Fernan crashed awkwardly into a stack of papers before he could even see it, scattering them across the floor.

“My fault!” Lady Annette called out from behind him. “Sorry, I shouldn't have put them in front of the doorway.”

“They’re not exactly warm, either,” Fernan noted as he bent down to start picking them up. “Clearly haven’t been touched in a while.” It didn’t help that everything grew dimmer and more uniform with each day, warmth leaching out of the ground and structures and dissipating into nothing.

“Let the servants get that.” She offered him her hand. “I was trying to organize things for my successor at the Bureau of the Sea, but… Well, other things keep coming up.”

“Thank you.” Fernan took her hand and lifted himself up. “Didn’t it block your way into this office, though?”

“I guess, but I use this office the least. I’m mostly moved out, now that I’m not the head of this Bureau anymore.” The massive towers of paper densely poking from the floor like stalagmites suggested that she was not, in fact, terribly close to moving her things out of the room.

“How many offices do you have?”

Lady Annette rubbed her nose, turning her head away as she answered quietly, “Oh, five or six… Or seven.”

“Khali’s curse! How could you possibly need that many?” Fernan sighed. “I just… Why?”

“I have too much to deal with to keep in just one.” She grabbed a cup of tea from the large desk at the center, hurriedly gulping it down. “Ugh, it’s cold. Disgusting.” She tipped it all the way back and drained it entirely, then slammed it loudly against the desk. “Hello? Another tea?” she called out, not making eye contact with anyone in particular.

“Are you sure you need more?” Fernan hadn’t seen her without a cup once since darkness had fallen. “When was the last time you slept?”

She tilted her head, hand stroking her chin. “Two days ago? Three? I think I dozed off when Guy was debriefing for a few minutes.”

“It’s alarming that you’re not sure.”

She scoffed. “Ah yes, the exact certainty that comes from precise timekeeping, that thing that’s been so easy ever since it’s become impossible to tell one day from the next.” Fernan started to speak, but she held up a finger. “Your concern is noted, but I have more important things to be doing right now. As do you.”

“I know, but—”

“Don’t bother, Fernan. Brighter minds than us have tried.” The Fox-King patted him on the shoulder as he walked into the crowded office, a spring in his step. “How did it go with Magnifico? Anything useful?”

“Nothing too huge,” Fernan admitted. “He confessed to killing Duke Fouchand, though, and admitted that the sun going out was part of his plan. He’s got some special knowledge about how it works, but instead of explaining he just spouted a bunch of cynical philosophy.”

Lucien Renart’s jaw stretched into a hint of a smile. “Well, that’s it then. Now we kill him.”

“It does seem to be the sensible approach, at this point,” Lady Annette added. “Certainly, he deserves it. And Avalon has bigger things to worry about than a royal bard right now, even if he is the King’s spy.”

“He’s more than that. What about Jethro’s warning?”

The Duchess sighed. “What about it? If he’s not willing to be any more specific, then he can hardly complain that we don’t take him at his word. Most likely, the consequences are meaningless to us but disastrous for him personally, or perhaps for Avalon.”

Fernan’s eyes dimmed slightly, the flame shrinking back into his face. “It doesn’t bother you that he says something horrible will happen? He helped get you free just as much as I did.”

“Hardly! He dropped a cloak into his wardrobe to help prove his guilt. You stood up to Lumière and the entire temple for weeks defending me, then nearly argued the bard into a corner even without the forgery of that evidence. You’ve earned special consideration.”

“Well, thank you, but I think we need to talk about this more. Magnifico’s clearly a powerful binder, and he knows what’s going on right now better than anyone else. Isn’t it a big risk to—”

“Keeping him alive is a big risk. Aurelian learned that, to his undoing.” The Fox-King set a hand on Fernan’s shoulder. “I know you’ve been friendly with him in the past. And you didn’t know Fouchand like we did. It’s not the same for you. We shouldn’t act like it is, right, Annette?”

“What?” she asked, lifting her head up from a stack of papers. “Yes, of course. You don’t have to sacrifice him if you don’t want to, Fernan. But we’re going to need that power, and I can’t think of a more deserving person for it to go to.”

“No one who’s still around, anyway,” Renart added sadly.

“I just….” It had been hard enough to accept the sacrifices of willing volunteers, offering themselves up that he might reach those farmers in time, and help save the harvest for everyone. Not one person had told him he shouldn’t accept it, and almost everyone had told him he should. Nothing about the power surging within him felt tainted or wrong in any tangible sense, but that just made it all the worse. He had to be tactful here, though. “It’s not me, doing things like that.”

Worse still, if Fernan were to sacrifice Magnifico, the lord’s share of that power would end up going to Gézarde,. Power that the spirit would desperately need, if it were going to present a credible candidate to succeed Soleil. That would be hard enough even then, and without it potentially impossible.

But it was wrong.

“Do me a favor?” Lady Annette asked. “Keep thinking about it. We want maximum efficiency here, no resources left untapped. Anything less might not be enough to get us through this.”

“Just like Laura said.” Fernan sighed. “It’s just so cold and heartless. Like that noblesse oblige thing she mentioned, lording over everyone else because you know what’s best.”

The Fox-King flared red. “That’s not what it’s about at all! The ‘oblige’ isn’t just for show, you know. We have a duty to do what’s best for our people. That’s the reason they support us at all. I always loved being with my people, being of them. But we aren’t the same. Bloodlines, aptitude, education, resources. Earned or inherited, they put us in a position where our actions and choices carry more weight. Even if it means going against our nature, or overcoming overwhelming odds. My father knew… Camille knew…” He took a deep breath. “Fernan, they gave their lives to protect those beneath them, willingly, because it’s our duty to do that. Can you really balk at doing something against your nature, when it’s what’s best for everyone?”

“I—I guess I just don’t see why it’s my decision to make for everyone else, Your Majesty.”

“It’s your duty. Surely you won’t shirk that? I’ve seen you stand up to far worse. This whole system depends on people like us, people like you, Fernan, making the right choices, doing the right thing. The moment a peer begins to see their role as a privilege rather than an obligation, they’re unfit to own their lands and titles. Rotten apples, Fernan. The healthy are in precious short supply.”

And yet you almost married Camille. Fernan didn’t voice the objection; at this point, it wouldn’t get him anywhere. “I’ll think it over,” he promised, though the sheer wrongness of it seemed unlikely to abate. “In the meantime, I wanted to talk to you about search and rescue. There’s already people missing in the mountains, and probably dozens at risk if we don’t find them in time. It’s already basically winter here; imagine things up there.”

“Dozens?” Lady Annette’s voice dripped with scorn. “Fernan, I’m not a sage, so please correct me if I’m wrong. But this search that you’re proposing, it would involve more flying, yes? It would essentially have to, for you to have any chance of finding them up in the mountains. That means more energy, more of your time and attention, for extremely paltry rewards.”

“Rewards? This is peoples’ lives I’m talking about!”

“It’s peoples’ lives you’d be using to fly there. The same people who could instead be fueling food runs, messages, defense of the city. Those people didn’t give their lives for you to throw them away searching for a half-dozen mountain hermits. They believed in you to do what was best for everyone. Be honest with yourself, here. It’s not the best way for you to save the most people.”

Magic is so fucked-up. “I could do it on my own time, what your big schedule set aside for resting. And… Lady Camille said that a sage can draw on their own life, when they don’t have any energy left from their spirit. So I could—”

“No.” Lady Annette shook her head, exasperated. “You’re the only half-decent flame sage in the whole city at a time when that’s more important than ever. You’re one of the few people I can basically trust, after everything that happened. We need you.”

“Ugh…” Fernan sighed. “When did I ever become so important, anyway? I’m just trying to… to…”

“We all are.” Lucien Renart put an arm around his shoulder. “But we don’t have to do it alone.”

“Absolutely!” Annette agreed, stirring pixie powder into her new cup of tea. When had she gotten that? “I’ve got hundreds of people under me, working together to fix this. Lucien’s right that I’m the authority, but it doesn’t mean I can’t hear what they have to say. Sometimes good insights come from unexpected places.” She looked right at Fernan as she said it, but had the decency not to point him out directly in that condescending way these people so often fell into.

Camille Leclaire, Fernan thought, would not have been so graceful about it.

“I don’t just mean subjects, either,” Lucien Renart continued. “I’m sure you already know you can talk to your villagers. I mean, some of them are probably family and friends already anyway. But the two of us can help too. After what you did, we owe it to you.”

“And we want to,” Annette added. “You saved us, and you helped Camille.”

“Even if it wasn’t enough…” The Fox-King bit his lip. “The three of us, we were a team, ever since the Foxtrap. Managing logistics, leading and inspiring our people… And political maneuvering, dealing with the spirits.” His glow dimmed, almost blue in its stillness. “We can all support each other now, Fernan. We have to, to get through this.”

His implication was clear, and obviously well-intentioned, but it was troubling too. How could I possibly replace Camille? Why would I want to? Their approaches seemed to be nearly direct opposites, from the admittedly short time he’d known her. All that lying and scheming… It helped explain why they were pushing him so hard on this, though. Maybe King Renart doesn’t even realize that’s what he’s insinuating.

A loud crash sounded against the side of the wall. “What was that?”

Renart turned his head towards the sound. “We’re up against the seawall here, right? A big wave? The temperature being messed up could mean more storms.”

“I know what storms sound like here.” Lady Annette shook her head. “That sounded more like glass.” As she finished speaking, another crash shook the walls.

“Or ice.” He’d certainly heard the sounds of icicles crashing as they fell enough, that shattering crack. “I’m going up to look. You two should get out, head back away from the wall into the city.”

Lady Annette nodded, running towards the stairwell with an armload of papers and a rapidly-spilling cup of tea in hand.

Fernan thought he heard the Fox-King scoff as he leapt out the window, but it was over too fast to be sure. He pushed flame from his hands and feet, quickly rising above the Bureau of the Sea building until he reached the top of the wall.

Oh, fuck me. Already, two gigantic spears of ice were embedded in the seaward side of the wall, with more sailing through the air towards them each moment. They seemed to be coming from nowhere, or simply rising up from the ocean itself. Only once they were close enough did their dark outline stand out at all against the black sky. Frigid black crystals spread out from them into the cracks of the stone like yawning holes in reality, expanding further across the face of the wall once they were embedded.

The wall was one thing — that was just stone — but several of them seemed to be on-course to fly over it and hit the city behind.

Fernan inhaled deep, then breathed out a stream of green flame towards them, trying to melt them out of the sky.

He missed. He missed by an incredibly wide margin. An outside observer probably wouldn’t have even guessed he was aiming at them.

Most of the spears embedded themselves harmlessly in the ground, though their cold darkness started seeping out into the surrounding area, but two of them hit buildings, and one of those looked to have utterly destroyed a small house, black ice scattered and splintered amidst collapsed wood and plaster.

I need to practice more, was his first, absurd thought, a half-second before the reality sunk in that doing so would be spending scarce energy and potentially human lives just to improve his aim.

This time, he tried to follow the motion of the lances and aim where they would be, to somewhat better success. His breath clipped the side of a few of them, at least, turning the better part of their mass into steam and water that splashed harmlessly against the ground below.

Except that water’s probably near-boiling. Not so harmless if it hits someone.

“I don’t think it’s working.”

“Fuck!” Fernan whipped around, only to see Lucien Renart standing beside him atop the wall. “You surprised me. How did you get here?”

“What, you think I don’t know how to do a few pull-ups out the window and climb a wall?” He shook his head, clicking his tongue as he did. “You’ve got to stop them closer to the source. Could you just, like, lob a fire ball towards them or something?”

“Who is ‘them’? I can’t even tell where they’re coming from.”

“I know it’s dark, and it’s pretty far away, but you can’t see the giant ice castle out on the water?” He pointed his arm uselessly towards the horizon, the line where dark waters met dark skies. “See?”

“I can’t. I think the temperature must be too similar. I can’t be sure if there are people there, and I’m not going to take the chance on a guess.”

“You can’t tell if there are people…” Renart exhaled. “Ok. Ok. That means we’re dealing with Glaciel, of the Winter Court.”

“How do you know?”

“Camille studied her when she was looking at potential allies. She seemed pretty promising at first because—” He interrupted himself as he ducked out of the way of a narrow spear of ice, which sailed right through where his head had been a half-second ago. “Anyway, with anyone else, there’d be people whose warmth you could see.”

“Why is she attacking us?”

Renart threw up his hands. “I don’t know! She’s an asshole. She probably wants to claim the area for the spirit convocation or something. Even back when the Fox-Queen was first assembling the Empire…” He lifted his head suddenly, his aura filling with red warmth. “Take me over there.”

“What? I can’t even see the place you’re talking about, let alone—”

“I’ll guide you. Come on, there’s no time.” He firmly gripped each of Fernan’s shoulders, ready to rest on his back as Fernan jumped from the wall and blasted flame beneath him, careful to avoid hitting his passenger.

It was fortunate that he seemed to have the strength to hang on himself, because Fernan couldn’t have carried him for long. Especially—

“Drop!” Renart shouted, and Fernan obliged, feeling the woosh of another spear passing through the air above his head. “Just keep going straight, and I’ll tell you when to land.”

Fortunately, the spears actually got easier to dodge as they made it closer. It seemd to have something to do with their intended range, but it also helped that Fernan could finally make out their source. The cold, dark void didn’t do much to stand out from the cold, dark water and the cold, dark air, but it was more extreme than either, and that at least gave him an outline to work with.

The Fox-King’s callouts of incoming danger helped too, since even when it was possible to see them, it wasn’t easy, and this sort of aerial maneuvering had never been necessary before.

More alarmingly, once the frigid castle became possible to see, at least standing out a bit against the horizon, if not the water, it was impossible to miss that it was moving, sliding or floating across the water, and closer to Guerron with every moment.

“Now! Land!”

Fernan dived downward towards the castle, then pulled up as it approached, blasting fire from his feet to slow his fall, and a bit from his hands to impede the forward momentum. Lucien Renart didn’t wait for them to have solid ice underneath their feet, instead jumping from his back and rolling to a stop across the ice.

The trail Fernan left behind of hot water and steam helped illuminate something, but at the cost of making the surrounding details even murkier, as if his eyes had adjusted to the cold and been shaken out of it.

He blinked, or at least, felt the impulse to blink and acted on it. With his eyes as they were, he had no idea what was actually happening when he did that. It seemed to help, though, unless it was just the heat dissipating.

The Fox-King was surrounded by dark figures with… is that a humanoid shape? Were these ice servants, or something? It would explain why they hadn’t been possible to see from far away, at any rate. They were slowly advancing towards him, cutting off any escape. Not that he could escape this place anyway.

Fernan sped over to him, hovering slightly above the ice to avoid sliding, then touched down at his side. “You said you had a plan?”

Renart nodded. “I’m here to treat with Her Majesty, Queen Glaciel of Hiverre, Chancellor of the Winter Court! My name is Lucien Renart, of the blood of the Fox-Queen, Marie Renart.”

The ice servants paused their advance, becoming slightly clearer as they did. Do they have an aura too? Did they get warmer?

“Camille would have known all her titles,” Renart muttered. “Would have helped to butter her up.”

A jagged, spiky face rose up from the ice beneath, expression unreliable to Fernan’s eyes.The wind began to whistle through the unparseable ice surrounding them, chiming in an almost melodious voice. “I would not have expected you here, Renart. You are a long way from Malin. Return to your place and leave me to my business, and in recognition of Marie I will leave you alone long enough to do it.”

The face began to stretch, pulling higher out of the icy floor and narrower as it did. After a moment, a body stood there to match the face, with the same jagged, angular appearance. Her frozen darkness resembled her servants, but her body was taller, more slender. Elegant. And the points at the top of her head resembled a crown, though it was clearly part of her face. A vortex of frigid air and snow surrounded her as she rose, sending chills through Fernan’s clothes. The whipping wind intensified as her voice returned, far harsher and more dissonant. “I will not tell you twice.”