“How do you know how to dive, Val?”
“I read the dive checklist when I can’t sleep. I memorized it. And I’ve watched them dive a bunch of times—”
He leaned back in his chair, laced his fingers in his lap, contemplated the space above my head. “So many talents I knew nothing about.”
Jeanne poured a cup of coffee and brought it to me. I thanked her with a nod. Blanket slung like a cape over my shoulders, I wandered to the window in stockinged feet. Lit azure by evening light, heavy snow fell from a pastel sky. On the rug, a curved shard of glass, tipped with red. I nudged it under the desk with my toe. Felt their eyes on me.
“What time is it? How long have I been asleep?”
“Around seven. Eighteen hours or so. Temps have gone way down. It’s about five degrees out there now. Snow’s supposed to quit soon, but it’s going to blow pretty bad out there all night. Jeanne’s radioed for help, but we’re stuck here. No one’s coming till the wind dies down.”
I turned to face them. “How did you get to the Dome?”
“The floe it sits on broke away, but it butted up against that long spit of land that juts out. Otherwise you’d be out in the middle of the ocean by now. You’re a lucky woman.”
I flashed on Nora and Raj, forever entombed in the haunted blue grottos under the ice. Glanced furtively at Wyatt’s specimen fridge—I hadn’t returned it exactly flush to the wall where he always kept it. Heat rose in my face. “Have you been able to reach their families?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
He got up and paced in his floppy-toed socks. “Haven’t tried. Wanted to talk to you first.”
“Well, they should know. You should try. I’ll talk to them.”
“Relax. Eat something.”
Jeanne brought over a plate of fried fish and potatoes. I sat, but didn’t touch it. “What about the crate?”
He crossed his arms and leaned against the kitchen table. Stark light cast bruise-colored circles under his eyes, deepened the creases in his face. “We have it.”
“Where is it?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because it had… it had—”
“What, Val?”
“Their specimens.” My hands balled into fists, fingernails cutting me.
Wyatt popped a scrap of potato from the pan into his mouth, licked the salt off his fingers. “No, it didn’t.”
“Of course it did, I was hauling it up and it—”
“The trap was empty, Val.”
“That’s impossible.”
“The netting was torn when we pulled it up.”
“I thought—”
“Maybe you have something to tell me, Val. About that crate.”
“Who cares about the crate? Nora and Raj—”
“I care about the crate. I care a lot about the crate. Clearly, so do you. So does Jeanne, don’t you, Jeanne?”
Jeanne gazed out at the swirling snow. “Gotta say, I’m curious about it.”
“Curious, that’s the word. About what Nora and Raj were so frantically searching for. Why you risked your life to bring it up. Yeah, we’re wondering.”
I set my coffee down, tightened the blanket around my shoulders. “I’m going to go see Sigrid.”
“Don’t be rude,” Wyatt said. “You haven’t answered the question.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up. The words, Dilectus meus discipulus, My beloved student, paraded across my mind. I focused on the scene outside the window, the veils of white shimmering across the stark landscape, the Enormity, this time—somehow—calling instead of repelling me.
Wyatt watched me closely. “We want to save that girl as badly as you do, don’t you get it, Val? What good to us is she dead?”
We’re stuck here. No one’s coming till the wind dies down.
I threw up my hands. Let the blanket fall to the floor. “Ice eels.” I looked from Wyatt to Jeanne, both stone-cold poker-faced. “That’s how she survived the ice. She needs the blood of ice eels to live. Periodic injections. She used a hollow bird feather to inject herself—”
“Oh, come on, Val, why are you feeding me this horseshit?” Wyatt massaged his forehead. “You’re gonna make me do something I don’t want to do. And the irony is, I like you, Val. I really am fond of you. I think you could always feel that, right? Maybe even liked me, too, just a little bit, if only on my better days?”