Uhm, Magnus? What's the plan?" Joshua asked. His voice was steady, but I noticed his grip tightening on the wheel.
Outside a squad of heavily armed security were making their way towards the vehicle.
"You need to get out here, Catherine," I announced.
She turned back to me, her face pale in the blue glow of the dashboard. "And what about you and your brother?"
"We'll get in," I said, leaning back into the leather. "And if we don't… well, I've been to enough parties to last a dozen lifetimes. One more gala won't kill me."
The guards were ten feet away.
"Out. Now," I repeated.
Catherine took one last lingering look at Joshua,who had the audacity to wink at her,before she stepped out into the floodlights. I rolled down my window by an inch.
"If we do make it in, Catherine," I said, watching her through the gap, "you'll know us when you see us."
I didn't wait for her to nod. I rolled the window up.
We sat in the silence of the Fenris and watched. Muffled conversation drifted through the glass as the guards grilled her about the vehicle. One man,built like a heavyweight roman wrestler with a jagged scar across his cheek,stared at the car longer than the others. Probably wondering why such an expensive car was used as an Uber.
I reckoned that was Catherine's cover up.
"Take us back down," I ordered.
Joshua let out a massive sigh, his shoulders sagging with relief. "For a moment there, I actually thought you were serious with all that 'getting inside' talk. Glad to see you've still got a grain of sense left."
I shot him a look that would have turned a fully grown mammoth into a museum exhibit. The idiot was the reason we were here in the first place.
"We are getting in, Josh," I said as we made a sharp U-turn, tires screaming against the asphalt. "Just not through the front door like commoners."
Joshua groaned, the realization hitting him. "Oh, no. Not the 'Sterling Way.' My suit is Italian silk, Magnus! Do you have any idea what mountain mist does to silk?"
"Drive the car, Joshua." I replied.
Two minutes later, we were at the base of the peak. Above us, the Altican dome loomed like a fallen moon.
"Reminds me of the old days," Joshua said, stepping out of the Fenris. He rolled his neck until it popped, then started jogging on the spot, before rounding up with a few jumping jacks.
"You're going to ruin the suit," I observed, leaning against the cold hood of the car.
"Please," he huffed, stretching his arms behind his head. "I'm just checking if the tailoring is stress worthy. A Sterling shouldn't just look good; he should be able to dismantle a small army without popping a button." The idiot sounded just like his father.
I kept my jaw clenched, checking my watch. We had exactly two minutes until the debut began. Surprisingly, the countdown didn't make me pull back; it made me sharpen.
My vision shifted, my pupils narrowing unto the dome above us. I could see the seams in the opaque glass, the geology of the artificial mountain, and the air vents protruding from the rock like iron lungs.
The vents were out of the question; they were exhaust only, pushing out high pressure heat. That left the main gate.
heavily fortified steel and a jungle of cameras with a sprinkle of men who looked like they were paid to die for their employer.
"Heavily guarded," Joshua muttered, following my gaze. "For humans, anyway."
"We're going through the front door," I said.
Joshua stopped his mid-air stretch, a slow, dangerous grin spreading across his face.
"The direct approach? I like it. Does this mean I get to break things, or are we just freezing them all to hell?"
"Let's go, Joshua," I said, stepping out of the shadows.
The moment my boot left the ground, the air around us obeyed.
A cold current rose from inside me. It slipped under my skin like water under ice, then outward, pulling Joshua with it.
My coat lifted, sleeves trailing like smoke. We weren't being carried by wind.
We were the wind.
We drifted upward the domed manor.
Below us, the Bawangun forest stirred in the night wind, branches swaying in the night breeze. Above, the stars shined bright and clean, untouched by New York's light pollution, the way they had looked centuries ago. And just beneath us lay the dome, reflecting the entire universe like a dark mirror.
Its beauty was sharp enough to make even my cold heart stutter.
We passed over the front gate in silence, probably leaving a trail of frostbite on the guards' skin as we went.
If the outside of the dome was beautiful, the inside could only be described as otherworldly.
A brickwork Elizabethan castle rose straight up to meet the sky, its towers and battlements sharp against the curved ceiling, the dome itself completely invisible from the inside. Just a faint shimmer high above.
The asphalt road had vanished. In its place lay old, worn brick, flanked on both sides by black iron oil-lampposts that flickered with real flame.
For a moment it felt like stepping centuries back. The past breathing again.
The only reminder of the present was the line of gleaming, expensive cars that stretched along the driveway, their polished surfaces catching the lamplight.
A line of people in expensive tuxedos and beautiful gowns stood in a line in front of the main doors. Two twelve foot slabs of curved wood.
We came to a stop in front of a beautiful car, our bodies taking form from the wind. Joshua stood next to me, his tousled hair extra tousled and his face unnaturally red.
"Let's never do that again," he said between gasps, bending forward with his hands on his knees.
A loud bell rang out through the evening air. The debut was beginning.
"Quick, Joshua,they're starting." I hurried toward the long line of masked figures.
Right. Masks.
I quickly shaped one from ice so dense it looked and felt like a crystal.
I turned to see Joshua already styling a frozen clown mask.
I stared at him for half a second.
"I'm not even going to ask."
"What?" Joshua complained. "It's a nice nice mask. Plus it serves a deeper purpose. All hail the fo..." His voice faded, my mind blazing with pain.
For the first time since Layla left, the countdown screamed.
SIXTEEN DAYS, TWENTY TWO HOURS, SEVEN MINUTES AND FOURTY SECONDS.
At the back of it a voice thick with age and malice laughed. A voice I had heard before. The voice from my nightmares.
Welcome, Frost God.