The Passage to Mythrin 2-Book Bundle by Patricia Bow Read Free Book Online Page A

pulled a wad of black leather from his parka pocket. He held it out. She didn’t take it.
    â€œWhat’s that, mitts? I don’t wear mitts.”
    â€œCeleste says you do. You know what that means. Besides, they’re not mitts, they’re gloves.”
    He stood there in front of her, holding out the squashed handful, blocking the sidewalk. He looked more than usually solid. As if he was prepared to keep her there all day, if he had to. She sighed deeply, took the gloves, and pulled them on. They were thick black leather, worn to softness, and lined with fleece. Too big, but they felt amazing on her hands. “Yours?”
    â€œYeah. Used to be my dad’s. I figured there was nothing else in the closet I could get you to wear.”
    â€œYou got that right.” She shoved her gloved hands in her pockets and walked on, head down. It was irritating to have to admit Simon could be smart about some things. “They’re cool,” she muttered.
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œJust don’t lose them.” He pushed back a navy blue wool mitten to see his watch. “Still time to catch Ike before he goes off on his own.”
    â€œGo. I have to get back now.” She looked back along King Street. You could just see the top of their building from here, jutting above the lower roofs. What would the girl be thinking, all alone? That she’d been abandoned?
    â€œIke says you should come too.”
    â€œCome where? Why?”
    â€œHe won’t say, but I think I know. To the gorge. Where we saw that blue flare.”
    â€œWhy would I want to?”
    He shrugged. “You said you saw something. Something that we missed, I guess. Then you forgot it. Maybe going there will help you remember.”
    She thought back. Blue light, and something moving in front of it, and...
Do I really want to remember
? She caught her breath with a gasp and realized she hadn’t been breathing at all.
    A hand on her arm. “You okay?”
    She shook it off. “Of course I’m okay! It’s just — she’ll worry.”
    â€œSince we found her last night,” Simon said, walking beside her, “I’ve never seen her look worried. Not once.”
    Well, that was true.
    â€œIt won’t kill her to be by herself an hour.”
    That was true too. She hoped.

C HAPTER E IGHT
T HE S APPHIRE D OOR
    â€œA sane idea, I thought you said,” Simon said to Ike as he leaned over the stone wall at the end of Deacon Street and squinted down. The sun was out now, and the gorge in its ice drapings and fresh snow was a blaze of reflected light. Nobody was in sight besides themselves. In any other season, this strip of parkland between the gorge and the back fences of people’s houses would be busy with walkers. Now it was an arctic waste, snowy and deserted.
    â€œGo down there?” Ammy leaned over beside Simon. “We’ll kill ourselves!”
    â€œIt’s totally safe, if you have the right equipment. Like mountain climbing. Take this.” Ike put a ski pole in her hand and gave another one to Simon. “I’ll use the hiking pole. There’s an easy path to the bottom —”
    â€œYeah, straight down!” Ammy waved her pole in an arc.
    â€œâ€” and the cave itself shouldn’t be hard to reach.”
    â€œYou knew about this cave?” Ammy looked along the gorge, northeastward, towards the spot on the opposite cliff edge where they’d been standing last night.
    â€œI’m pretty sure it’s the one I picked out this morning, from the other side. C’mon.” Ike climbed over the wall and started down a steep path cutting slantwise down the face of the cliff. With one hand he grabbed hold of the cedars that grew between the rocks, and with the other he jabbed the hiking pole into the ice.
    Well, if Ike could do it.... Simon followed him. The veil of snow gave an extra slipperiness to the ribbons of ice that twined