maybe parents awake. But…" She hiccupped. "Just blood. Just cold." The last sound whimpered away as she began to sob again, covering her eyes.

"I'm so sorry, a stór," Andrew said, gently coaxing her head onto his shoulder, pressing his lips into her wiry hair. "We'll keep you safe, aye? You're safe with us. I promise." She choked and snuffled and let out gasping cries but they slowed and trickled away as he rocked her and hummed into her hair.

Halfway back down to the fractured ice wall cradling an armful of ivy roots, Micah muttered, "I need someone with wings," as he swung his head up toward the grove of trees where most of the nimble or winged Folk slept. "Hey, Thorn!"

A blue head popped out of a basket hanging from a high branch of a fir tree.

"Can I get your help?"

Thorn burst out of his basket. Several other heads prairie-dogged into view, curious or jealous as they watched the pixie buzz on minty green wings down to Micah.

Drifting onto the limestone, Thorn said in his wispy voice, "Name it." He wore a cardigan backwards so it buttoned under his wings, which were webbed with thin golden veins. He was a little too small of a pixie to fill out the cardigan, so the sleeves fell over his hands, and it looked almost like a shirt dress. He had lemon-yellow hair cut asymmetrically.

Micah held the ivy roots out to him. Thorn shook his sleeves back from his hands and then plucked the plant from Micah's fingers. Micah instructed Thorn, "Can you please line the crack with these? You might need to hold them in place until I say so."

Thorn nodded, flicking his wings, which whirred as they carried him straight up in the air like he was on a bungee cord. He pirouetted in the air and then tried to balance the leaves and roots on splinters of ice, but they started to fall. Thorn snatched them back and held them against the ice, looking over his shoulder through his wings at Micah.

Micah lifted his birchwood staff, took a slow breath in through his nose, and let it back out through his pursed lips. Then, eyes on the ivy roots, Micah sent out the magic twining inside his veins to speak to the ivy, inviting the two to play and grow over the fissure.

Something from the crack in the ice pushed back, rejecting his attempt to bring more life. Micah scowled. Thorn used his foot to scratch his leg as he awkwardly waited. Micah scanned the land at his feet, scuffing at the thin dusting of snow with the end of his staff. Dropping down, cross-legged, he dug his fingers through the snow and into the hard soil underneath, asking for it to join him and help the ivy sprout. Winter made the ground sluggish, slow to wake. Micah clenched his jaw, laying the staff on the ground by his knees. "I need your help," he whispered. "Please."

Thorn yelped and released the clump of roots as they exploded with newborn leaves that wriggled and sparked with light, but haltingly. Micah shook his head in frustration and pushed his will into the leaves. They yielded, unfolding, budding into a full rustling curtain of emerald–green ivy. Micah climbed back to his feet with both hands on his staff, which sparked and pulsed with a lively shamrock-green light. All else in his vision was a blur except what he was growing, demanding more from the ivy so that the vines raced forth in looping spirals, the leaves crowding into each other in a thick blanket.

He wasn't satisfied until the ivy bulged out of the fissure like insulation. Then he tucked the staff under his arm, pressed both palms to the wall, and imbued it with a final burst of life. Green light shot from his hands into the ice looking like the delicate veins in a wrist, sprouting seedlings which turned to velvety moss as it raced to merge with the ivy scar. With a groan, the magic border of the ice wall closed like a door on the winter. The cold seeped out of the air.

Light danced in Thorn's wide eyes. "Lord Heartwood, that was so great!"

Micah smiled. The corners of his lips trembled. His chest rose, and then he collapsed.

Thorn dove with a yell just as Andrew and Fionna shot off the steps toward Micah. The pixie caught Micah's bicep so he rag dolled under Thorn, head lolling until Andrew knelt beneath him and they could lower him into Andrew's arms. Micah's breathing was shallow and erratic, eyelids twitching as if his eyes were still moving underneath. It immediately sent an uneasy shiver up Andrew's spine. Hooking his arm underneath Micah's knees, Andrew struggled to stand until Thorn landed and helped him up with spindly hands. Fionna scooped up the birchwood staff and tucked it through Andrew's arm before pulling on her wolfskin. Thorn's slitted pupils were large and fearful as he hovered along beside Andrew as they made their way up the stairs toward Andrew and Micah's tent. Fionna stayed on Andrew's heels, ears pinned to her head. Thorn drew back the flap of their door as Andrew ducked inside, laying Micah on their mussed blankets. The staff rolled onto the mattress to rest against Micah's prone arm.

"What else can I do?" asked the male faerie.

"Nothing more. You helped a—" Andrew stopped when his voice warbled, betraying him. He swallowed the lump in his throat. "A lot. We're fine."

Nodding, brow furrowed, Thorn let the flap close. Once alone, Andrew tried to catch his breath while he knelt on the blankets next to Micah and touched his slick forehead. Isolation struck like a hammer. Tears leapt to his eyes. This must have been what it was like for Ingrid and Chamomile to nurse Micah after he'd been stabbed. Frightening and uncertain, like he was beneath the shadows that fell during a solar eclipse. Andrew stared forlornly down at Micah, worrying his lip between his teeth, resisting the instinct to try to shake Micah awake.

Fionna nosed open the tent flap and slunk inside, her head low. She crept up to the bed and nudged Andrew's leg until he reached out and scratched her ear. Then she climbed onto the bed and lay against Micah's calves, sniffing his hand with a whine.

Shuddering, Micah groaned. He squinted up at the faerie lights, eyes watering.

"Micah," gasped Andrew.

"Did I swoon?" asked Micah, blinking, taking in the worry creasing Andrew's brow and parted lips. He reached for Andrew's waist, which was chilled from the cold. At least that told him he hadn't been out for that long, if Andrew hadn't warmed back up yet.

Relief making his heart float, Andrew's lips twitched in a smile as he brushed aside Micah's bangs. "I wouldn't strictly call it that. You overexerted yourself—even though we all appreciate it. We'd have frozen overnight if you hadn't thought of that."

"My mess, my clean-up." Micah tried to sit up, but his arm buckled and he landed heavily on his shoulder. Hot tingling accosted his skin. Micah growled. "Literally, my magic is such a joke. Why can't I do more? You should have seen how fast someone in the Redwoods would have been able to do that. Easy as a sneeze."

"Were they half-human?" Andrew asked with one arched eyebrow.

Micah cast his arm dramatically over his eyes. "Whatever." Fionna stretched and planted a lick on his jaw, forcing a smile to curl his lips as he threw his other arm around the wolf's neck and scratched her scruffy jowl.

"How do you feel?" Andrew tucked Micah's humming birchwood staff under Micah's hip, wondering if it would help revive Micah a bit more.

"Sweaty," Micah grunted.

"Oh, you are." Andrew reached for their water bottle on the stump nightstand. He unscrewed the lid and helped Micah drink deeply. "We'll head back to Saint Claire in the morning."

Micah nodded. There were dark bruises under his eyes that hadn't been there when they went to bed. "I feel like a husk," he said. "What did I do wrong?"

"You need to give less of yourself next time," Andrew told him gently. "Ask for more help from the earth. You're not an infinite store of power, great as your reserves may be. The earth is much more bountiful than us."

With a glimmer in his eye, Micah pulled Andrew down into a kiss, the tickle of Andrew's auburn locks on his cheeks making Micah shiver. When Andrew leaned back, confused but smiling, Micah explained, "It's sexy when you talk like a wizard."

Andrew snorted and propped himself up with his cheek on his fist. "You should rest."

"So should you." Micah's eyes slid shut at the mere mention of rest.

Melting at the sight, Andrew smiled and pressed a kiss to Micah's damp brow. Fionna peered over Micah's chest through one slitted eye before shimmying closer, nuzzling under Micah's arm and huffing as she fell asleep.

Andrew remained as he was, buzzing with the electric fear of seeing Micah faint, knowing it would be a while before he could sleep. He gently combed his fingers through Micah's moss-green hair until Micah stopped that feline habit of leaning into his caress. It had been difficult in the beginning to tell when Micah was sleeping, since he twitched like a cat having a dream, always just a little bit restless. His tell was his breathing growing louder, more like sigh after sigh. When he hadn't stirred between sighs for a while, Andrew climbed back to his feet. Fionna remained fast asleep, curled protectively around Micah in their blankets. Smiling fondly down at both of them, he stood there for a moment and then reached for the jar of faerie lights on the ceiling and tapped them until the glimmers inside dimmed and became dark. He pulled on a fleece zip-up and one of Micah's slouchy beanies, and finally slid into his moccasins.

As Andrew emerged back into the night, he saw Ingrid outside her bronze door, hands on her hips, staring at the repairs in her wall. His movement drew her eye, and she pulled her patterned shawl tighter around her shoulders as Andrew approached her. They stood in silence beside each other for a few minutes. Andrew noticed the wall still glowed faintly green, as if holding a piece of Micah's power within it.

"How did you make the wall?" Andrew asked after a while.

"Agassiz," she replied.

"Gesundheit." Andrew snickered.

Ingrid cast him a disdainful glance.

"Sorry. Low-hanging fruit. What is Ag…"

"Ay-guh-see," she said slowly, like a teacher, a mocking smile curling her lip.

Andrew glared at her. "What is Agassiz?"

"It's what was here before, when there were glaciers."

"But you made the wall this winter."

Ingrid nodded, moving in a slow circle, as if checking the rest of the perimeter of the walls like she didn't trust it was intact. "What was on the earth before still remains long after it physically fades. We have at our fingertips a millennia of natural wonders."

Andrew was silent, gazing through the almost transparent wall down toward the frozen Mississippi. The barren trees clawed toward the dark sky, illuminated by the glow of the city encroaching on it. He tried to imagine such a significant change: hulking glaciers in Minnesota. Like the flood plains didn't exist, and the bluffs simply cupped the frozen mountains. If that were the case, all Ingrid would have had to do is carve the ice back into reality.

The thought was overwhelming, staggering, and yet he also felt the truth of it in the soles of his feet. On the North Shore, his mum had been teaching him similar lessons. Ingrid only confirmed what he already thought to be true.

Andrew glanced over at her, scrutinizing her fair, sharp profile for a long moment while she blinked dark lashes. He asked, "Are all Tall Ones as in tune with natural magic as you?"

Ingrid shrugged. "I don't know. I've never talked about this with anyone."