I look at Ryodan. He can survive this cold like I can’t. I don’t know why. Guess it’s something to do with him surviving a gutting, too. He’s always been able to get closer to the iced scenes than me.

But I can freeze-frame in faster for some reason. He gets bogged down when he gets closer to the center of the cold. Like he’s trudging though concrete.

I don’t pause to think. It’s possible, it’s the only plan I got, and there ain’t no time for second guesses.

I blast into Ryodan’s back and force him forward. As we go fast-mo-ing toward the black box, he totally gets my wavelength: I’m his locomotive and he’s my shield. I can push us, but he’s got to steer and slice.

I feel him yanking my sword from my coat and drive us forward. He ices, and cracks a half-dozen times, shaking off the crystals like a dog shaking water. I die a thousand icy deaths and come to life again. My lungs feel bloody and raw with each breath so I hold it. My bones hurt. I swear my eyeballs have iced in my head. My vision is getting all fractal-like.

Still I push us into the pain because this is my world and no fecking Fae is taking it from me. My mouth is open on a silent howl. Ryodan shakes violently as I force us to the icy epicenter.

He slices down with the sword and cuts the tether.

We’re expecting the IFP to move real slow.

Based on the rate of movement Kat documented when the sidhe-seers had been tracking its progress toward our home, it takes about a minute between cutting it loose and the fire-world fragment hitting the far wall of the abbey. Giving us plenty of time to retether it, because according to her figures, we really had at least two minutes.

Her figures were wrong. Way the feck wrong.

Like a redlined supercar with stockpiled torque, the IFP explodes free and smashes into the Hoar Frost King.

I fast-up as fast as I can go so things transpire in the slowest motion possible.

The fire-world fragment swallows the Hoar Frost King.

It engulfs it.

Sound returns.

I hear ragged breaths. Gasping. Somewhere, folks are crying.

It’s gone.

The Hoar Frost King is gone.

Just like that.

It worked so well I almost can’t believe it. I stand there stunned, feeling wary. I’m not the only one out of sorts. Ryodan’s got his eyes narrowed suspiciously. Lor is kind of hunched like he thinks the sky is going to fall on him. I’d snicker—because, dude, it’s pretty sad when you can’t just take a happy ending for what it is—but we still got major trubs. The IFP is devouring the mountain of iced speakers and heading straight for the abbey.

Kat, Dancer, and the other sidhe-seers are running toward us. “Cruce is below the abbey!” Kat screams. “You’ve got to stop it!”

Ryodan and Lor begin chanting but I can tell from the look on Ryodan’s face he’s got no expectation of finishing in time. The ten or twelve seconds we got before it hits the wall isn’t the thirty he needs to do the job.

Kat starts screaming at Ryodan because he’s not going fast enough, and Jo starts screaming at Kat for screaming at Ryodan because he’s doing everything he can. Then all the sidhe-seers get in on it, and since Ryodan and Lor are looking down at the totem cord they’re trying to ward, nobody’s looking at the IFP and I’m the first one to see what’s happening.

I knew it died too easily!

Ice is forming at the base of the fire-world fragment.

The bottom of the funnel is turning blue, crusted with white hoar frost.

The IFP sure swallowed the Ice Monster, but now the Ice Monster is icing the fecking IFP!

As I watch, frost spreads rapidly upward.

“Uh, guys,” I say.

“Are you bloody kidding me?” Dancer explodes. “It’s coming back out?”

Lor looks up. “Aw, shit.”

“Motherfucker,” Ryodan agrees.

The Hoar Frost King freezes the IFP from the inside out.

I don’t know if the fire world is a roaring inferno that makes the sound the HFK likes to eat or if they just had a big battle of fire and ice, and ice won.

But the IFP cracks and hisses, steams and pops, as superfire gets supercooled.

Ice weighs it down and it slows to a stop. As the giant funnel gains substance, it becomes too heavy to drift and crashes thunderously to the ground like an icicle dropping from a gutter, lodging in the snow.

We all just stare at the giant ice funnel rooted in the ground, trying to process the sudden reversal of events. First, the Ice Monster was dead but the abbey was in danger. Now the abbey is safe but the Ice Monster isn’t dead.