Ash

The other I pulled close to my face and then sent it “up” through the snow as well. The sound of shifting snow, the feel of new snow falling on my face, and then there was a blessed rush of fresh cold air as the two stones erupted out of the surface of the snow above my head.

I managed to twist my head so that my nose was right under the opening I’d made with the second stone. The one near my right hand gave me the room to start moving snow, shoving it into the opening I’d created, eventually freeing my arm enough that I could bring it near my head.

“You bitch, I’m going to kill you twice over.” I breathed the words out, more for myself than anyone else.

“Who is that you’re going to kill?” A male voice, one I didn’t recognize, bounced down the walls of my snow chimney. I, well, I would have frozen if I wasn’t already encased in ice, but . . . you get the point.

Friend or foe above me? There was only one way to find out.

“Manner of speaking. Can you help me out?” I asked. I couldn’t see who was above me, but I assumed it was a Sylph drawn by the activity on the mountain. They were nosy bastards for the most part and territorial on top of that.

“Well, maybe.” He seemed rather uncertain. Since when was a Sylph uncertain? Never. They were cocky on top of being nosy as hell.

More snow fell down the tube as if he was standing right near it. It splattered my face and went up my nose. This was not going well. I needed to get the hell out. “Can I convince you to help me?”

“Ha. Probably not. What you doing on this mountain, Terraling? Sylphs don’t like visitors.”

Now that was interesting. So he wasn’t a Sylph and he knew I was a Terraling. But what options were left as to what he was? Oh shit.

“Yeti?”

“Well, duh. Who were you expecting, Santa Claus?”

Yeti were an interesting supernatural. They sprang from some sideline combination of Sylph, Undine, and human that had yet to be discovered. They were in a way cousins to the ogres on the North American continent. Just as mouthy, but not as prone to fighting. More prone to love a good joke, though, and they were always looking for ways to pull one over on anyone they could find.

Maybe I could use that to my advantage. “No, I’m just . . . I’m trying to pull a fast one on the new Sylph queen. So I kind of need to get out of here to do it.”

He gave a low grunt and more snow fell down the tunnel, smacking me in the face.

“Why you in there in the first place?” he asked.

Shit, this was not going as planned. I tried to move some more snow from around my head but only caused a cave-in, which left me barely able to keep my mouth and nose aboveboard. My bigger concern was that Peta had not shown up. Did that mean she’d been caught in the avalanche, or worse, had Cassava gotten her claws into the snow leopard?

“Can I help you with the prank?” the Yeti whispered down the tunnel. “I love a good prank.”

“Yes, that would be great,” I mumbled around the snow.

With lightning speed, the snow shifted around me and I was released from its grip. I fell a few feet to land in the bottom of a hole the Yeti created. I stared up at the big beast, getting my first good look at him.

He was about eight feet tall and covered in a fine dusting of long, floating hair that looked like it was made of spider web, it was so thin. He had a mouthful of flat, square teeth, though the top middle one was a sharp canine. Eyes of brilliant blue-green, he was obviously in a good mood as he grinned down at me, his wide nose wrinkling up. “Okay, how are we going to prank her? She’s pretty grumpy lately.” He clapped his hands together and the snow under my feet bulged upward, lifting me out of the deep hole.

“Well, I have a companion that was caught in the avalanche too. I have to find her first.”

“No, I want to do the prank now.” He caught me around my upper arm. I didn’t tense, didn’t try to pull away. He was strong enough he could have pulled my arm off and beat me to death with it. Yeti, like ogres, were not to be trifled with and not to be provoked when they were close enough to grab you.

I smiled up at him, realizing quickly he wasn’t the usual Yeti. There was something . . . off with him, for lack of a better word. “Listen, friend, she’s integral to the prank. She’s the one who’s going to slip past all the guards and help us get in.”

He frowned and then nodded. “That makes sense. That the snow leopard, then?”

Hope soared. “You saw her?”

“Yup, she went down over there.” He pointed one of three fingers toward the base of the mountain. I broke into a jog, not knowing what I was going to find. Peta had been my companion while Lark had been in the oubliette. She was my friend and my unofficial familiar. My heart pulsed with anxiety at the thought of something happening to her.

“Peta!” I called for her, hoping she wasn’t buried too deeply. In fact, preferring her to be buried deeply over the alternative—being taken by Cassava.

“A lady took her,” the Yeti said, and I slid to a stop.

“Please tell me you’re kidding.”

He tipped his head to one side and smiled. “No, but would it be funny if I were?”

I dropped to my knees, feeling Peta’s loss as keenly as if she were my familiar. I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. “Mother goddess, how do I find her now?” There was no way I could get into one of the Traveling rooms to see the globe and try and sense where Peta was. Or Cassava, for that matter.