Nypslyp climbed the spiral stairs of the locked tower with a single jar pressed against her ribs. The jar held the only wedding scent Honey Trappins would ever wear: snowblossom honey, amber, and pear, blended once and never again. Word of it had spread through the vale in two days. By the third, Nypslyp had counted footprints in the frost outside her hive that did not belong to her. She had moved the jar at dusk. The narrow tower above the perfume workshop had small windows of thick glass and a door at every landing, each one locked. Nypslyp froze every lock behind her as she climbed. Her magic answered because she wanted the bride to have her one good thing. That was the only fuel her ice ever took. She had spent the last of her contacts to buy coordinates to a relic that would make her impossible to refuse, and she had not asked anyone for help since the night a door shut in her face. Tonight she was protecting a stranger's wedding instead. The contradiction did not slow her hands. At the top landing she set the jar in a cabinet, locked it, and breathed once on the keyhole until the metal whitened. Then she went to the window. In the field below, someone had put up a wooden scarecrow that had not been there at noon. Stolen necklaces hung from its crossarms. A crust of ice ran down its grinning face. The thief was telling her he had already been close enough to leave a sign, and close enough to know her magic by sight. Nypslyp went down the stairs faster than she had come up. She stepped out the base door into the frozen grass and lifted both hands. Ice climbed out of the soil in jagged needles, ringing the tower in a low, sharp hedge. She pushed until her fingers ached and the ring closed. Then she waited behind the door with her palm on the wood. He came an hour before dawn. She heard boots crack through the outer needles, then a short, bitten-off sound as the inner row caught him. She threw the door open. A thin man in a dark coat was pinned at the calf, bleeding into the frost. He had a glass cutter in one hand and an empty satchel in the other. Nypslyp froze the satchel to his wrist, froze his boots to the ground, and took the cutter. He cursed her in a language she did not know. She walked past him to the workshop and woke Purda Blue. Purda came out in a blue dress with her red hair loose, looked at the man in the ice, and said she would send for the autumn court guard. The jar was safe. But the thief, before the guard arrived, told Nypslyp he had not come alone.