Page 11 of The Midwinter Mirror
“Zayne’s the best brother ever,” the little boy adds. Then he tugs free of Zayne and holds out his hand. “I’m Josh. It’s nice to meet you, Holly.” He sounds so mature—it’s really cute.
I take his small hand in mine and shake. “Hi, Josh. Welcome to Elderfell Manor.” I turn around to see where Milo has disappeared to; he’s standing pressed up close to my mother. I curl my finger to call him over.
“This is my little brother, Milo. I’m guessing you’re about the same age. Milo, why don’t you take Josh to the kitchen and get him some breakfast?”
Josh looks at Zayne, who gives a nod, and Josh follows Milo as he slowly limps across the terrace on his crutches. But I can already see them talking to each other as they disappear through the front door.
“I think they’re going to be friends,” I say to Zayne.
“Maybe. Though hopefully, they won’t have time to become too close.” He sighs and presses a finger between his eyes. “I want to get the hell out of this shithole. Fast.”
Wow, that puts me in my place. Any thoughts that he was hoping to rekindle things with me are right out the window and into the snow. And I can’t believe that thought even entered my head. It was over between us the moment he called me a liar.
He runs a hand through his hair. “Sorry. I know this is your home, but I don’t have fond memories of it.” Then his gaze drops to my mouth, and he quirks his lip in a smile. “Well, I havesomefond memories of it.”
And just like that, something inside me melts.Get a grip. He hasn’t come back for me—he’s come back for Tansy. And besides, we were never compatible. That’s the story I’m sticking to. Whatever we had between us is over. It was over five years ago.
I take a deep breath. “So, we need to decide what to do next,” I say. “I think we should go look at all the ways they could have gotten out of the village: the main road, the pass through the hills, the track through the forest—”
“No,” Zayne cuts me off, his tone firm. “I want you to take me back to where you found Milo. I want you to take me back to Silvergate.”
I grit my teeth. “It’s pointless. We’re wasting time. The children weren’t there. There was absolutely no sign of them.”
“Still, I want to go.”
“Right, and what Zayne wants, Zayne gets?”
We have a staring match—me looking up, him looking down, my jaw so tight I think it might crack. I don’t want to go back. Not with Zayne; it will stir too many memories.
“There’s zero reason why I have to do what you say,” I say slowly.
We glare some more.
Then my father comes up beside me and touches my arm. “Why don’t you do what he asks?” he says. “Zayne’s obviously very upset about Tansy. Cut him some slack; just go with him. I’ll organize the villagers to check all the other exits out of the village. We’ll find them; don’t worry. You take care of Zayne.”
My dad always had a warm spot for Zayne, treated him like a son. He even offered him a home after all that bad stuffhappened. But Zayne—I don’t think he trusted anyone anymore, including himself. Or me. Especially me. So he left.
I look at him now; he raises an eyebrow. I give in to the inevitable and nod. “Okay. Let’s go.” I don’t wait for an answer, just march down the steps to the drive. I can sense him following.
I pause for a few seconds to look around at all the parked cars but don’t see any strange vehicles. “How did you get here?” I ask.
“We came by motorbike, but we had to leave it outside the village about five miles away when the snow got too heavy.”
“Oh.” I shove my hands into my pockets and head toward the back of the house, then start walking the same route I went earlier. He falls in beside me, and for a while, we don’t talk. It’s stopped snowing again, and the sun has come out—but there’s an ominous feeling in the air, and I know more snow is on its way.
“Your little brother seems nice,” I say eventually when the silence gets too heavy.
“He is nice. Much nicer than me, though I guess that wouldn’t be hard.”
I grin. “No, probably not. You were always an ass, Zayne. And you haven’t changed.”
He snorts, and I look into his face and see genuine amusement in his eyes. “Ask me nicely, princess, and I’ll show you just how much I’ve fucking changed.”
My jaw clenches at the “princess.” He always used the title when he wanted to piss me off. But in some ways, it’s nice. It reminds me that we do have a past—that this tall, devastatingly handsome stranger, with an aura about him that I’ve never felt before, once kissed me in the stables. Okay, more than once. Lots more. My skin warms at the memory, and I shake it off, put my head down, and keep walking.
“Tell me what happened, exactly,” he says as we approach Silvergate.
“There’s not a lot to tell. Milo was missing. I went looking for him.”
