The leaping crystal, one-sided and glittering blue, leapt Sophie to Dex's house. Rimeshire. It had been years since she'd been here, and she still didn't want to think about anything in that time period. I thought then was bad. It's nothing compared to now. Shaking, she collapsed on the ground, letting tears freeze to her cloak in the icy air. What had Fitz meant by that note? What did he want? Why had this happened? She curled in to the fetal position on the snowy ground, letting the wind bite at her wet cheeks. How long can I lay here before someone finds me? Probably not long, since her loud sobs echoed around the clearing.

She was forced back in to consciousness a while later, too cold to register much except that someone was shaking her. She pried her eyelids open, for they had been sealed together with frost and tears, and squinted into the snowy sky. Kesler's worried face was above hers, and as she watched, he scooped her up like she weighed nothing and carried her toward the house. She shivered in his arms, licking her frostbitten lips. It was so cold. She felt nearly comatose, her eyelids drooping shut as he ran, the last thing she heard his yells.

"Dex! Juline! Come help! It's Sophie!"

She awoke some hours later, her vision swimming in and out in blurry hazes. She was wearing blue-striped pajamas, several sizes too large, and she was in a warm bed. She could hear pages flipping, and she raised her head above the fluffy blankets.

Dex was sitting across the room, next to a tray of steaming food, reading a book with black symbols on the cover. He looked up when she stirred, setting his book aside.

"Hi."

It had all come back to her now: Fitz, the light-leaping, collapsing, Kesler carrying her inside. Her face flamed red and she wanted nothing but to burrow back under the sheets, but she sat up, curling her knees to her chest, and looked at her hands, pinching them to make sure they weren't still frostbitten.

"You should drink something."

He handed her a steaming mug and she drained it, burning her tongue in the process.

"Thanks. And Dex, I have a question."

"What?"

"What do you know about Fitz?"

Dex ran his hand through his hair. "Wonderboy?"

"Dex, please."

He grinned at her, tugging on the ends of his hair. "He's been…well…different since you were taken. Quieter. He cuts himself off more, spends more time alone. No one really seems all that worried about him. What is it?"
She must have paled. "Do you have my clothes?"
"Sure."
He handed her a wet, cold pile of black. "My mom hasn't washed them yet. Sorry."

"No, it's fine."

She stuffed her hands in all of the pockets, finally coming up with her scrap of paper. "I was…cold the other day, Graduation day, and he gave me his cape. This was in it." She held it out to him, and he grabbed the note.

His face drained of colour as he read.

"And he wrote this? Sophie, you have to talk to him."

She put her head on her knees. "He doesn't listen to anyone. Not me, not Biana or Alden or Della. He really thinks this, Dex. I don't know how to stop him."

"Give me the full story."
She looked up at him. "There isn't really one. I ran away at graduation, he came, he gave me his cloak, he left, I found the note, I went to his house, he yelled at me, he told me to take the crystal on the cabinet, it leaped me here."

"That's not much to go on."

"Nope."

"But it was a stupid place to leap you to. Rimeshire is below twenty on a good day. We almost lost you."

Really?

"How long has it been?"
"A day and a half, give or take."

"Dex, cold I ask a favour?"

"Sure."

"Can I stay a while?"
"As long as it takes."