Beth Wonders's Arc

Chapter 3 of 29

Beth walked fast. The vampire kept up without seeming to try. The silver rose sat in her pocket now, wrapped in a scrap of cloth so the thorns wouldn't prick her. She needed to know who had reached into her mirror. Until she did, every coin she spent on star pieces would vanish the same way. "Someone robbed me," she said. "Inside a pocket dimension. They left a calling card." "Show me at the crossroads," Elijah said. "I'm showing you now." She pulled the rose out. Black thorns, silver petals, cold to touch. He glanced at it. His pace changed by a hair. "I've seen that mark." "Where." "Later." She stopped walking. "No. Now. Or I turn around." He stopped too. His red eyes did not blink. "A witch in the north woods. Ice worker. She left roses on the doors of vampires she wanted gone." Beth's stomach dropped. She knew only one ice witch anyone talked about. Ginger hair. Blue dress. A temper that took the long way home. "Frostwyn," Beth said. Elijah nodded once. "Why would she hit my mirror?" Beth said. "I don't even know her." "You know me now." He looked at the rose again. "She watches who I speak with." Beth laughed, short and mean. "She robbed me because you sat next to me at a bar?" "She has a temper." "I gathered." A branch cracked behind them. Beth turned. Elizabeth Frostwyn stepped out of the pines. Ginger curls, freckled cheeks, a blue dress hemmed with frost. She smiled at Elijah like Beth wasn't there. Then she looked at Beth, and the smile went flat. "You dropped something," Elizabeth said. She opened her palm. A shard of starlight sat on it, small as a tooth. A chip off Beth's star piece. Not the whole thing. Beth's wings flexed hard against her coat. "Give it back." "I gave you the rose," Elizabeth said. "That was polite. Stay away from him." "I'm his guide. He paid me." "Then guide him fast." Frost crawled up a nearby fern. "And find a new mirror. Yours leaks." Beth's hand shot out. She snatched the shard. Elizabeth let her. "The rest is spent," Elizabeth said. "I traded it. You should have hidden it better." "Spent on what?" "None of your business." Elizabeth's eyes flicked to Elijah. "Walk with me." "No," Elijah said. Elizabeth's smile cracked. She turned on her heel and walked back into the trees. The frost on the fern stayed. Beth closed her fist around the shard. It was warm. It was hers. It was almost nothing. "She'll do it again," Beth said. "Yes." Beth pulled the branch-framed mirror from her coat and stared at the empty pocket behind the glass. A leaky vault. Every coin she earned would drain through it until she sealed the hole. She slid the shard inside anyway. She had nowhere else to put it. "Crossroads," she said. "Move."