Page 8 of The Midnight Blizzard (The Christmas Chronicles)

I couldn’t help looking around nervously the closer Jack and I got to the records room the next morning. Each time we passed a guard, I found myself beaming a little too brightly and nodding a little too vigorously, so eager to avoid detection that I overcompensated and likely aroused more suspicion because of it. How many recognized me from my previous inquiries about the records room? Would they know what I was planning?

The plaque on the wall slowly came into view as we made our way along the long, empty corridor with the enormous window showing the interior of the records hall. I stared through the glass, where shelves upon shelves were loaded with scrolls of parchment. I would finally be able to search for the will. “You’re sure you can bring me here?”

“No,” Jack said, looking just as nervous as I was as he withdrew a key. He looked over his shoulder and hastily unlocked the door. “But I didn’t ask because I have a good idea what the answer will be. Better to ask forgiveness than permission, right? No scribes are scheduled to be here all morning. ”

With a metallic grinding noise, the lock’s bolt slid back, and the door creaked open, allowing a gust of slightly dusty air to swirl out into the hallway. Jack and I piled into the room, quickly shutting the door behind us.

“First you miss your meeting yesterday, then you dodge the king, and now you’re sneaking a woman into a forbidden room?” I clicked my tongue. “How did a rogue like you ever manage to become an advisor? And here I was thinking you were all respectable.”

Jack spread his arms wide. “The benefits of being an orphaned mage who is friends with a prince. I can get away with a surprising amount so long as I give my opinion on mage-related laws. How else do you think I have time to train my dogs?”

“Oh, I thought that was time you were supposed to be in those important meetings you missed,” I joked, looking out the windows at the corridor beyond. I fell silent, then dropped to the ground as footsteps approached. Jack crouched beside me, out of the line of sight if someone were to peer through the window.

The footsteps drew closer, then slowed and paused for a moment outside the window. I saw their flickering shadow cast on the shelving as I plastered myself closer to the wall, praying that we wouldn’t be seen. I couldn’t even breathe. Was it a guard? A scribe? Someone completely different? After several long moments, the footsteps started up again and faded down the hallway.

“Why are you hiding?” I laughed quietly at Jack. “You’re allowed to be in here, remember?”

“I forgot,” Jack snickered, then pulled me to my feet. Both of us stared out the window at the hallway.

“What if we’re seen?” I couldn’t stop my insides from feeling like they were alive with crickets, all crawling or hopping over each other. Each tiny noise from beyond the records room made me whip my head around and stare for the source of the sound. “If anyone looks in that window, they’ll know I’m not allowed. Is there a cloth or something we can use to cover it?” I stared around, as if hoping a canvas would leap from the shadowed corners and present itself to me.

“You want to be alone with me, with no risk of interruption?” Jack teased. “How scandalous. A contestant enticing the prince’s advisor into a dark, secluded room might start some rumors.”

I widened my eyes dramatically and lowered my voice seductively. “What sort of rumors would those be? They can’t be any worse than rumors about an evil mage who enchanted the royal family to elevate his position and status.”

“What about a beautiful, unmarried woman being caught alone with said evil mage?”

Jack slowly reached his hand toward me, just above my shoulder, with his eyes locked on mine. Law or no law, I wanted him to kiss me. I adjusted my position slightly so my arms wouldn’t get trapped between us and tilted my chin upward slightly. When was the last time I’d chewed a peppermint leaf? Was my breath suitable for kissing?

My hope was smothered as Jack placed his hand on the large glass window instead of at the back of my head. Immediately, tiny ice crystals formed where he touched, growing and intertwining as swirling patterns and elegant, lace-like designs thickened and branched into mesmerizing shapes. The frost crystals evolved from what looked like enormous snowflakes plastered against the window into a thick layer of ice that shielded us from the view of anyone who might walk by.

I placed a fingertip on the ice and glided it across the surface, marveling at how it was cold but not wet. It was like a thick, opaque glass.

“Satisfactory?” Jack asked, then added, “It won’t melt.”

“Really?” I asked in hushed tones, pressing my entire hand against the ice, testing his claim. “That’s amazing.”

Jack’s hand was still on the conjured ice. “I can make it warm too. Here, keep touching it.”

A moment later, the temperature began to elevate until it was pleasant to the touch.

“I don’t think this even counts as ice anymore,” I said, slowly running my hand over the glass-like surface. “You can’t have warm ice.”

Jack’s hand brushed against my hair and I went stock-still. A wave of heat quickly enveloped my body, warming me even faster than the ice.

My heart palpitated frantically. Anyone would be able to read my mind right then with how poorly I was hiding my feelings. Breathing normally was impossible; I either forgot how or else would inhale short, tight breaths that did nothing to help me think rationally. We stood so near each other that I could feel his body heat. The fresh peppermint scent that always lingered about him hovered so tantalizingly close I could have tasted it. Forget the ice wall Jack had just conjured; I was going to melt into a puddle myself before long. There was every chance I had steam gushing out of my ears.

Jack’s gaze slid over my face, his hand still on the ice, but he didn’t lean in any closer, though there was a deep longing in his eyes. Oh icicles, was he waiting for me to make a move? We were quite alone. How far could I lean in before I would be seen as too forward?

As I debated the various options at lightning speed, Jack inclined his head a fraction of an inch so our noses nearly brushed. Eagerly, I began to rise to my tiptoes, but?—

“Didn’t we come here to look for your father’s will?” Jack’s voice was quiet but firm.

The spell between us broke. Trying valiantly to act as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, I bobbed my head up and down. “Of course,” I said in a rush, trying to sink back down onto my heels and distance my face from Jack’s while hoping that my secret desire hadn’t been too obvious, though I knew it had been. “I was just trying to think of where…where to start.”

He cleared his throat. “I suggest in recent legal forms.” Jack gestured toward a part of the wall, where hundreds of scrolls were rolled tightly and forced into tiny cubby holes. “I didn’t find it in the incoming documents yesterday when I looked, so it must have already been processed. If the scribes are doing their jobs correctly, they should all be labeled.”

It seemed that only a portion of the scribes did their jobs correctly. Some scrolls were neatly labeled and organized, while others had been carelessly rolled and shoved into any open spot, with either a sloppily scrawled label or none at all, and a few were in the incorrect cubby.

I opened scroll after scroll, scanning each for the name then re-rolling it tightly to replace it exactly where I’d found it. Behind me, I heard Jack shifting papers around as well, but the silence stretched long between us, crackling with unspoken tension.

Questions raced around my mind, each confusing me more than the last. Jack had to feel something for me or he wouldn’t be helping me as much as he had already done. If he did, was it purely dedication to following the law that held him back, or were my feelings different from his? Did he even know how strong my feelings were becoming, or did he merely think my flirtations were a passing fancy? But even if I was able to convince him I was sincere, it would still endanger his position if we were found out.

Though I was finally in the records hall, the place I’d longed to infiltrate even before arriving at the castle, I couldn’t focus properly. I stared hard at an unfurled scroll, trying to bully my brain into reading the words scribbled there in faded ink, but a haze fogged my vision, clearing only when I glanced over my shoulder at Jack. He was far too distracting for my good.

We continued searching for the entire morning, scouring each document from the last five years, and finally, we located a tiny cubby that was labeled Lord Cedric Frost , but it was empty. Frantically, I pulled out all the scrolls from the surrounding cubbies, hoping it had simply been incorrectly filed, but there was nothing. I wanted to cry from the frustration of it. I knew he had a will, and he had to have sent something, otherwise there wouldn’t be a cubby labeled with his name. He had shown the will to me two years ago. If I couldn’t find it by the time the school’s license expired in three days, I didn’t know what I would do.

“The scribes will be here soon,” Jack warned me. “I’ll need to take down the ice.” He moved over to the window, placing his hand against it once more while I quickly refiled everything I’d taken out, glaring at the empty slot where the will should have been. Jack reversed his ice formation process. The ice crystals shrank and returned to his hand until the transparent glass was all that was left.

“I didn’t find anything,” I told him, disappointment gnawing at me as I ran my fingers over the empty shelf.

“What will happen once you do?” Jack stared at the empty cubby hole.

“I’ll call the authorities and force my stepmother to turn over the inheritance so I can reopen the school.”

“And then?” Jack made his way over to the back exit.

“Then I’ll teach at the school. If I’m the heiress of the Frostwood estate, I’ll be able to teach at the manor instead of in the tiny one-room schoolhouse.”

We left the records room, looking around anxiously as Jack locked the door again before we hurried away. For several minutes, we walked in silence, each lost in our own thoughts.

“What if you stayed here?” Jack asked quietly.

I wasn’t sure what to say. “Then the children I teach would need room and boarding too. They don’t have anywhere else to go to learn.”

“What if I convinced the king and queen to open a school for mages? I could help teach.”

I closed my eyes. It was too tantalizing a dream to have dangled in front of me. Just being around Jack for a few days was enough to drive me mad. If I was around him constantly without being able to truly be with him, it would be sheer torture.

“If it was possible, I would love that. But until I find the will…”

“I know. It was just a thought. If you could convince Stephen to allow it…then we could at least see each other sometimes.”

“I don’t know if I would be content with that,” I admitted quietly, my footsteps halting in a shadowy corridor. A gentle snow drifted down to collect on the windowpanes outside. There was a hush in the castle that I wished would remain absolute. If only Jack and I could speak freely without the risk of anyone overhearing.

Jack’s jaw tensed. “Nor I. But there’s nothing else we can do about that.”

Knowing that he felt similarly was going to drive me insane if we couldn’t be together. “We wouldn’t have to tell anyone.” I knew it was indecent and forbidden, but if I had to continue to pretend as though I didn’t have feelings for Jack, it would eat me alive. “We could keep it secret.”

“Secrets are always discovered in the end,” Jack said sadly. “It would only be a matter of time before we were discovered.”

“I know,” I sighed. Then I perked up. If secrets couldn’t be kept hidden indefinitely, and my stepmother hadn’t given anything to the scribes for safekeeping… “Do you think my stepmother is keeping the will in her room?”

Jack’s eyes flicked up to stare at the ceiling as he considered. “I would, if it were me.”

“If only we had a way to get in there to find out.”

“We could. It depends on how many rules you’re willing to break,” Jack said with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

I shot him a look. “The roguish mage encourages a refined lady to compromise her ethics and engage in acts of burglary? Was my father aware of your flexible ethics?”

“Oh no, I always had to be dignified and proper around him. And it wouldn’t be burglary, exactly. I call it…reclaiming stolen property, and technically, you’re still supposed to be sleeping there anyway. It’s in Octavius’s records.”

“Yes, that sounds much better.”

“I have a master key.”

My mouth hung open. “Are you serious about this?”

“I don’t see any alternative, do you?”

I thought, but no solution came to mind.

Jack shot me a conspiratorial look. “We’ve already bent a few rules already. What’s one more?”