Page 30 of Jack Frost
"Why not? You have the Chill now. You won't get cold. And if anything happens, I'll spiral us out of there quick as that." He snaps his fingers. "Come on, Emery. It's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen, I promise."
"Oh my god yes!" I dart for the scuba gear. "Jack, for once I might be happy to know you."
His smile wavers a little, but he only says, "Lucky me."
"If only I had the right camera along—the footage I could get—"
"I'll bring you again sometime, with the right equipment. For now, just enjoy yourself."
"With the right equipment? Ha! Not likely. It's super expensive."
"I have money."
"How?" I rock back on my heels, still clutching the gear. "How do you have money?"
"The Horae and the other elemental gods and goddesses have treasures of the Old World—things they stole, or made, or were given by worshipers. There's a lot of it still lying around the treasury in the Antarctic palace, and more at my apartment in Prague. So whenever I need money, I just sell something, either on eBay or through one of my fences."
"Fences? As in creepy guys who fence stolen goods?"
Jack shrugs. "Immortal warriors can't be too picky in their dealings, especially when they need money for food and toilet paper."
"I guess you would need those things. You know, for a while I wasn't sure if you had—parts."
"I eat and drink, don't I? How else would I eliminate waste? Unfortunately my eliminations tend to clog up human toilets—but they usually flush just fine after everything thaws out." He grins so widely I can't tell if he's joking or not. "Now take your clothes off and put on that dive skin. You only have an hour, and we've already wasted seven minutes of that."
"Turn around," I order.
Jack obeys, grumbling about how I've already seen him naked and it's only fair that he sees me naked, and so on. Of course I don't strip completely, Chill or no Chill, but I take off everything but the underwear and pull on the dive skin. Jack gets into his own gear and then checks mine with the skilled nonchalance of an expert. Clearly he's done this many times. He shows me the pressure gauge, depth gauge, compass—I try to listen but I'm so excited I can hardly stand it.
Finally he cocks his head and says, "Basically just breathe and follow me. Okay? Ready?"
I can't answer through my gear and mask, but I nod, and when he finishes adjusting his own gear and dives from the edge of the iceberg, I follow him.
He must have known exactly where to jump, because we sink straight under, without grazing any of the jagged ridges of ice hidden beneath the rippling water. I focus on breathing carefully, smoothly, while I follow Jack through a gurgling world of blue and green beauty.
I think what surprises me most is the colors. I didn't expect the water to be so pristinely, achingly clear, or the light to turn the ice the most beautiful shades of azure and jade. We swim further, beneath the ice floes. With the sun shining through them, the floes resemble thick slabs of frosted glass, marked with lines and shadows and slim cracks. We dive deeper, past slopes and shelves of submerged ice, textured in millions of wavy lines.
My heart is going to burst with the sheer beauty of it all, with the wonder that I'm here, I'mhere, doing something that I never thought I'd be able to do. Except for those two classes, I wasn't trained for underwater photography—certainly not in this environment, so no one would have paid for me to do it professionally, and I could never have afforded this on my own. But Jack Frost brought me here. He gave me this gift, because he knew what it would mean to me.
I can't cry because of the whole regulator and mask deal, but I want to, because it's so heartbreakingly lovely down here. If I could kiss that ridiculous ice god swimming ahead of me, I think I would.
The swim is over all too soon. When we resurface, Jack spirals us back to the top of the iceberg where we left our clothes. This time I don't ask him to turn away. After stripping off my dive skin, I stand in my underwear for a moment, bared to the sun, my arms spread to feel the flow of the Antarctic wind.
He's watching me. I can feel it—the pressure of his gaze on my skin. But he doesn't speak, or try to touch me. When I pick up my clothes, I risk a glance at him, and the rawwantin his eyes rips the breath from my lungs.
I've seen lust before, too many times. This is lust, yes, but it's also something more, a craving for all of me, a hunger for something deeper and broader and higher than I'm willing to give.
I pull on my slacks and button my blouse, my fingers trembling, not from cold, but from the power of that longing.
Why does he have to look at me that way?
"I have ten minutes left," I say, trying to sound casual. "Where's the lunch you promised?"
"Artists can subsist on beauty alone."
I snort. "Not this artist."
Jack grins and tugs a cooler pouch from some crevice in the ice. After unzipping it, he reaches inside and tosses me a foil-wrapped packet. "Sandwich. Avocado, bacon, egg, other stuff."
