Emilia went to the window. She cupped her hand around her face and peered into the darkness. Slow, fat flakes drifted lazily. Her breath fogged the glass and the tip of her nose chilled.

Maria scoffed. “Not in the summer it’s not.” Her casual tone sounded forced.

Emilia ignored her. She looked at Eddie. “Do you think...”

He nodded. “If our guess is right, winter is associated with water, which means the lake.”

“What are you two talking about?”

Emilia grimaced. “And me without a lucky guitar pick.”

“What do we do?” Eddie asked.

“I can’t do nothing. I have to go see if I can figure it out. I mean, last time a way presented itself, right?”

Eddie shrugged, uncertain. “I don’t like the idea of going out there without a plan.”

“We faced the Fiend of Air without a plan.”

“We did that not knowing we were about to face the Fiend of Air,” Eddie said. “Knowing what’s coming, we should at least think about it first.”

Emilia nodded as she headed for the hallway. Eddie followed. “Good idea. You think. I’ll act.” She hurried down the stairs, Eddie right behind her.

“That is an extraordinarily poor plan,” Eddie said.

“Well, we’re out of time. Unless you suppose the Fiend of Water will just leave us be until we come up with an idea?”

Eddie didn’t respond.

The building was empty. Their footfalls thumped down the steps and through the halls. The living room, which should have been full of kids watching a movie, was dark and empty. The building was silent. Emilia felt the weight of the falling snow upon its roof. The windows creaked.

“What the hell’s going on? Where is everybody?”

Emilia and Eddie turned to look back up the stairs where Maria stood a few stairs behind them.

Emilia cleared her throat. “Well... um...”

“We’ve gone back in time to last winter. The Fiend of Water will be awaiting us at the lake where Emilia will engage him in parahuman combat to retrieve a magical key which will unlock one fourth of the stone box,” Eddie said.

Maria and Emilia looked at him.

Eddie shrugged. “What? It’s true.”

Maria scoffed, looking at Emilia. “This is a joke, right?”

“I’m sorry, Maria. I didn’t think anyone else would get caught up in all this weirdness.” Emilia said. She was still furious with the girl, but didn’t want her getting hurt.

“You should stay here,” Eddie said to Maria. “It’ll be safer.”

“You think I can’t handle it?” Maria said.

Eddie winced and looked away.

“We don’t even know what’s going to happen,” Emilia said. “Last time we won on air-guitar and perseverance.”

“Well then you’ll need all the help you can get,” said Maria.

Emilia shrugged. “If you like. I can’t say what the best way to handle this will be.”

“I have a suggestion,” said Eddie. “This time we should stop by and get the bows.”

Emilia grimaced but nodded. She didn’t like that she might have to shoot the Fiend of Water, whoever that ended up being. She didn’t want to hurt anybody.

“This seems pretty serious,” Maria said.

Emilia nodded. “Maybe.”

They made their way through the dark living room, bumping into couches, stumbling in the dark to the front doors of the Commons. Outside, large fat snowflakes fell softly to the ground where they formed a thin white carpet. It was near pitch dark, only faint, diffuse moonlight filtering through heavy snow clouds, and though the air was cold, it was not bitterly so.

For several minutes they stared at the unfamiliar sight of snow at summer camp. They might have stood like that for a quite a bit longer if someone didn’t take the first step and, Emilia figured, that’d have to be her.

She led the way through the courtyard and around the Main Hall leaving a trio of footprints in the snow. It was cold, but not a cold as it could have been. Emilia recalled hearing once that if it was too cold, it couldn’t snow. Something about moisture in the air. Still, she was in shorts and tshirt, which was hardly winter-gear. She wished she’d grabbed the hood she’d used in the rainstorm.

As they fell into the shadow of the large building, the sparse moonlight, Emilia stumbled over an unseen rock.

“Hang on,” said Eddie. He fumbled in the shadows, then a bright LED lit their way.

“You brought your smart phone to summer camp?” Maria said.

Eddie shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

“How do you charge it?”

“There are some old outlets behind the couches upstairs in the Commons.”

At the archery shed, Emilia’s eyes lit upon the padlock and she gave a grumble of frustration. Of course it was locked, it was always locked, she should have remembered. It wasn’t that big a padlock though.

“Maybe there’s a rock or something I can smash it open with,” she said.

Maria laughed. “That’s your plan? Smash open the lock?”

“If you’ve got a better idea, go for it.”

“I’ll handle this.” She reached into her back pocket and withdrew a small, wrapped, bundle, almost like a wallet. She opened the bundle and produced a pair of small, spindly tools.

Emilia felt her shoulders tingle and her fingertips prick and she took a slow, deep breath through her nose, holding it just a moment. She recognized that tingle and tried to hold to it without grasping too tightly. She conjured the mental image of the trading cards in her mind: Angler, Archer, Athlete, Guitarist. And next to them, she imagined Maria, lock picks in hand, smirk prominent, purple hair vibrant.

Maria inserted first one tool, then the other. Emilia couldn’t quite see what the other girl did, but her fingers twitched and she knew she was getting a sense for it.

“You’re a lockpick?” said Eddie. “Neat.”

Maria opened the door and by the light of Eddie’s smartphone, she and Emilia each grabbed themselves a bow.

“Do you want one?” Maria asked Eddie, looking uncertain but pitched her voice in an encouraging tone.

Eddie laughed. “We’re probably all safer if I’m not firing arrows in a high stress situation.”

“There should be some quivers in here,” Emilia said. They didn’t often use the quivers because there was little need when they were taking the arrows only as far as the archery range a few steps. Even so, Frankie liked to get them out occasionally and show everyone the different ways they could be worn and used.

They dug about several moments more until they found what they needed. Soon, each of the girls had a cheep, plastic quiver on her back filled with a bundle of blunted arrows, and a simple fiberglass bow in hand. Emilia concentrated on the Archer in her mind and strung her bow like she’d been doing it for years. Emilia beamed. Frankie wasn’t nearby, but she’d managed to string the bow. Maybe it was a small thing. Maybe it was because she’d been practicing. But maybe it meant she was getting better with her powers.

Maria struggled to bend the bow to the string. Emilia bit her tongue on an offer of help. They seemed to have achieved a momentary truce and she didn’t want to set the other girl off. After a few moments more, Maria managed to bend the bow and hook the string.

Armed, they set off for the lake by the light of Eddie’s smart phone.

* • •

The snow came heavier the closer they got to the lake, accumulating faster, drifting through still air. The footprints they left had been millimeters on the way to the range. On the way to the lake, their footprints were nearly an inch. The crunching snow was the loudest sound in the otherwise still wood about camp.

Emilia tried to stay loose, not letting her body or her mind tense. She found herself in the lead and took them around the north side of the lake, keeping an eye out for glowing eyes.

“Who do you suppose it’ll be?” Emilia whispered to her left where Eddie crept.

“Bryce Stillwell,” said Eddie.

“Because his last name includes the word ‘well’?”

“Also his first name rhymes with ice.”

Emilia shook her head. “I get it. But… that just seems both convenient and convoluted. I’m beginning to think someone is playing an elaborate game.”

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They were on the far side of the lake near Emilia’s favored fishing spot when a large shadow emerged from the trees. She came to a sudden halt and reached for an arrow over her shoulder. She had it nocked and drawn before she realized it was not the Fiend of Water but a stag.

The beast was difficult to make out in the deep shadows of the wood about the lake. Even as the stag emerged, the faint moonlight wasn’t enough to illuminate it fully. Eddie lifted his smart phone, shining his light at it. The stag turned its great head their way. A pair of massive antlers curled from its head and it snorted, raising a puff of steam.

“Put your light down,” Emilia hissed.

Eddie muffled the light against his chest and Emilia blinked in the sudden darkness.

The stag snorted again and picked its way toward the lake, its hooves nearly silent in the snow. They watched as the great creature walked to the edge of the lake, then stepped out onto the ice. There was a sound like cracking wind chimes from down a great stone hallway and Emilia tensed. The stag lowered its head and whuffed at the snow-covered ice as it took several more steps.

“What’s it doing?” Maria asked.

“I’m surprised the ice enough to hold it,” Eddie said.

Emilia suddenly remembered the antlers poking from the surface of the lake and shook her head. “It isn’t.” The arrow she had nocked when the beast emerged from the shadows was still against her bowstring. She angled her bow to volley the arrow, drew, and released. The arrow zipped into the dark, scattering snowflakes.

“What the hell?” said Maria. “Aren’t we going to need those?”

Emilia didn’t respond. She looked at the stag, still picking carefully across the ice, listening hard. Soon her ears picked up a faint, buzzing, hum, then a resounding crack as the blunted arrowhead struck the surface of the ice. In the still quiet of windless snowfall, the sound was like a gunshot, startling them all, including the stag. A great, slow creak shivered from the lake. The stag shook its head, backing up several steps to the edge of the ice.

Emilia smiled, a small bloom of pride in her chest. She took a breath and imagined the cold smelled like mint and pine.

The stag found the shore, but rather than head back to the wood, it stopped short then banked hard right and galloped off with a hopping sort of run, surprisingly graceful, dance-like, for a creature so large.

Emilia got the impression something had spooked it, but before she could look was struck heavily in the back. The breath oophed from her as her limbs splayed, her torso thrust forward. She pitched chest forward into the snow sliding across the frozen ground. Arrows from her quiver skittered and scattered through the snow. For several desperate seconds, she was frozen with shock and cold. She tried to force her body up, to snatch up an arrow, turn and defend herself.

Fingers numb, she grabbed an arrow out of the snow as she got her knees and turned. By some miracle, she’d managed to hang on to her bow, and she raised it, fumbling with her snow-slick grip to nock the arrow.

Bryce Stillwell was shorter than Aaron Drake, and a bit broader. He had dark, shaggy hair and pale brown skin. As the Fiend of Water, he was limned with pale blue light, making him easy to see in the dark. His eyes glowed with the same light. He held his hands out, cupped, to collect snow and the falling flakes came to him, creating a sphere in his hands. That’s what must have hit her: a snowball.

Emilia drew her arrow, sighted, and loosed, but her breath was uneven and her grip numb and her arrow sailed high over the Fiend of Water. He laughed, the sound bubbling deep in his chest and echoing off the trees.

Emilia reached behind her blindly for another arrow. Though her fingers were numb with cold. After several seconds of groping, something bumped against her hand. She snatched for it and got it on the second try. The Fiend of Water stepped toward her, movements smooth, fluid. The snowflakes, rather than stick to him, disappeared at his touch like a drop of rain on the windshield suddenly absorbed by another.

Hands shaking, Emilia pushed herself to her feet. She tried to summon the image of the Archer. She tried to take a deep calming breath. She tried to nock her arrow. She managed none of the three. Her concentration shattered like an icicle on frozen concrete.

The Fiend of Water raised his summoned snowball in one hand, preparing to hurl it at her. His grin vanished as he stumbled forward, struck from behind. And then again. Blinking away freezing tears, Emilia could see a bright flash of light from behind the Fiend of Water. With a snarl like ice cubes against glass, the Fiend of Water spun to the light and hurled his snowball.

The light blinked out.

Eddie shouted.

Emilia heard the buzz of a third arrow fired, but it sailed over the Fiend of Water to skitter onto the lake. Maria had come to her rescue.

Emilia bit her tongue to stop her teeth chattering. She looked down at her bow, and with a careful, deliberate motion, nocked her arrow. She closed her eyes and forced herself to forget everything, that she didn’t have a magical guitar pick, that the Fiend of Water stood only a few feet away, even that it was snowing. She imagined she stood at the archery range in full summer, Frankie Crabtree’s voice in her ear. She imagined taking a breath, drawing her bow, sighting her target, and releasing, all in one fluid motion, for a perfect shot. The mental trading card sprang to mind. And though her fingers were numb and her clothes were soaked and tears froze upon her cheeks, Emilia’s shot flew true.

The arrow stuck the Fiend of Water in the back of the head. There was a crack of impact like the arrow on the frozen lake. He staggered. But rather than turn to face her, he reached back with his right hand, twisting his shoulder in a way that shouldn’t have been possible, and hurled a snowball at her. Emilia tried to dodge aside, but the cold made her reflexes slow. She took the snowball on her left shoulder. It was not light and powdery, but a packed ball of ice crystals that exploded on impact. It spun her about and she staggered hard.

For a moment she was frozen, and she watched the Fiend of Water step into the woods, pursuing Maria and Eddie. His movements were graceful, effortless.

Leave them alone. I’m the hero. I’m the one you want.

She forced herself to move against the cold locking her joints. Her knees crackled and her elbows popped as she pushed against the weight of lethargy. She stumbled after the Fiend of Water.

“Hey…” But it was like shouting in a dream. The will was there but her body wouldn’t respond.

“Hey.” She could just make out the Fiend of Water through the trees, his body glowing blue, snowflakes swirling into his body. “You’re a parahuman,” she growled at herself. “Use your damn powers.” A card flashed through her mind, the Archer. Her limbs loosened, her body quickened.

“Hey! I’m right here! The fiends are supposed to test their mettle against the hero, right? I’m right here, asshole!”

The Fiend of Water stopped and turned. Its glowing blue eyes blinked at her like raindrops splashing in a puddle. Then he came for her, sliding around the trees in between with a grace outmatching anything Emilia had ever witnessed. Emilia had one more arrow in hand and her fingers were too numb to shoot, but she swung her bow as he got close. She’d have connected if not for that supernatural grace allowing him to duck aside. He put his right hand on her throat and his left balled in her shirt. He pushed her so hard her feet left the ground and when her back slammed into a tree, it punched the air from her. Her vision went snowy and her skin cold.

Emilia shook her head to clear it. When she could see, the Fiend of Water’s face was inches from her, glowing blue eyes a hypnotic swirl of cold and ice, inviting her to lay in a blanket of snow and sleep. Cold spread from her throat and chest. Ice crystals spread from his grip upon her: across each shoulder, down her sternum, and up her chin. The Fiend of Water laughed like bubbling water under crackling ice. She imagined Mrs. Fir finding her body in a couple months when the snow melted.

“No.” The voice came from far off. “You’ll hit Emilia."

She heard the hum of an arrow as it sailed past, into the darkness. And again, thunking into a tree. And then the Fiend of Water twitched so an arrow that would have hit his right shoulder struck the tree by Emilia’s face instead. She didn’t flinch. She couldn’t. Her body was numb. She couldn’t struggle. She couldn’t think. All she wanted to do was close her eyes and...

A barking sort of grunt jolted her to consciousness, and a curved spear hooked the Fiend of Water away from her. It twisted and lifted and tossed him aside with surprising ease and grace. In the next moment, the stag stood between them.

The spear resolved itself into the beast’s great antlers. It was broad, imposing, smooth, and graceful. Despite its size, the creature moved like a dancer, deliberate, graceful. And best of all its antlers glowed with a pale, blue light. Whereas the Fiend of Water’s eyes were the harsh blue of an arctic hurricane, the stag’s antlers glowed with the calm blue of a placid lake.

Emilia could not figure out what connection a stag’s horns might have with water or winter, she could not figure out why they would be key to the conflict, but she was grateful nonetheless to have the Fiend of Water’s hands off her, to have the icy slowness draining from her chest.

She staggered away from the tree and stumbled. She put a hand out to steady herself and it rested against the flank of the stag. He was warm and his warmth flowed into her. The Fiend of Water stood from where he’d been tossed, flowing up as though he had no joints, no skeleton.

The stag shifted, readied, then charged.

The Fiend of Water tried to dodge aside, throwing a snowball at the stag, but the graceful sweep of the beast’s horns was too much. It caught the Fined of Water on its right-most point and dragged down, pushing him against the snowy ground, then up against a tree, pinning him to the bole. The snowball the fiend had thrown went wide, striking the ground, slicking it with ice. The stag pushed with its rear hooves, driving the point of its antler into the tree behind the fiend. The Fiend of Water’s eyes went wide, shining blue, and he gasped, like an icy wind.

The stag shook its head and the set of antlers pinning the Find of Water to the tree snapped off. Emilia started, wincing in empathy, but the stag just shook its head again, backing up several steps. The antlers that’d snapped off were still stuck fast to the tree through the Fiend of Water who squirmed and writhed, both hands around the antler in its chest. Ice radiated from his hands down the length of the antlers, but the fiend’s struggles slowed and stopped and finally he hung limp.

The stag shook its head and his other set of antlers dropped to the ground. It turned and looked at Emilia, snorted a puff of steam, and bounded into the woods.

Emilia approached the fiend of water, still as a pond on a quiet day. The light had gone from his eyes. She reached a hesitant hand to the still-glowing antlers, but before she could touch them, the body of the fiend liquefied, splashing to the ground and washing over her shoes. Emilia grimaced, and not just because of the cold and wet.

“What the fuck?!” Maria’s voice scattered through the wood. “What did you do to him? You killed him!”

Emilia ignored her for the moment, taking hold of the antler in both hands and wrenching it from the tree. She watched as their form shivered and shifted and soon she held an old style key. It was silvery blue with wavy teeth, a spiral haft, and a bulbous pommel. She turned to Maria, who stared at her, eyes wide.

“I didn’t. That wasn’t really Bryce, it just looked like him.”

Maria shook her head. “How do you know?”

“It’s what happened to Aaron,” Eddie said. “He just dissolved into air and the next time we saw him he was fine.”

Maria took a deep breath, then another. She shivered with cold, teeth chattering.

* • •

Emilia slipped the silvery key into her jeans pocket. She was soaked through, but at least she was no longer freezing. In fact, as she looked around, she realized the snow was gone as well, replaced with speckles of rain and soggy forest floor.

“We should head back to the Commons,” Emilia said. “I think we’re back in summer.” She led them around the lake in silence.

After a while, she slowed a bit to walk next to Maria. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. Earlier. In the library. It’s only just happened, shapeshifting and fighting fiends and I’m still getting used to it. I would really appreciate if you didn’t tell anyone. For now at least.”

Maria didn’t say anything.

As they came around the lake and could see lights through the woods from the girls’ side of camp and the Commons, Emilia felt tension drain from her shoulders.

Maria sighed. “That was… I won’t say anything.” She sprinted for the Commons, leaving Emilia and Eddie behind.

Emilia stopped and looked at Eddie, who shrugged.

“Should we use the key now?”

Eddie nodded, a small smile lighting his expression.

“Why are you so chipper? I nearly froze to death.”

“But you didn’t freeze and now you’re halfway done with the quest. You’re going to open the box, Mimic.”

Emilia started at the name. It felt good. It felt right. But she still wasn’t used to it.

Together, they walked to the empty courtyard, filtered moonlight lit the way. The rain had stopped. As they approached, a faint blue light radiated from within the keyhole second from the left. She pulled the key from her pocket and, after a thought, held it out to Eddie.

“Do you want to do this one?”

Eddie’s eyes went wide and he shook his head. “I’m not the hero.”

“Are you sure? That poem wasn’t big on specifics and I couldn’t have done any of this without you.”

Eddie shook his head again, more firmly this time. “You’re the one who’s supposed to unlock the box.”

Emilia squared her shoulders and inserted the key into the box. A smell like mint and pine wafted from the box. The groove around the top shone with blue light, and the sixteen-point star appeared upon its lid in shifting blue and gold light. A deluge of rain pounded upon the box for several seconds, soaking the both of them.