Four

While there is no bacon, breakfast does end up including

some luxuries. September has decided that if we are leaving
the town and Aiden is coming with us, there is no need to
let a stocked chicken coop go to waste. I have to admit: Grits
taste far better when paired with eggs.
Emma wants to bury the deceased, or at the very least make
a pyre, but my father says it would take far too much time to
gather all the remains, not to mention the fact that a giant
plume of smoke puts us at risk of being spotted. So Sammy
retrieves a small, black book from the building where we
found Aiden, and we stand around the well while he reads
about giving rest to the labored. It’s odd to hear Sammy’s
voice so serious, to have it stir up feelings like remorse and

FrozenHC txt ed4.indd 36 1/23/14 3:07 PM

 compassion when until now it’s drawn out only laughter.
As soon as Sammy closes the book, Blaine escorts Jackson
from the woodshop. He’s conscious now, but still bound and
gagged. Blaine wrestles him to the ground and Clipper pulls
the clipping device from his pack. The entire thing is over
in a matter of seconds, but Jackson screams and writhes for
far longer.
Watching from beyond the well, Emma is cringing. Like
the rest of us, she knows the pain. She underwent a precau-
tionary clipping when I brought her from Taem to Crevice
Valley after securing the vaccine. I was surprised when
Clipper found a tracker in her, but the boy pointed out that
while Emma never served as a soldier in Frank’s Order, she
did work in his hospitals, and Frank has never been one to
take his security lightly.
When the clipping procedure is over, we pack our bags and
ready ourselves for another day of travel. Xavier rounds up
the healthiest two horses from the stables. Aiden is set to
ride a dapple gray named Merlin while the second steed, a
white mare called Snow, is loaded up with hay and grain for
the both of them.
Sammy bursts from the woodshop, Rusty in tow. The dog
is bounding playfully—at least until he spots Jackson, at
which point his ears fold back, and he starts growling.
“This dog,” Sammy grunts, tugging to restrain him. “I

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 thought the kid said he was good.”
“He is,” I say, looking between Jackson and the dog. “He
doesn’t like the spy. It’s like he can sense he’s up to some-
thing.”
“I haf a name,” Jackson grunts through the handkerchief
in his mouth.
“Your name’s Jackson,” Aiden says from Merlin’s back. “I
heard everyone talking about you during breakfast.”
Jackson starts, staring at the small boy. “Yeah. It is.”
“Whatever,” Sammy says. “The dog hates him and I’m
going to have to keep this thing leashed, and at a distance, or
even a deaf man will hear us coming.” Rusty lunges, snap-
ping, and Blaine and Jackson skirt out of the way to protect
their heels.
“Great,” Blaine says. “I stand too close to the scum and the
dog doesn’t trust me either.”
“Jackson,” the spy says through the gag.
“Right,” Blaine says. “Sorry.” But he doesn’t look it.
We start walking, our growing team again on the move. I
glance back only once. The crows are already diving, anx-
ious to return to their feast.

At midday we pause to give Owen, Bo, and Clipper a few

minutes to discuss our route. There is a small town ahead
according to Clipper’s location device, and after the fiasco

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 Stonewall became, my father is desperate to avoid it.
From the back of his horse, Aiden has taken to playing a
hand game he calls Rock, Paper, Scissors with, of all people,
the Order spy. Jackson still has his mouth gagged and his
arms tied behind his back, so he has to shout his selection
as Aiden pushes his hand out to reveal his choice. The spy
looks pretty miserable about the entire affair.
Aiden counts, bobbing a fist up and down to the numbers.
“One . . . two . . . three!”
“Pahpur,” Jackson says, and at the same time, Aiden’s fist
opens to form scissors. He snips them at Jackson, beaming.
“Again. One . . . two . . . three!”
“Roch!”
Aiden’s fist is now flat.
“You’re chea’in’,” Jackson mumbles through the gag.
“Nuh-uh.”
The spy frowns. “Den you’re rea’ing my mind.”
They get in one last round, Jackson again losing, before
Emma pulls the boy from Merlin’s back.
“Let’s not get too fond of the prisoner, Aiden,” she says.
“But he plays with me. No one else does.”
Sammy bursts through the snow, being dragged by Rusty,
who is barking at Jackson yet again. “I’d play if it wasn’t for
this crazed animal. I think my forearms are going to give
out.”

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 Emma laughs at this and Aiden relieves Sammy of the dog;
the boy’s touch seems to be the only thing to calm the ani-
mal. Rusty curls up at Aiden’s feet, but he doesn’t take his
eyes off the spy.
Sammy links his fingers together and pushes them into
a stretch. “Who’d have thought I’d spend my twenty-first
birthday like this: cold, frozen, and being tugged through
the forest by a manic dog.”
“Today’s your birthday?” I ask.
“It’s the eleventh, isn’t it?”
I try to count back to when we left. The date sounds right,
but I’m not positive.
“Clipper!” Sammy calls across camp. “What’s the date,
genius?”
The boy doesn’t turn around to face us—he’s too deep in
conversation with my father and Bo—but he holds his hands
overhead, each with a pointer finger raised to the sky.
“The eleventh,” Sammy says. “Yup. Twenty-one today.”
“Another December birthday,” Bree chimes in. “I’m the
twenty-third.”
I’m shocked to discover that until now, I didn’t know Bree’s
birthday. How has such a basic detail never come up?
“We should do something,” Emma says. “You know, to cel-
ebrate.”

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 “Find a pub and I’m in,” Bree deadpans.
Sammy snorts. “Me, too, Nox. Me, too.” He jerks his head
at Emma. “Have any backup plans, Link? You know, since
there are no drinks in sight?”
Sammy has a habit of calling people by their last name,
but for some reason, it bothers me when he refers to Emma
this way. Emma and Bree both have harsh-sounding last
names, but only Bree’s suits her.
“Yeah, actually. I do.” Emma grabs a small sack of grain
from Snow’s back and sets it on the stump of a fallen tree
about twenty paces away. “Archery match,” she says, point-
ing at the target. “Right now.”
Sammy’s eyes liven. “Oh, you’re on. Who else is in?”
I raise a hand. Xavier and September come join us.
“Hey, Blaine? You playing?” I call out.
He shakes a thumb at Jackson. “Have to hold this rat so he
doesn’t run off.”
“I’ll watch him,” Bree says.
“You’re passing up an archery match?” I ask, shocked.
She shrugs. “A bow and arrow is not my preferred weapon
of choice.”
“So you’re saying you can only fire that thing,” Emma says,
eyeing the rifle in Bree’s hands.
“Is that a challenge?”

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 “Maybe.”
September and Xavier let out a series of ooohs, and Sammy
starts whistling.
“Fine,” Bree snaps. “I’ll play.”
Xavier and I are the only two in the group who opted for a
bow when we left Crevice Valley, so ours are passed around
as the match progresses. There are six of us playing and we
agree to knock off two people with each round. The first
round is shot from twenty paces. To my surprise, Septem-
ber, who is deadly with a firearm, doesn’t even come close
to hitting the target. Everyone else strikes true, including
Emma. I’m proud to think that I trained her months ago in
Claysoot, and I compliment her form. Sammy’s arrow ends
up being the farthest from the sack’s center, so he joins Sep-
tember off to the side.
I fire a perfect shot in the next round. Xavier slips in the
snow and shoots wide, but both Emma and Bree strike close
to my arrow. Bree is a tad high, Emma a tad low.
“Not bad,” I tell Emma again. Bree snorts from behind
me, but if she expects praise for missing a bull’s-eye, she’s
crazy.
“Aiden wants to help judge!” Sammy scoops the boy onto
his shoulders and comes racing through the show. Once
we’re all gathered around the target, Sammy points at the

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 two outlying arrows. “All right, Aiden. Which of these is
closest to the center one?”
Aiden screws up his face in concentration and finally
points at the arrow below mine.
Bree throws up her hands. “Of course he’d pick Emma’s.
He hates me!”
“We didn’t tell him which arrow was hers,” Sammy points
out.
“Ugh, whatever. I’d slaughter you all if this was a spear-
throwing match. We didn’t use arrows much in Saltwater,
you know. A spear is far more effective for catching fish.”
“But it’s not a spear-throwing match,” I say, nudging her
with my elbow.
She scowls at me, furious, and stalks off. I should have
known better than to joke with her during a competition.
“Don’t you want to see who wins?” I call after her.
“I couldn’t care less.”
“Moody thing, huh?” Xavier says. “Must be that time of the
month.”
Sammy smirks. “Yeah, these next few days should be
downright peachy.”
September and Emma glare at the both of them.
“What?” Sammy asks innocently. “Can’t a guy speak
his mind on his birthday?” Xavier buckles with laughter.

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 Even I can’t help smiling.
“What time of the month is it?” Aiden asks from atop
Sammy’s shoulders.
“Forget it, Aiden,” Emma says. “They’re just being boys.”
“But I’m a boy! I want to know.”
“How about we finish the game? You can judge the final
shot, too, if you’d like.”
“Okay,” he agrees.
But when we get back to the shooting spot, Rusty is trying
to have another go at Jackson, and Blaine is somehow stuck
in the middle of it. His pack is held out like a shield, pro-
tecting him from the dog’s jaws. The Order spy stands safely
behind him, laughing through his gag. Aiden calls Rusty off
and Blaine throws his pack in the snow.
“That dog needs to get it through his thick skull,” he
snarls. “Yes, the prisoner is with the Order. Yes, he’s no
good. But he’s going to be with us for a while, and I’m not
okay with losing a limb because the dog feels like attacking
me in the process of getting to him!”
“Blaine, are you feeling all right?” Emma asks. She reaches
out to him and he shrugs away. “You’re not one to get worked
up over something so small.”
“He would have killed me just to get at the spy, Emma. I
swear it,” he says. “That’s no small matter.”
“All right!” my father calls out. “Clipper got us straightened

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 away. We need to cut south for a few miles.”
“But the match,” Sammy says. “Emma and Gray have to
play the final round.”
My father looks between us. “Gray would win—no offense,
Emma—and we have a pace to maintain. This is not nego-
tiable.”
We start walking again, but tensions are high. Clipper’s
worried about the nearby town; my father, our pace. Sam-
my’s sullen and Blaine, suspicious. He keeps glaring at
Rusty and holding the spy in front of him as protection. And
Bree’s ill temper is transmitting in waves so thick it could
knock a person over.
When I ask her if she’s okay, she rolls her eyes and walks
faster.
Somehow, I feel like I’m at fault, even though I obviously
have no control over any arrow fired but my own.

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