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“Now,” Dad said with a sternness that Meredith had never heard before

Mo chair

Meredith barely had ti capitulation when her father spoke again

“Your reed to tell us one of her fairy tales After all these years Like she used to ”

He looked at Mo it broke Meredith’s heart to see “The peasant girl and the prince, I think That was always my favorite one ”

“No,” Meredith said—or ht it She took a step back from the bed

Nina crossed the room and sat down on the floor at Moo As they’d both done

“Here, Mad,” Nina said, patting the floor “Come sit by me ”

Jeff was the next toarside him Only Meredith had yet to s work For decades she’d told herself that her ; now she had to ad those stories, and during the telling, she’d accidentally loved her mother That was the truth about why Meredith had stopped listening It hurt too much

“SitMeredoodle,” Dad said gently, and at the nicknaive way Woodenly, she crossed the roo, as far away from her mother as possible

In the rocking chair, Monarled hands tented in her lap “Her nairl A nobody Not that she knows this, of course No one so young can know such a thing She is fifteen years old and she lives in the Snow Kingdo frory knight ants to destroy it all ”

Meredith felt a chill h her She remembered suddenly how it once had been: Moht and tell them wondrous tales of stone hearts and frozen trees and cranes ed starlight Always in the dark Her voice was ether for a tione, the stories never spoken of

“He in to see the truth, it is too late The infection is already there; winter snow turns a terrible purplish black, puddles in the street grow tentacles and pull unwary travelers down into thefruit The fair villagers can do nothing to stop this evil They love their kingdom and are the kind of people who

keep their heads down to avoid danger Vera does not understand this How can she, at her age? She knows only that the Snow Kingdom is a part of her, like the soles of her feet or the palht, for soets out of bed quietly, so as not to waken her sister, and she goes to her bedroo it wide Froe In June, when the air sht itself is as brief as the brush of a butterfly’s wing, she cannot help iht future

It is the tihts, when at its darkest the sky is a deep, royal purple smattered with stars In these ather on the streets; lovers walk across the bridge Courtiers leave the cafés very late, drunk on ht