Even in May, Lake Superior barely got above freezing. The Skojare kept the ice at bay through a combination of practical tools and magic, but that didn’t mean the water was warm by any means.

A human would succumb to hypothermia in as little as fifteen minutes, but I was no human. The Skojare thrived in the cold water. Spending their entire existence in Scandinavia, northern Europe, and Canada, they had adapted to handle the harsh temperatures of swimming in freezing lakes.

Even the Kanin had adjusted to the cold, but I doubted Kasper or Tilda would fare as well stepping into the icy lake as I would. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant feeling—like an electrical current running over my skin. But I couldn’t deny that there was something strangely enjoyable about it.

The chill took my breath away, and it felt as though it was waking up parts of my body I hadn’t even known were sleeping. I lay on my back, floating on the surface. The sun warmed me from above, while the cold water rocked me from below.

I just needed to be able to clear my head. The last twenty-four hours had been a blur of insanity, and I couldn’t seem to process any of it.

I knew that I’d killed Cyrano, and I knew that it had been the correct thing to do given my job and his actions. But I couldn’t make sense of how I felt about it. Numb perhaps, the numbness was mixed with sadness and regret and pride.

Sadness because a man had died, and regret because I was convinced I could’ve done something differently so he’d still be alive. And pride because I had done exactly what I had been trained to do. When it came down to it, I had acted and saved the King.

It seemed nearly impossible to reconcile those three emotions.

I tried to let the water wash over me, desperate for a reprieve from constant worries about work and Konstantin and Ridley. No matter how hard I tried, Ridley kept floating back into my thoughts, leaving an ache that ripped through me.

Thinking of him hurt too much, and I pushed away my memories of his eyes and the way his arms felt around me.

I closed my eyes, trying to clear my mind of everything, and I just focused on the sound of the lake lapping against the palace, the iciness of the water holding me up underneath the contrasting warmth of the sun.

That was all that mattered for the moment. Soon, I’d have to go back inside and try to untangle the mess of who was trying to kill whom and why here in Storvatten. But right now, I just needed this—to have a few minutes when nothing mattered and I didn’t need to think.

With my eyes closed, I could see the sun through my lids. Then the yellowish-red of my eyelids began to change, shifting into pure white bright light that filled my vision. It was disorienting and confusing, and when I tried to open my eyes, I realized they already were.

I was standing in the snow, but there was no horizon around me. Just whiteness, as if the world disappeared into nothing a few meters beyond where I stood. My heart began to race in a panic, and I turned in a circle, trying to understand where I was and what was happening.

Suddenly Konstantin Black was there, standing in front of me dressed all in black, smiling at me. “Don’t be scared, white rabbit.”

“What’s happening?” I asked.

This didn’t feel anything like a dream, but it had to be. There was no other explanation for how I could have been in the lake one second, and here in an impossible place with Konstantin the next. I didn’t remember falling asleep, but it was a possibility, given how exhausted I had been lately.

“I can’t stay long,” Konstantin said.

Already, his smile had fallen away. This was the first time I’d seen him without his hair pushed back, and his dark curls fell around his face. His eyes were the color of forged steel, the kind used to make our swords, and he stepped closer to me, looking at me intently.

“Why are we here?” I asked.

“Here is nowhere.” He shook his head. “You are in Storvatten, and you must leave.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “How do you know where I am?”

“I know a great many things, and it doesn’t matter how I know. You are not safe in Storvatten, and you need to leave.”

“It seems safe to me, now that you and Viktor Dålig are gone,” I said.

Konstantin pursed his lips, and for a moment he looked pained. “I am glad to see you’re okay after what he did to you.”

“Why?” I shook my head. “Why do you even care?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted with a crooked smile. “I just don’t want to see any more innocent people hurt.”

“Then you need to stop working with Viktor Dålig.”

The sky—if you could call the whiteness that surrounded us the sky—began to darken, turning gray, and the snow underneath my feet started to tremble.

“This won’t hold for much longer,” Konstantin said. Thunder seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at all once, and he had to shout be heard over it. “You must leave Storvatten! They plan to kill you because you’re getting too close!”

“Too close to what?” I asked, and by now the sky was nearly black. “How do you know?”

“Viktor Dålig gave the order. He wants anyone in his way dead.”

Konstantin receded from me, but he didn’t step or move himself. It was as though he were slowly being pulled into the darkness around us.

“Run, white rabbit,” he said, his voice nearly lost in the rumbles, and then he was gone.

I opened my eyes to the bright sun shining above the Skojare palace, and even though I was still floating above the water, I was gasping for breath.