Flame of Frost (The Caelestian Chronicles: Book #1)

Chapter 17 - Rest In Peace, Teddy Bear

"Control, Lex, control," Theora speaks through gritted, chattering teeth.

I focus on freezing the cobalt blue teddy bear sitting on Theora's palm, not Theora. She had to blast lightning to break the ice after the last five tries.

Restrain it, I tell myself. Control.

The icy air swirls around her body and then slowly, very slowly moves to her arm.

Nice and easy.

They get smaller and finally move to her palm. The bear becomes white and shrinks from the pressure of the swirling sleet. I let it get covered in layers and layers of ice till it becomes thick and stone hard.
A bead of sweat rolls down my temple.
Slowly, I pull back the reins of my ice chariot, until the icy air dismisses itself.

Opening my eyes, I find Theora beaming at me.
"Burn!" She yells as she tosses the block of once-upon-a-time-a-teddy-bear at my face.
Yelping, I hold up my hands to half catch it and half protect my face. As soon as it gets in contact with my hands, it erupts in flames and falls on the fresh grass, smoldering and charred.

"Don't do that to me," Grace points one finger at the bear. "You'll either break my nose or my fingers."

"Yeah, right." Theora laughs.

Grace changes to her Lunascier form and pulls out the silver dagger from her waist belt. She concentrates and it changes into a glowing silver sceptre. She holds it out to the spare shoe Theora is holding.
Suddenly, she bursts into giggles.

"Grace!" Theora snaps at her. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," Grace giggles again, the sceptre shaking along with her Neveim's form.

Theora narrows her eyes. "Try again, go."

Grace tries again, the sceptre glows a bit brighter and then goes back to normal.

"What's wrong with you?" Theora crosses her arms and stares at her.

Grace looks in my direction and says, "It's twenty-ninth. Would you now like to talk about it?"

"Uh..." I look at Theora, who looks at me as if she can see everything, right through me.

"What now?" Theora taps her foot impatiently.

I see Austin step back from the corner of my eye. I concentrate and turn back to my normal, non-Neveim self, which is now easier after two days of sheer practice.

"We have been thinking." I gulp. "That maybe, we all can go to the... you know..."

"The what?" Theora's voice, dangerously calm.

"...th-the ball."

There is a moment of silence, not unlike the calm before a storm. And then comes the storm. Lightning crackles and thunder booms in the sky. None of us need any words from Theora to guess what is going on in her head.

"Do I need to remind you that Stella's and Nathan's lives are in danger?" Theora booms, very much like the thunder. "Do I need to remind you that those vile creatures won't even think for a second before trying to use any method on them to extract information?"

Each of her words is like a stab at my heart. How could I have been so selfish to not think of them before myself?

Alacritas comes running into the backyard. She is dressed in my mom's jeans and shirt because it was weird for us to see her walking around the household in a white dress and it kept getting stuck to things. "What's wrong? I heard the yells and the thunder."