“Do you have it with you?” he asked abruptly. “The icicle of the Snow-Queen’s heart?”
She nodded, but made no move to pull it out from under her coat. She felt its cold on her breast. The longer she carried it on her, they more painful it became to think that she would once again have to part with it.
“I don’t want it,” the old man said. “I know that this is the reason you have come here.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, disappointed, despairing. “Who else could I give it to?”
“Who then did you steal it for?”
“My father and I were chartered a few months ago by a group of revolutionaries, up in the realm of the Queen. They have been planning a coup for years. They knew that only someone like my father had the…talent to break the power of the Snow-Queen.”
“Or someone like you. People with quite special abilities.”
She smiled for the first time since she had taken the place next to him. “Compared to him, I am only a child.”
“Yes. His child.”
Her smile brightened for an instant. Then her features darkened once again. “I had so hoped that you would take the icicle from me. I could not think of anyone else that I could trust it with.”
The old man shook his head. “It would corrupt me. Just as it ices over the soul of anyone who carries it with them too long.” A spark was suddenly in his eyes, perhaps suspicion, perhaps something entirely different. “You would like to be right about needing to get rid of it. But the there is only one single possibility.”
She frowned. “Well?”
“Bring it back.”
Tamsin pressed her lips together. They were dry and chapped from the bitter cold. “Never,” she said instantly.
“But you have already thought of it yourself, haven’t you?”
“No,” she lied. “My father died trying to steal it. The Snow-Queen…she killed him.” Master Spellwell’s body had stayed behind in the Palace of the tyrant; there he stood as a frozen statue in one of the countless Ice Domes, with only the silence for company.
Tamsin’s lower lip trembled. “I would rather go the same way as he than give her the icicle of my own free will.”
Father Frost smiled indulgently and put his trembling right hand over both of hers. “Those are brave words, Tamsin Spellwell. We have only met once, and you were still a little girl. But even then your father said that you had great courage.”
“Please,” she said beseechingly. “Take the icicle.”
“Never.” He pulled his hand back and stroked it over his white beard. “This is now your battle alone. And your decision. Tell me, how old are you now?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Twenty-five.”
“You look younger.”
“Can one trust the judgement of someone who is older than mountains and forests?”
His laugh sounded like rasping ice. “Maybe not. But still take a word of advice from an old fool. Give her the icicle back, before she destroys you. What concern is her realm to you – or the people who live there in her thrall?”
Tamsin still shook her head. Her decision stood fast. At once there was a new energy in her, flaring up like flames from the ashes of a cold fireplace. “You know that it is not about her realm. Not anymore.” She was silent a moment. “Is she here already? In St. Petersburg?”
He nodded. “This snow was brought by her. The snowflakes are talkative, when one feeds them.”
“Where is she staying?”
He told her.
Tamsin pulled her crumpled top hat straight and stood up from the bench.
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