The sun was a little bit lower by the time Lynet wound her way through the heart of the city and reached the university. She looked at the massive main building in awe. Glass tiles decorated the walls of the university in various patterns, shining brilliantly in the sunlight.
Lynet followed a group of students through the university gates, into an elegant courtyard with blooming pink roses climbing up the sandstone walls. In the center was a low, round fountain covered in colored tiles. Lynet would have liked to look more closely at a real garden, and a fountain that wasn’t frozen over, but she didn’t allow herself to become distracted. She went through the round arched doorway and marveled at the parade of color and light everywhere she looked, the setting sun throwing dramatic shadows of the arches and balustrades on the tiled floors. There were no straight lines here, none of Whitespring’s sharp edges—from the tiles on the ground to the window frames to the roof above her head, the designs were all round or curved.
A grand marble staircase dominated the entry hall, and Lynet started her ascent, hoping to find someone who could lead her to Gregory. She had to pause when she reached a large stained-glass window on the landing. The remaining sunlight came pouring in through the window in a tapestry of color, and she wondered if the windows in the chapel at Whitespring had ever looked this way, in the days before the curse. Lynet looked down at her hands, the light painting her skin in different hues of orange and red and gold.
And then she looked up at the window as a whole, and she gasped at the image: a queen with red-tinged hair and golden skin, the sun rising behind her. The window was a tribute to Mina, in return for her reopening the university.
Lynet could only stand there a short while—the heat was becoming nearly unbearable to her—but she could still see the window’s design behind her eyelids when she blinked. She kept thinking of Mina, who had grown up in the sun but now had to resign herself to lighting fires in an attempt to re-create its warmth. She felt strangely ashamed to be here now, like this was Mina’s territory and she was trespassing, and she pulled her hood closer around her face.
Down one of the halls, Lynet found an older woman with a confident stride and stopped her to ask if she knew where she could find the magician Gregory.
The woman’s eyes narrowed as she swept her gaze over Lynet’s inappropriately heavy attire. “The queen’s father? You won’t find him here now.”
The woman’s stern tone made Lynet shrink back a little. “Doesn’t … doesn’t he live here, though?” she asked.
“He comes here often to visit the library,” the woman said. “But no, he doesn’t live on the grounds.”
“If it isn’t too much trouble, could you maybe tell me where he does live?”
She made a vague gesture in the air. “Somewhere nearby. From what I’ve heard, he keeps his home private because he doesn’t like to be bothered, but if you’re really so desperate to find him, you can try going to the apothecary. He may know more.”
The woman continued on her way, leaving Lynet standing bewildered in the hall. She wished she hadn’t backed off so easily or been so intimidated by the woman’s forbidding attitude, but at least she had an idea of where to look next. Now she just had to find the apothecary’s shop.
But not tonight. As she went back down the stairs, grateful that the darkening sky now obscured Mina’s image in the window, she decided she would retrace her steps to the inn where the merchant had stopped and stay there for the night. And in the morning—well, in the morning, she would want to see the city in the light of day. The apothecary’s shop could wait. After all, before that night in the chapel, even before her father’s accident, she had wanted to come south to see who she could be when she wasn’t just her mother’s daughter. The discovery of Mina’s powers—and her own—had made her forget her original reason for wanting to come south, but now that she was here, in a bustling city full of strangers, she knew what she really wanted to forget—the sound of Mina’s voice in the chapel, the sight of her father on his deathbed … and herself.
Most of all, she wanted to forget herself.
23
LYNET
The South was much noisier than Lynet had anticipated. She’d felt a little nervous, but quite fierce, as she’d locked the door to her small room at the inn, lying down on the bed with her dagger beside her in easy reach. She had told herself that despite her exhaustion, she would have to sleep lightly, to be aware of every step outside her door. A girl alone in a city had to be vigilant.
But she needn’t have worried about sleeping too heavily. At home, the snow had seemed to muffle all sound, creating a world of whispers and hushed movements. But here, that barrier was gone, the curtain lifted, and so Lynet did hear every step outside her door and on the floor above her. She heard the sounds of shouting and laughter on the streets outside her window. She heard the rattling of wheels and the clopping of horses. She heard every sound the city had to offer, and when she rose early in the morning, the sun streaming in from her one window, she had barely slept at all.
The heaviness that had come over her when she’d first crossed the Frost Line had never left. She still felt a little like she was trying to tread through choppy water, her movements a fraction slower than she expected them to be. You’re not whole without the snow, a stubborn voice in her head insisted, but she ignored it.
Lynet emptied her purse onto the floor, counting the snow coins that still remained. She was grateful they hadn’t melted, and now she wondered if she could dissolve them back into snow and make more. Concentrating, she watched the coins become snow with the same wonder as before. Then, before the snow could melt, she pictured double the amount of coins as before. But as soon as the snow transformed, her body seemed to rebel against her—an ache in her chest like something was wringing out her heart, a sudden fatigue like the energy was draining out of her.
She shut her eyes, taking deep, labored breaths until the pain faded, but the lethargy clung to her like a thick, muggy fog. Using her power up north hadn’t felt like this, but she had been surrounded by snow there, so aware of her connection to it that it had felt like part of her. And now, that connection was missing. She couldn’t afford to use her power again unless she had to, not if she wanted to stay upright.