The Keeper of Night (The Keeper of Night #1)(54)

“Go,” I whispered, my voice barely a croak as I tugged at Neven’s sleeve. “Go, now!”

I tried to run on the icy ground, but my ankles shook and I clung to Neven’s coat just to remain upright. The Yokai lurched closer, one hand outstretched, the temperature plummeting so quickly that every breath hurt, a thousand serrated snowflakes scraping down my throat. I lunged away, the memory of her icy hands lacerating all my organs still fresh in my mind, igniting a panic in my blood.

I stumbled forward, this time dragging Neven down with me when he couldn’t catch my weight in time. Hiro appeared next to me and tried to pull me up under my arms, but the Yokai’s shadow chilled the snow beneath my palms. There was no time left to run.

I bit my glove off and jammed my hand into my pocket, fingers closing around my clock.

The swarm of snowflakes halted and the blaring howls of wind fell silent. Neven and Hiro stood frozen on either side of me, the only sound my own choked breaths. Yuki Onna leaned over us, frozen in glass, her pale hand reaching out for us, but unable to come closer. My limbs gave out from the sudden drop in adrenaline, nearly throwing me face-first into the snow. Somehow, we had survived. I almost whispered a prayer of thanks to Ankou before I remembered that he wasn’t my god anymore.

But the time freeze had not erased the deathly cold, as the frigid silver of the clock in my bare hand reminded me. The metal shot daggers of ice down the tendons of my wrist and threatened to meld itself to my palm.

I yanked off my other glove with my teeth and touched my bare skin to Neven’s face. He jolted backward, awakening from the time freeze.

“Ren, are you all right?” he said, grabbing my arm.

But there was no time for that. I stumbled to Hiro and pressed my hand to his cheek. He crashed into me, still trying to run away from a threat that he hadn’t realized had frozen.

Neven pulled him off me as Hiro spun around, eyes widening at Yuki Onna’s frozen stance, the snowflakes suspended in the air.

“Is this...” He spun around in wonder. “Ren, have you done this? Is this—”

“Not now!” I said, the cold still stabbing through the hand holding my clock. “Over there!” I pointed with my free hand to a cave behind some evergreens a distance away. I’d never managed to cast such a wide circle before, freezing the snowscape and mountains as far as I could see. I might have felt proud of myself, had it not been a desperate accident.

Hiro and Neven tried to help me up, but I couldn’t find enough oxygen to tell them to stop coddling me and run to the cave, dragging me if necessary, before my hand went blue from frostbite.

“Lantern!” I said to Neven, coughing. He released my arm and scrambled to gather our last remaining lantern, sliding to his hands and knees on the ice. I stumbled toward the cave, slowly regaining control of my feet. The hand around my clock felt like it had been stabbed through with kitchen knives, binding the clock to my bones.

Neven caught up to us easily, taking my arm and urging me to walk faster.

I fell to my knees at the mouth of the cave, crawling into the shadows and curling around my frozen hand.

“Hiro, hide us!”

He raised a hand and yanked the darkness over the mouth of the cave. The moment it was safe, I hurled the clock against the wall.

The wind picked up again as my clock hit the stone wall with a hollow clink, spinning around on the icy ground before settling. I collapsed back against the cave wall, trying to rub heat back into my hand. Even in the darkness, I could see that the clock had blackened my palm with frostbite, the circular shape stamped into it.

“Where is she?” I said, eyes closed.

Someone shuffled beside me.

“By the tree line,” Neven said. “She’s looking for us.”

I opened my eyes and looked up at the cave ceiling. Dripping stalactites stared back at me, threatening to gouge my eyes out. Neven took my hand and tried to warm it with his, rubbing the cold away. I could hardly feel his fingers on my skin.

“Are you okay?” Hiro said.

I nodded, cuffing ice crystals from my lips. Ice had scraped my lungs raw, but I would survive.

“So this is what Reapers are capable of.”

I opened my eyes to Hiro grinning through blue-tinted lips, even as his whole body shuddered in the cold. “This was well worth the wait,” he said. “Finally, Ren of London stops the universe with only a clock.”

“Not the universe,” I said, my face suddenly warm despite the cold everywhere else. Hiro’s contagious smile crept onto my lips, even though I couldn’t feel them.

Hiro began to speak, but the wind rose in volume and blasted snow through our curtain of darkness. Neven curled against me, probably more from fear than for warmth, since both our body temperatures had plummeted. He would have been better off cuddling Hiro, but I didn’t make the suggestion.

“How are we going to get past her?” Neven said. “We can’t stay here forever.”

I slid my arm around his shoulders and pulled him closer, even though it made both of us shiver.

“I’ve lost the gasoline,” I said.

“Not all of it,” Neven said, nodding toward our one remaining lantern.

“That didn’t work the first two times,” Hiro said. “As soon as she catches fire, she just ices over it a few seconds later.”

“So...” I coughed, still sensing ice crystals scraping up my throat. “So we need to turn those few seconds into a few minutes.”