CHAPTER TWENTY
THE TINY, BURNING lights in Zach’s eyes disappeared, leaving nothing but their normal, walnut-brown color when he said, “Your bus to the hotel is boarding. If you miss it, you’ll have to wait an hour for the next one.”
“Why are you here?” I continued to prod. I wanted to be happy to see him, but a sick fear had also risen in me. What if he was here because something terrible had happened to Adrian?
“He is fine,” Zach said, using his mind-reading skills again. “And I will answer your questions only when I am ready, as you should be well aware by now. Get on the bus, Ivy. You gain nothing from standing out here in the cold.”
Now that I knew Adrian was all right, that sick feeling left me. I was still nervous about what Zach’s purpose was, but he was right. I did know better now than to keep pestering him. Zach wouldn’t tell me what he was up to until he felt like it or was ordered to, period. Even if I threw the biggest fit in the world, all that would happen would be me, Jasmine and Costa freezing our asses off while we waited for the next bus.
“Brutus!” I said instead, and the gargoyle quit circling overhead and landed next to us. “Follow this bus,” I told him, pointing at it. He knew what that meant. He’d managed to follow us during all the taxi rides we’d taken between train stops and hotels. To Jasmine and Costa, I said, “You ready?”
Costa hefted two of our heaviest bags, leaving the smaller ones for Jasmine and I. “Yep. Let’s do this.”
When I turned around to ask Zach if he was coming, too, he had already disappeared.
* * *
I DON’T KNOW what I had thought of the Icehotel before I saw it. A tourist trap, of course. An overpriced, hollowed-out ice cube, possibly. I didn’t expect it to look like a mythical fairy mound on the outside, with its wide, misshapen silhouette rising up from the ground in uneven heights. Maybe Hobbit house would be more appropriate considering the dry brown grass that covered the low, sloping roof. It had a double door in the middle, and around that, decorative blocks of ice in an upside-down U shape. They weren’t melting, and it wasn’t from the rapidly dropping temperature as the sun dipped lower on the horizon.
Another neat fact I’d found out while booking our rooms was that the hotel was now opened year-round because it was kept chilled using solar panels. In another couple months, the temperatures would be enough to do the job, but mid-September temperatures still ranged in the forties for the highs.
We checked in through the “warm” side of the hotel, where we were shown the saunas, dressing rooms, showers and relaxation areas we would use during our stay. We were also given our special coats and boots for when we were in the “cold” side of the hotel. Jasmine and Costa were eager to see the ice bar, where even the glasses were made of—you guessed it—ice. I was waiting for Zach to pop up around every corner, and when I wasn’t thinking about that, I was activating my hallowed sensor to see if I felt any blips.
So far, nothing, although I doubted that the spearhead was hidden beneath the hotel. It was redone every year as dozens of ice sculptures changed the layout to reflect fresh new themes, we were told by our reservation guide. If the spearhead were here, it was more likely hidden in the surrounding village or the wilderness around it. We’d arranged to go sightseeing and hiking tomorrow, common tourist activities here. With my hallowed sensor picking up strong objects from a half-mile radius, I was hopeful that a sweep in and around the village would be enough to either find it or rule this place out.
When we were finally allowed to check into our custom-designed suites in the cold section of the hotel, I briefly forgot about why I was here. Instead, I looked around at the gorgeous ice sculptures that adorned every hallway and room, and I knew why, out of the thousands of places that Adrian had visited in this world, he’d chosen this among his favorites.
My heart ached as I pictured him returning to this place over and over as he must have to include it on his list. With everything around us made entirely of ice formed into exquisite shapes, this was as close as you could get to a demon realm without actually being in one. Add the upcoming polar winter where there was little to no sunshine from December to mid-January, and this place must have felt like home to Adrian.
They only showed me the beautiful things at first, Adrian had told me when I’d asked how he could have stood to live with demons for as long as he had. And there had been beauty in their world beyond the horrors they’d initially hidden from him. Icy, dreamlike beauty where the impossible was made real, just like this place. Everything in the suite was dazzlingly carved ice, from the chairs, tables, benches and bed, to the multi-room 3-D mural featuring sea creatures such as mermaids and mermen frolicking in the waves of a frozen ocean. Expand this hotel until it was the size of an entire city, add a lot more artistic creativity and bling, and you had a demon realm without the demons, minions or suffering humans.
“Oh, Adrian,” I whispered to the empty room.
I should have seen past his hatred of demons long ago to realize that—minus their gleeful cruelty and desire to destroy humanity—he was one of them. He hadn’t been fighting only the negative aspects of his Judian heritage and a fate that said he’d be the cause of my death. When he walked out on demons, he’d also disowned large parts of himself. Because he refused to admit that, he hadn’t been able to heal from it.
If he accepted who he was without the hatred he normally associated with that, I believed he’d finally be able to overcome the inner hurdles that he now saw as insurmountable. After all, his self-identification and half his genetics might be demon, but that didn’t mean he was without choices. Just like he’d chosen to be a different Judian than fate predicted, he could also choose to be a different kind of demon.
“Isn’t this amazing?” Jasmine said, interrupting my thoughts as she came into the room. “It’s like a little frozen slice of Disneyland!”
I was relieved the Icehotel wasn’t giving her flashbacks of the demon realm she’d been a prisoner in for weeks. She’d suffered enough already. “Amazing,” I agreed.
“I’m freezing my ass off, of course,” she went on cheerfully. “Costa and I are about to hit the bar so we can warm up on the inside with lots of shots. You coming?”
“You guys go ahead. I’m a little tired,” I said. She deserved a few hours with Costa without my being a third wheel, or their having to focus on my quest for the spear. Besides, in this country, she was already the legal drinking age, so she might as well take advantage of that. “Think I’ll check out how hard the ice bed is,” I went on.
She waved at the bed. “Oh, there’s a bunch of hides beneath the sleeping bag, so it’s not that bad, actually.”
I stifled a snort. “You’ve been in your room for less than twenty minutes, and you already know how the bed feels?”
She shot me a grin that was pure Old Jasmine, before the horrors of the past year had smashed her life to pieces. “Waste not, right?”
Now I didn’t bother to contain my snort. “Go have your drinks, but don’t forget to eat something, too.”
“Yes, Mom,” she teased. Then a shadow crossed her face, and just like that, she was back to her new, far-more-burdened self. “God, I miss them,” she whispered.
“I do, too,” I said softly. “So much that I rarely let myself think about them, even though that’s awful.”
“It’s not awful,” she said, taking my hand and gripping it. Then, her voice very intense, she said, “It’s survival. I cry every time I think about Mom and Dad. Then I get so furious over their murders, I can barely function from the rage, and I don’t have a lot to do, but you do. That’s why you need to stay focused however you can. If that means not thinking about them right now, Mom and Dad would be the first to tell you to not think about them.”
I blinked hard, refusing to let myself cry, because it felt like crying was all I had been doing lately. “You’re right, they would,” I said, faking a strength I didn’t feel. “So, you go get drunk with Costa, and I’ll take a nap like an old person.”
She gave me a quick hug. “Join us if you change your mind.”
“I will,” I said, but I knew I wouldn’t.
I waited until I was sure that Jasmine would be at the bar with Costa. Then, instead of taking a nap like I’d said, I left the hotel. It was fully dark out now, but I didn’t need to see for what I was about to do. Not yet. I just needed to feel.
I walked until I was outside of the range of lights from the hotel. I could hear the nearby river, but I couldn’t see it anymore. It had blended into the darkness that felt like it had swallowed me.
“Brutus,” I called out. Then, louder, “Brutus!”
A few minutes later, the gargoyle sailed to a graceful landing not far from me. I walked over to him, scratching him in his favorite spots around his head. Then I climbed onto his back, using the leather harness he always wore to help myself up.
“Let’s go for a ride, boy.”