She tugged him again to the ladder and began to clamber down herself. James could see the dull grey expanse of ice beneath, skirled with tendrils of snow. Three black shapes huddled there, one distinctly man-shaped, the other two long and low, looking like motorbikes cross-bred with thestrals and fitted onto skis. The rear “legs” of the machines knelt on looped treads like miniature tanks. James had heard of snowmobiles and even seen a few photographs, but never imagined encountering one in real life.
Blake was no longer dressed in black tails and a white shirt. He now wore snow-dusted jeans and a hooded sweatshirt beneath a leather jacket. His hair and eyes were hidden beneath a cap and mirrored snow goggles. “It’s easy,” he called up in what James couldn’t help thinking was a nasty lilt. “You accelerate with the right hand, you brake with the left.” He demonstrated with hands encased in thick black gloves, then tilted his head provocatively. “It’ll be a cinch for you, after riding a broom.”
“Oh stop, Blake,” Millie said, jumping to the ice beneath the boathouse.
James didn’t want to climb down to the ice. He didn’t want to attempt to ride one of those daft Muggle machines. And mostly he did not want to share the evening with Blake, whose smile, even while serving in the manor house, struck him as disingenuous and even a little mean.
And still he found himself leaning to clamber down the ladder, hopping to the surprisingly solid ice below, and approaching one of the black snowmobiles. He didn’t fully understand why he went along, except that the thought of Millie riding pillion behind the young man, holding onto him as they raced along the frozen bay into whatever heady nocturnal adventure lay ahead, filled him with bristling, angry heat. It was much too similar to what he felt whenever he imagined Professor Odin-Vann and Petra together—a thought that even now poisoned him with jealous bile.
“I told you he’d try it,” Millie said smugly, nudging Blake with her elbow.
Blake accepted this with a half shrug. “We’ll see. Helmets, everyone.”
He distributed what appeared to be motorcycle helmets to Millie and James before dropping to straddle the leading snow machine with practiced ease.
James wished he had his Thunderstreak with him, or better yet, his skrim. He had a sudden, irresistible urge to show up the Muggle prat, to blow past him and his stupid snowmobile at top speed, trailing a storm of white powder like a force of nature.
Instead, James felt he had no choice but to clamber awkwardly onto the second snowmobile. Millie fitted herself onto the seat behind him and laced her hands around his belly, holding tight and leaning in eagerly. Her helmet bobbled briefly against his and James heard her giggle.
The handlebars of the machine were black, wide, and complicated with red buttons, throttles, and triggers. James had no idea what to do but refused to ask. He watched as, ahead, Blake twisted to look back.
“Stay close,” he called. “We’re only going a mile or so. I’ll take it slow.”
“Don’t do us any favors,” James answered, sounding much more confident than he felt.
Blake smiled beneath his mirrored goggles, and then turned back. James watched the young man grasp the handlebars of his own machine and thumb a throttle on the right grip. The treads spun, spewing a cloud of ice shavings, and the machine lurched forward, driving out from beneath the boathouse.
James found the throttle on his own machine and thumbed it, just as he had seen Blake do.
It was a fortunate thing indeed that they were on ice. The machine jolted forward so hard and fast that James nearly lost his grip on the yoke. Millie squealed and tugged at his midsection, very nearly pulling them both backwards off the snowmobile as it bucked away.
Had they been on soft snow, the grip of the machine would have been much stronger, causing it to leap away beneath them like a bounding cat. On the ice, however, the snowmobile spun its treads, accelerating swiftly but gradually. It slewed toward one of the boathouse’s wooden pilings and James steered frantically away. It was like trying to control a swinging millstone. The rear quarter of the machine struck the piling, juddered against it, and then squirted out into the moonlight of the lake, picking up speed.
Millie laughed again and squeezed James’ midsection. “I knew you could do it!”
“I’m not doing anything yet!” James called back, unsure if she could hear him over the whine of the engine and the scrape of the treads on the ice. “Just hold on!”
She held on. James twisted the yoke experimentally, threaded the throttle with his right hand, and the machine lunged forward again, following nominally in the direction of the other snowmobile. Blake raced ahead without looking back, cutting across the expanse of flat, grey ice while keeping a discreet distance from the shoreline and the dark houses that presided over it.
James had expected disaster. He had expected to spin the machine into the rocky shore, or somehow crash it through the ice, or otherwise completely endanger and embarrass himself in front of Millie and the smugly smiling Blake. For the moment, at least, that hadn’t happened, and he was relieved. He pressed the throttle harder and the machine revved beneath them, leaping forward on the ice even faster. It was heady, even exhilarating, despite being (as he understood on some level, in the voice of his mother) completely daft and reckless.
Ah well, he thought with a mental shrug, what else is being young for?
Blake led them past the row of stately homes on the shore, around a promontory of spindly woods, and across a bay surrounded by hulking industrial buildings, smokestacks, and factories. Beyond these, a cluster of docks stretched like fingers out into the ice, now bereft of boats and drifted with snow. Blake angled toward these and slowed, eventually slotting his vehicle between the skeletal shapes of the docks.
He ducked as he killed the engine, letting momentum push the snowmobile forward into the shadow of a cement pier, where he seemed to park it.
James followed suit, threading much more slowly around the dock pilings and humping over smooth dunes of snow. As he edged the machine close to its twin, Blake met them, reached across with a snow-crusted glove, and did something that caused the snowmobile’s engine to cut off with a cough and a jerk.
“We could take these all the way into London proper right now if we wanted to,” he said, showing his teeth in what James thought was the first genuine smile the man had offered. “What with the Thames being frozen over for the first time in a decade. But this should do the trick for tonight, I think. Now, let’s have some Muggle style fun,”