Page 8 of Jack Frost
The thin skin of my nostrils crinkles with cold as I inhale. I'm going to miss the piercing clarity of this world, its violent beauty. Sometimes it's deceptively calm, like now, and comparatively warm—though "warm" in Antarctica is usually no milder than 30 degrees Fahrenheit. This is the continent's summer. We were lucky this year—the hatching of the penguin eggs started early enough that we could film it and still get home in time for Christmas. The team coming in behind us will be spending Christmas in Antarctica. I've heard holidays can actually be fun at the Dumont d'Urville Station, the French research center. Luc has spent Christmas there a couple of times, because his husband is a chef who periodically serves at the base. Apparently the chef prepares quite the lavish spread. It's a different story for teams camping out in tents on the ice, though.
"Eight days 'til Christmas," I murmur aloud.
"You celebrate Christmas?" The voice is casual, conversational.
I whirl, my heart lurching.
Jack stands a few steps away, his white hair ruffling in the wind.He looks a bit more fae than he did the last time I saw him—sharply pointed ears, a crisper edge to his features, and an unnatural luminescence to his eyes.
His shirt and pants might once have been as white as his hair, but they've been singed and smoked to a dingy gray mottled with black. They're spattered with holes, too—ragged gashes exposing the pale skin underneath. He has a dark smudge along his neck and another on his cheekbone. And is that ash sifting out of his hair? When he waves at me, the sunlight winks on his silver rings; but his fingernails are stained dark. A hint of wood smoke wafts from him.
"What the hell happened to you?" I ask.
"Fire."
I wait for him to explain, but he doesn't. He merely closes his eyes and breathes deeply, as if he's bathing his smoke-stained lungs with the fresh air.
What do I say to him? I wasn't expecting to see him again, and definitely not in this tattered state.
I had almost convinced myself that he was a figment of my overworked imagination. Because magic does not exist, not in this world of gas pumps and plastic straws and carbon emissions, of viruses and volatility and death.
He's still standing there, motionless. Just breathing, with the sun gilding his eyelids and the bridge of his straight nose. He's much too pretty to be real. And I'm very suspicious of pretty boys, even the ones without magic powers. In my experience, a beautiful face on a man typically pairs with misogyny, overconfidence, and annoying cockiness. In the worst cases, the beauty masks a latent male-pattern dumbness that I just don't have time to deal with.
Okay fine—my inner sense of fairness requires the tiny caveat that notallhot men are like that. Just most of them. Like ninety percent of them. Ninety-five percent. Why am I mentally rambling while this guy who saved my life is standing three steps away, looking like he just got dragged headfirst through a forest fire?
Clearing my throat, I venture a semi-compassionate question. "Are—are you okay?"
"I'm tired. Thanks to a certain someone, I woke up before it was time. So I wasn't fully restored. Not to mention the fact that I was dangerously depleted before I went into regeneration mode. The last couple hundred years have been rough, I won't lie. You humans have made it tough to do my job. As if supernatural foes weren't enough, you have to pump the air full of pollutants and cause a chain effect—"
"I know about global warming," I interrupt. "How does that affect you?"
He looks at me from under hooded lids. "Seriously? I'm JackFrost. I think it's fairly obvious how globalwarmingwould affect me."
"Jack Frost? The guy who flies around with a staff and leaves pretty snowflake designs on glass?"
He groans, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes. The gesture leaves more dark smudges along his cheekbones. "The ice wraiths do the frosty windowpanes thing. My role is far more important. I maintain the global balance. Ice and fire, cold and hot—you're familiar with the concepts?"
"Of course. Stop talking to me like I'm an idiot."
"I'll talk to you however I please. And while we're on the subject, how about a 'Thanks, Jack, for saving my life—sorry that the whole planet is going to burn now, but hey—at leastIsurvived!' "
I stare at him. "What are you talking about? Why is the planet going to burn? Nothing you're saying makes any sense at all—"
"I have been fighting. So. Hard." The words leak through his gritted teeth, and his blue eyes sear mine. "A few weeks ago, I was exhausted. Burned out. Nearly dead. I couldn't fight anymore—I had to go under, to recover so I could regain my full power and maybe beat her for good next time. And you disturbed my rest. You wrecked my chances of gaining back the ground I've lost over the past several decades."
"So this is about some weird war thing you've got going on? You should know that I don't believe in war—"
He laughs, loud and harsh. "How nice to have that luxury. Such a privileged little idealist you are."
Heat rushes into my cheeks. "You don't know anything about me."
"Oh, I think I do." He takes two quick steps toward me. "Selfish and entitled, unconscious of all the privilege you possess, self-righteously proud of your lobbying and activism, your advocacy on behalf of the planet."
I refuse to back away, even though his height and intensity trigger fight-or-flight jitters inside me. "Some of that is probably true. But you said I was a good person, that I really care. Otherwise I couldn't have opened the lock on your door, right?"
His mouth tightens. "True. But sincerity doesn't make you blameless."
"Of course not. Which is why I work very hard to make a difference. But I don't have to defend myself to you. I wasn't the one lying around in an ice cocoon."
