Chapter 73: Who Are Those?

DESIREE

The wind up here doesn't just bite. It hunts.

I pull my scarf higher over my nose and watch Instructor Volkin plant a row of glowing blue stakes into the snow, each one humming faintly, marking the start of the gallop course. Behind him, the mountain drops away into something that looks less like a ski slope and more like the edge of the world.

"This looks like a great way to die," I mutter.

"Cheerful as always," Jane says beside me, adjusting the strap on her goggles. She's B-rank, which means she's spent the last ten minutes complaining that she shouldn't even be here, but here she is, same as the rest of us. "You'll be fine. You're A-rank. You could probably ski this thing with your eyes closed."

"That's exactly the kind of thing that gets people killed."

Brittany jogs up to us, cheeks already pink from the cold, breath fogging in front of her face. "Did you guys hear? The boots are enchanted. Instructor Volkin said they respond to your instinct, not your feet."

"My instinct is to go inside," I say.

"Your instinct," Jane says, "is going to embarrass you in front of the entire camp if you don't take this seriously."

Instructor Volkin claps his hands together, and the sound rolls across the clearing like a small clap of thunder. "Gather! Gather! Magic ski boots, one pair per student, moving down the line."

We shuffle forward. When I reach the front, he presses a pair of boots into my arms — sleek, silver, humming faintly the same way the stakes do, like they're alive and waiting for permission to move.

"Why do shifters even need to learn skiing this way?" I ask, tugging one on. "Regular skis work fine for regular people."

"Because you are not regular people," Volkin says, not unkindly. "Your body wants to shift under stress. The gallop pushes stress. These boots teach your shift-instinct to work with the mountain instead of against it. Fight the boots, and you fight yourself."

That sounds ominous. I don't say so.

I step onto the course, and for exactly four seconds, it's glorious — wind screaming past my ears, snow spraying silver behind me, the boots humming warm against my ankles like they're cheering me on.

Then I hit the first curve wrong, and everything goes sideways. Literally.

I go down hard, tumbling, snow shoving itself into every gap in my jacket, and I hear laughter — not cruel, not yet, just the general laughter of a crowd watching someone eat snow. I lie there for a second, staring at the gray sky, and decide, with great dignity, that this is exactly where I belong now.

Then I feel it. That cold, tingling pull under my skin, like frost spreading across a window from the inside.

I get up. I plant my feet. And instead of fighting the boots, I let the other thing in me answer instead.

Ice spreads from my palms down through my legs, into the boots themselves, and for one incredible moment I'm not skiing so much as I'm becoming the mountain, a thin sheet of frost racing ahead of me, smoothing my path—

And then it snaps. Too much, too fast, control I don't have yet, and the ice cracks under me instead of carrying me, and I go down a second time in a spray of blue-white shards.

My friends are cheering anyway. "That was still amazing, Des!" Brittany shouts, clapping like I landed it.

Behind her, I catch Destiny and Chanel exchanging a look, twin eye-rolls in perfect unison, the kind of synchronized disdain only actual twins can pull off.

"She's supposed to be A-rank," Chanel says, not quietly enough.

"I heard that," I call back.

"Good," Destiny says.

I push myself up, snow melting cold down my collar, and walk straight over to Instructor Volkin instead of back to the course.

"I'd like to help sort gear for the other students instead," I say. "Boots, jackets, whatever needs organizing."

He studies me for a moment — the kind of look that says he knows exactly what I'm doing, retreating instead of trying again in front of a crowd — but he nods anyway. "As you wish. You are A-rank; you have that right."

Jane and Brittany trail after me toward the equipment tent, already telling me how well I did, how the ice thing was actually really cool, how next time will be better, and I let the words wash over me because that's what friends are for, even when you know they're being kind instead of honest.

Then the noise changes.

It rolls through the crowd like a wave, students turning, whispering, a ripple of excited voices building fast. I don't even need to look to know why.

"They're here," Jane says, grabbing my arm.

Jaden, Jett, and Jaxon come striding up the path in matching camp jackets, and the crowd around the gallop course practically combusts. Girls squealing. Boys straightening up like they might get noticed if they stand tall enough. It's the same every single time, and I've stopped finding it charming months ago.

I roll my eyes and turn back to the equipment tent.

Then the noise dies.

Not fades — dies, all at once, like someone cut a wire. I turn back around, and I understand why immediately.

Six boys are walking up the same path, and every single person who was screaming for the triplets a second ago has gone completely silent.

They don't rush. They don't need to. There's something in the way they move, unhurried, certain, like the mountain itself should be adjusting to them instead of the other way around. Their clothes are simple, dark, expensive in a way that doesn't announce itself.

Even the James triplets, golden and glowing under all that attention, look almost ordinary standing near them.

I feel it before I understand it — some pull low in my chest, sharp and strange, like my ice power waking up for an entirely different reason. It seems there's a dark strange energy following this group.

"Jane," I say, not taking my eyes off them. "Who. Are. Those?"