Chapter 6 · Something's Singing Wrong

Marcus hit the ice door with his shoulder and it shattered like sugar glass. The girl was three meters down the slope, crouched low, one hand pressed flat against the ground. The white plain around her was splitting. Not cracking like frozen water. Splitting like skin pulled too tight, dark nothing showing through the gaps.

She looked up. Her eyes were pale gray, almost colorless, and they locked onto him with the kind of focus people usually saved for fires or rabid dogs.

"You," she said. Just that. Not a question.

Marcus held up both hands. The shard of the lyre was still in his coat pocket and it was vibrating like a trapped wasp. "I didn't do this."

"The ground didn't start screaming until you showed up." She stood, and he saw the runes inked down both her forearms, dark blue against skin that had seen a lot of cold. She was maybe twenty-two, twenty-three. Dressed in layered hides and wool that looked hand-stitched. A leather satchel across her body. "What did you break?"

"Nothing. I just got here." Another split opened between them, wider than the rest. The sound coming out of it wasn't wind. It was lower.