"Hey!" Jenny spluttered indignantly, as a snowball hit her on the face. Jasper laughed merrily, ducking behind their beat-up station wagon as she scooped up a handful of snow and tossed it at him, not bothering to crunch it down into a snowball. He ducked, but it couldn't save him from the spray of snow and ice that went flying as her impromptu scattershot hit the hood and splattered everywhere.

With a shriek of triumph, she dodged his next snowball and, racing around the car, tackled him before he could form another. A handful of snow went straight in his face, but he got the upper hand a second later, as jutting hand beneath her chin, he started tickling her. She fell over, scrambling backward in the snow as he chased after her with a laugh, and Jenny felt a shiver run down her spine. It was so cold, so damned cold.

She was trembling as she woke, her body curled up in a fetal position as her unconscious body tried to preserve what dregs of warmth remained in the room. But the cold suffocating the room was overwhelming, too much even for the blanket she had draped across her body.

Great puffs of vapor floated toward the ceiling as Jenny sighed and sat up stiffly, rubbing her frozen joints to generate some warmth. They were slow to respond, but with a bit of help from her magic, she brought the feeling back to them and rose to her feet. The first glimmers of dawn peeked through the yellowed window panes, so she decided to head downstairs and get a start on the cooking.

She stumbled drowsily to the door, but paused as she crossed the threshold, looking back at the room she'd just left in confusion. It was easily twenty, maybe thirty, degrees warmer in the hall, practically a tropical paradise in comparison to the room she'd slept in. Huh?

Doubting herself, she stepped back into the room, and her brow crinkled as the temperature seemed to remain the same. I must have imagined it, she finally decided, with a shake of her head. I was just too tired, that's all.

Putting the matter out of mind, she headed downstairs. Barbartu and Alberon were still asleep, so Jenny decided to start breakfast herself. As the water started to boil, she poured a few cups of oatmeal into the pot and started to add the fruit she'd chopped up.

"Whoah, whoah, whoah." Alberon emerged from his room and snatched her arm up just in time to prevent her from dumping a sliced banana into the pot. "Has no one ever taught you to cook? The fruit goes on the oatmeal after it's done, lassie."

"Maybe this is the way I like it," Jenny replied defiantly, too embarrassed to admit she didn't know how to cook oatmeal. It wasn't her fault; her mother had always preferred take-out to cooking, and once her father had spirited her off, she'd had servants to handle meals.

But Alberon was not deceived. "Ah, yes, there's nothing like a mouthful of hot, soggy bananas to start the morning off right," he replied drily. Then, catching a whiff of the oatmeal, he bent over, sniffing deeply. "Is that…you put salt in here, didn't you?"

"No, I put sugar," Jenny protested indignantly - even she knew better than that - but he grabbed the open bag of white powder on the counter and held it out to her.

"Dip your finger in it, and have a taste."

Her cheeks colored as salt filled her mouth.

"It's alright," he said kindly, taking pity on her as he pulled the cauldron off its hook and slogged outside to toss out. "We'll have our special skills, but maybe, next time, leave the cooking to me."

A few minutes later, a very different smell filled the ancient tavern as Alberon whipped up fresh ashcakes topped with honey and dates and a fresh pot of oatmeal seasoned with sugar and a spritz of cinnamon. The smell was enough to finally rouse Barbartu, putting a damper on their conversation.

But when breakfast was finished and the supplies cleaned up, the goddess finally went over her plan. "There are a few places we should search today," she said, as she spread a tattered map across a table in the abandoned dining hall. "We'll make faster time if we split up; the Fey can search these," she pointed to a cluster of spots in the northern quarter of Es̆kinnu, "and the girl I can check out these," she finished, identifying a section much closer to their current quarters.

"Wait - I thought you knew where the portal was?" "The girl's not going anywhere without me."

Jenny and the Fey spoke at the same time, eliciting an eyeroll from Barbartu.

"Always the suspicious one," she mocked Alberon.

"Am I wrong?" the man replied unperturbedly. "If you're willing to swear an Oath-" Jenny could practically hear the capitalization in his tone - "that you won't leave without me, then I'd consider allowing you to separate us; otherwise, we will be sticking together."

Barbartu huffed angrily, but didn't deign to respond, allowing Jenny to press her question again. "I thought you knew where the portal was - were you just lying to me?"

A second later, she blinked groggily, realizing she was somehow on the ground. She fingered her cheek gingerly as she sat up and stared at the goddess incredulously.

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"Did you just slap me?"

"I'd suggest you match your father's strength if you're going to imitate your father's impertinence," Barbartu shrugged. "Otherwise…learn some respect. I never claimed I knew exactly where the portal is, but I am certain that it exists."

"You've never seen it then?" Alberon interrupted, unperturbed by the look of betrayal that Jenny shot him.

You could have stopped her.

"Technically, I've seen it once," Barbartu explained. "My uncle, Lord Nerigla, was a reserved man, not prone to sharing secrets with others, especially not his lay-about niece. But one night after the Akītu festival, he was so deep in his cups that he took me and Ninkigal to see his finest treasures, a chamber I'd never seen before or since. The portal was in there, its construction quite unlike anything I had seen at the time. But," she smiled wryly, "after a few decades trapped in Asaluḫḫu, I'm quite confident it was of Mwyranni make; the portal should lead to the Corsyths' realm, or somewhere nearby."

"If you've already been there, why don't you know where it is?" Jenny prodded, doing her best to keep the snippiness out of her tone; she didn't want to be slapped a second time.

"My uncle wasn't the only one in his cups that night," the goddess admitted. "I cannot recall the path to the chamber but over the years, I've had plenty of time to consider it. These," she pointed to the spots she'd circled on the map, "are my best guess as to its location."

"And if none of these is the place?" Alberon spoke up.

"Then we'll expand our search - unless you have something better to do?" Barbartu smirked. "If it's too hard a task for you, Fey, I'm sure I can watch over the little princess myself."

"She'll be going nowhere without me," the Fey responded placidly, and Jenny bobbed her head quickly, no longer feeling torn between the two after the slap. "We'll begin our search after her lessons are concluded."

Two hours later, they joined a very sulky Barbartu in the tavern yard and followed her into the winding streets and passages of the abandoned palace complex. As they left the courtyard, Jenny once again felt the fleeting pressure on her back, the vague sensation that she was being watched, but she wrote it off. There was something inherently creepy, she figured, about a place that should be bustling with thousands of lives lying completely empty; that was all she was feeling. Nonetheless, she practically glued herself to Alberon until the sensation disappeared, inciting a quizzical glance.

"Something you need to tell me?" He asked quietly, but she shook her head.

"I'm fine; just cold," she lied, and though she could detect the skepticism in his eyes, he didn't press it.

The day passed quickly as they began their search. While the palace had escaped the doom that had destroyed the rest of the city thanks to Lord Nerigla's final act, Father Time had wreaked his own damage on the palace. More than once, they were forced to double back as they reached a collapsed walkway or fallen arches that blocked their path, or their progress slowed to a crawl as they picked their way through rubble. Thus, by the time dusk gathered, they'd only managed to check two of the locations Barbartu had marked.

"We should head back," Alberon finally spoke up, but the goddess shook her head stubbornly.

"We're nearly there," she insisted, pointing to a third location she had marked. "It will take another hour or two-"

"By which time it will be fully dark-"

"I see in the dark, you see in the dark - what's the problem?" she responded dismissively.

"The girl doesn't."

"Then cast a spell on her, don't pretend you can't," she snapped irritably.

"I thought you were in no rush," the Fey countered, obviously taking pleasure in goading her. "But I suppose, if you can't be bothered, I can always take the girl with me-"

Barbartu cursed in an unknown tongue, and with a snap of her fingers, Jenny found the world around her lightening. "There - she can see. Any more objections, Fey?"

He bowed in mock politeness, but froze mid-bow, his eyes locked on something on the path in front of them.

"Ah, you finally learned respect," Barbartu jibed, her back turned to the path, and the Fey hissed in response.

"Be quiet!"

The goddess scowled, but stilled as soon as she glanced behind her. Unable to see, Jenny stood on her tiptoes and peered over Alberon's shoulder, an action she immediately regretted.

At the end of the covered street, a shadow stared back at them. In the gathering darkness, she could discern no features on the shape, nothing at all save for a pair of burning lilac eyes - eyes that clamped onto her. She began to shake violently as an icy cold spread through her lips, and would have collapsed in the dirt if Alberon hadn't spun around, scooping her up in his arms.

"We've got to go."

Barbartu offered no argument, guarding them from behind as they fled back the way they had come.

"I thought you said this place was abandoned," Alberon spat out, as he leapt over a fallen pillar and landed nimbly on the other side.

"It is - it was," Barbartu fired back.

"Then what do you call that thing?"

"I-" The goddess had no answer, and the two continued in silence until Jenny, finally recovering from the inexplicable chill, insisted on being let down.

"Have you seen that thing before?" the Fey demanded, and she quickly shook her head in denial.

"No, if I'd seen anything, I would have told you!"

"But you've felt it, haven't you?" he asked shrewdly, and Jenny looked away, unable to meet his eyes.

"Last night, you said you felt you were being watched. Has it happened again?"

"Well," she chewed on her lip unhappily. "There was something odd in my room this morning; I woke up extremely cold, but when I stepped into the hall, everything was fine. I'd thought I'd just imagined it."

"Anything else?" he pressed.

"I thought I felt someone watching us when we left, but it was just for a moment!" she protested, as she saw his face darken.

"What did I tell you last night?" he asked harshly.

"To tell you if I saw anything else?" she replied meekly.

"Then next time, listen."

As Jenny nodded fervently, Alberon turned to Barbartu. "What's hunting her?" he demanded. "And don't try to tell me you don't know."

"I don't," she insisted, "but...my uncle lingers on despite his supposed death. Perhaps my aunt does the same."

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