Mara closed her eyes, and tried not to flinch. Tried to be calm–a peaceful piece of floating debris in the river–as the light flashed against her eyelids. She didn’t dare breathe, lest the cloud of her breath give them away. She didn’t dare think of Nick, who was so helpless and innocent, caught between the treacherous cold of the river and cold treachery of the Order.

She turned her focus to the only thing that did not frighten or hurt her–the warmth. Warmth against her back. Warmth, drawn tight across her belly. Warmth, brushing against her legs amidst the pitch black cold below. Warmth in the heartbeat, thumping against her back. In the shallow puffs of air against her neck. Was it his magic, or was it just him? She still didn’t know.

“You can open your eyes.”

She blinked them open and found the distant beam, farther upstream now. “Will they be back?” she slurred, her lips numb.

“Maybe, but not for a while. Are you alright to hold yourself up?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll stay close. Give it a try. You can kick good and hard, now that you’re on your back. Keep your knees straight and kick from your hips.”

He guided her hand to the rope attached to the log, and then his weight, his warmth, dropped away from beneath her. She immediately began to kick, hard as he’d advised. Eli helped her adjust her grip so that she could hold herself and Nick out of the water, asked one more time if she was alright, and then disappeared. Seconds later, she felt the tug as they started moving once more against the current.

She marked time by the occasional puff of Nick’s exhalations against her cheek, by the rhythm of her own kicking, and by Eli’s check-ins. Twenty kicks between each breath, one hundred breaths between each check-in. The cold rapidly returned to the innermost parts of her, encasing her heart, spreading frost tracks through her brain, cracking her bones. The gift of heat that occasionally crawled up her limbs barely touched it–a candleflame in a blizzard.

Eli’s voice rang in her ears, far away and senseless. She kicked and felt Nick’s breath and held onto the rope and counted. “Mara…” She understood her name, but nothing else he said. Pressure wrapped around her wrist. Prickling heat crept up her arms. She kicked and felt Nick’s breath and held onto the rope and counted.

The heat hurt, as it hadn’t in the beginning. It poked needles into her skin and twisted her stomach, and she realized gradually, foggily, that this check-in had gone on longer than normal. She blinked her eyes open and found Eli at her hip–one hand on her wrist, the other on Nick’s back. He was higher up out of the water, almost as if he was–

“You can stand,” he said.

“Oh.” Her numb lips ached as she forced them around the single syllable.

“I’ll take Nick.”

She couldn’t let go of her son. If she did, the current would sweep him away. She’d had nightmare upon waking nightmare of the rope coming loose, her arms giving out, his body carried away from her, his little lungs filling with frigid water.

“I got him, Mara.”

“No.” She held Nick closer and forced her body to obey her, to stop kicking and twist in the water so her legs dropped down. Her feet were numb, but she felt the uneven pressure of the rocky ground beneath them. She stood, rising up from the cold water into air that felt somehow even colder. Water trickled down her arms and glued her shirt to her belly. She tripped over an errant rock and almost fell, but Eli’s arm was around her waist, holding her against him. More heat spread through her, everywhere they touched, the trickle opening up to a steady flow.

She could see the bank, now, the white rocks reflecting just enough starlight to distinguish themselves from the water. It was close. She forced herself to breathe, held Nick tighter, and kept walking.

Leaving the water was as painful as entering it, but she was numb to the discomfort, her senses aware of it but her mind unwilling to engage. She shivered and shuddered, stumbling over her aching feet, over the jumble of rocks.

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Then the rocks were at her back. How and when they had come to be there, she didn’t know. But there they were–the rocks at her back, the stars whirling over her head. Nick had gone warm, his breaths more regular. He sniffed in his sleep and cuddled closer to her, and she closed her eyes in relief, coming apart into water and sliding through the rocks to land amid a tangle of soft sheets, her body covered by a heavy duvet.

The covers lifted, letting in a wash of cool air, but glorious body heat followed, and Davy’s calloused hand slid across her belly. “I just added a log to the fire.”

She moaned in deep, delighted contentment as he wrapped his body around hers. She was so blessedly warm–

Something heavy dropped with a clatter of river rocks, somewhere by her feet. She peeled her eyes open to the canopy of stars. Davy’s heat was gone, the blankets were gone. Her body spasmed with cold, the only warmth in her world the heavy weight of Nick’s body on her chest. Her teeth didn’t even chatter, her jaw clenched so tight her molars ached.

More river rocks clattered, accompanied by the sound of heavy breathing. Shadows drifted about in the outskirts of her vision and she closed her eyes, desperate to return to the warmth of the dream.

“Mara.” She blinked her eyes open. A shadow blotted out the stars above her. Cold stone gripped her shoulder. For a moment, she thought this was some manifestation of death, come to escort her to the depths. “There’s another patrol coming. We need to move off the shore. I’m going to take Nick, and then I’ll come back for you.”

Not death. Just Eli. She waited for the press of warmth, but it never came, and she was too cold to resist when he tugged Nick from her arms. Too cold to keep her eyes open. So cold she was warm.

The deathly warmth broke apart like a shattered eggshell, releasing the world back into her consciousness, but the world was odd. Amorphous and shifting, twirling about her in a clumsy, swaying dance. Her body was heavy and floating at once, soaring and lingering. And then it was laid to rest in a thick beam of dark that hid even the light of the stars. Soothed by the stillness, she drifted. Not fully into sleep, but bobbing about on the surface of consciousness. She listened to the rustle of fabric, to rasping breath, to mumbled sounds that refused to coalesce into words.

She was aware, distantly, of a burning in the center of her that singed its way slowly outward. She flinched, her muscles locking, cramping in protest as the burn reached them.

“Shh, you’re okay,” the universe murmured, and she realized she was whimpering. She pressed her lips together and swallowed the pain. “You’re okay.”

She couldn’t be. How could she? Her body hurt as if she’d been beaten, pummeled to the brink of death. There were bloody bruises on her bones.

And then, there no longer were. But still, her muscles were tied into knots.

Until they no longer were. But still, her blood was an icy slush.

Until it longer was.

The pain faded, the spasms eased to shivers eased to gentle trembling. The world slid back into focus.

“Nick,” she croaked, reaching, but her hands met only cold stone. She struggled to sit.

“Easy.” The pressure on her shoulders was muted, and she realized she lay beneath a thick blanket. “He’s fine. You can sit, but go slowly.”

The world spun as she slowly eased to a sitting position, Eli’s hand on her shoulder to steady her. She swallowed with wince, her throat scratchy and dry. When she was upright, she saw a small, dark mass by her side. Nick. She reached out to rest her hand on his back. He wore dry clothing, his back rising and falling steadily beneath her touch.

“Thank you,” she rasped. “The patrol?” She looked around. She could make out little in the darkness, but from the shape of the shadows she could tell they were tucked between the cliff face and a patch of scrubby vegetation.

“They’ve passed.” He set a bundle in her lap. She ran her fingers over the individual objects as he spoke. “Water, food, and dry clothing. Change first. Then eat. Take it slow if you have to, but finish everything there, both food and water. Your body needs the energy.”

“Thank you.” Something about the urgency in his directions caught her attention. “You’re leaving?” she guessed.

“Just for a while. I have to find the trailhead. You’re alright?”

She was. Neither she nor Nick had drowned or been frozen to death or bashed to death against the rocks. The Order patrol had passed them by.

She reached out blindly and found Eli’s sleeve in the dark, following it to his wrist.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

He didn’t answer right away, tendons flexing against her palm, playing out some silent inner battle. Whatever the sides looked like in that battle, what finally won was a quiet, bemused, “It’s no trouble. And you won’t be thanking me for long. We still have to climb that.”

She looked in the direction she guessed he’d be pointing if it wasn’t so dark. The cliff loomed over them, a stark blackness that stretched up and out of sight. Climbing it during the day would be a fool’s game, Eli had explained. With Order patrols on the far banks, they would be comically easy to spot, outlined against the brown-red cliff face. They had to traverse the entire thing under cover of darkness.

Tonight.