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Skyfireflight16—Don't worry about Kristoff. I didn't intend to mess with him, though he did get kind of thrown under the bus for the sake of the plot. My plan was to mess with someone else, as you will see presently.

Arendelle and its peeps aren't mine.

Chapter 11

Anna had it too, this implicit and unconditional sense of trust in her sister—even when she found herself possessed by a childish fit of temper, which was presently the case. This was unusual for her. When it came to wearing her heart on her sleeve, Anna was many things, but one thing she was not was vindictive. Neither was she in the habit of holding on to resentment. But when Elsa knocked on the door to talk to her sister—really talk to her—Anna had refused to open it.

"Anna, please. Open the door."

"No."

"We need to talk."

"I don't want to."

Elsa sighed. She ached for her sister. It hurt that Anna wanted to shut her out, now, in her anger and her frustration. But she also couldn't blame her. Anna would return to her when she was ready, because that's who Anna was.

Except the person fuming and simmering behind this door was not really acting like Anna …

"I'll just get Kai to unlock the door from the outside," she threatened blandly, all the while thinking Control it, control it. Reign it in. Her palms tingled.

There was a silence on the other side. Then the door burst open and Anna flew into her arms, weeping messily.

"No you can't," she cried. "You can't get Kai."

Elsa shut her eyes. She felt her body slump under the weight of her sister—and of what she implied.

"Kai's ill?" she whispered. Anna nodded into her shoulder.

Dazedly, she lifted a hand and stroked her sister's knotted hair. What must she have been through, during all this time alone—or very nearly alone? Anna had been locked down under a sort of reverse quarantine, isolated from the city and from her only friend. And from her sister, whom she needed most. The queen had made sure she'd had Olaf for company, and Gerda and Kai to keep her somewhat informed. But it wasn't enough. It was never enough, and Elsa of all people understood this.

And now she no longer had Kai.

"Can I come in now?" she asked softly.

Anna pulled away and nodded again, sniffling moistly. She looked terrible, draped in her days-old nightgown and her hair an unbrushed morass of tangles. Her eyes were red-rimmed and inflamed, her cheeks pink.

Elsa frowned.

"Are you all right?"

"What?" Anna wiped her nose with the back of her wrist and led the queen into her room. "Yes. Just a little, you know, crazy."

Elsa wasn't so sure.

"Let me feel your forehead."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Anna—"

"I'm fine."

"I don't think you are."

She reached for her sister, but Anna deflected her hands. For a moment, they swatted at each other like bickering children, but then Elsa prevailed and swept her fingers briefly beneath Anna's fringe. What she felt sent her into a panic.

"You're burning up."

"I just haven't had any fresh air," came the accusatory reply. "In, like, ages."

Elsa ignored her. Instead, she grasped Anna fiercely by the wrist and pulled her toward the bed.

"Ow! Stoppit, Elsa. You're hurting me!"

But Elsa did not stop. She pressed her sister onto the bed and turned to rummage through her drawers for a clean nightgown. Finding one, she tossed it at Anna and then began to pace—just as her sister had done, and in this very room, before her.

Kristoff, Kai, Anna … Anna, Kristoff, Kai … and hundreds more of her people. Elsa couldn't help but acknowledge that these three meant more to her than any other, more than she could ever have thought possible over a year ago. Kai, who'd been a part of her life since the day she was born and who'd raised her and Anna like the daughters he never had. Kristoff, who'd forgiven her and befriended her, and who loved her sister in spite of all the times she blundered and flubbed and said the wrong thing.

And Anna … Anna, Anna. Oh, Anna!

"Put that on," she said now, waving vaguely at the garment. "And we need to get you some clean water. You must drink … and you probably need a bath."

Anna gaped indignantly. "I—"

But Elsa spoke over her. "It's the water," she explained, looking at her sister urgently. "The contagion is in the water."

Anna was having a hard time following. "Arendelle …"

"All of it. Everyone." Elsa brought her hands to her head. She was speaking in fragments, hardly aware of what she was saying. "We have to get you something else …"

"What about Kristoff?" Anna interrupted, unaware that she was repeating the exact same question he'd uttered in his last conversation with the queen. It startled Elsa, and she gaped for a moment, unable to form words.

"He's … all right," she stammered. "He's all right, Anna."

How could she tell her otherwise? Especially now? Anna's eyes raked her own, looking for signs of falsehood. Elsa swallowed hard. It had not been an outright lie, really. Kristoff was in a better state than Anna. Perhaps her sister had been exposed to the pathogen earlier than he had. Or perhaps the slow progression in him had to do with the fact that his temperature always ran a few degrees colder than anyone else's, a strange fact that had come to light after the events of that frozen summer ...

Not that the queen was at liberty to ponder these ideas at the moment.

Anna, meanwhile, felt cold in spite of the heat glaring off her skin. "Will they be OK?" she asked. "Kai and … and the others?"

She was afraid for herself, now, too. Elsa could tell. She could see it in Anna's pale, stricken face.

"We're working on it," she replied, moving to sit next to her sister and attempting to speak in a soothing voice. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

It felt like a lie.