“But it’s a good horse!” Someone hissed. The wind, still howling, nearly swallowed the voice entirely.

  “It’s nearly dead!” A second voice responded at a half-shout.

  Something tickled at the back of Joanna’s thoughts. It seemed important, but her mind was so sluggish she couldn’t fully recall what it was. The roar of the storm and the cold paralyzing her entire body almost lulled her back to sleep.

  “He’s breathing still.” A whiney note in that first voice now. Jo’s eyes snapped open. There was a more urgent note now to the memory she could feel struggling to the surface.

  “Len I swear to the dark prince himself if you make me drag that fucking hor— Oh shit!”

  There was the sound of crunching footsteps in the snow. Jo efforted herself to gather her wits, but it was like herding cats. Everything in her brain felt slippery. She tried to push herself up, thinking that seeing past the pile of snow that had collected around her might jog her memory, but none of the muscles in her body wanted to comply. The footsteps sounded inches away from her head now and she sensed, rather than saw, the two people that crouched over her.

  “Shit, she’s still breathing, too!” That first voice again. It was bright, feminine, and musical. Jo couldn’t see from where she lay, but she could imagine the pretty face that voice belonged to. She tried to speak, but it turned to a slurred yelp as a hand suddenly gripped the roots of her hair to force her face up.

  The sky was the same black-blurred-with white mess as it had been when she’d been thrown off of Tumble. Snow still flew, almost horizontally, and that punishing wind still howled like a thing on fire. It was impossible to tell how much time had passed.

  “Huh, you’re right.” Jo rolled her eyes to the right to see who had spoken. They were so thickly bundled in clothing that it was impossible to make anything out. Goggles hid their eyes. “Oh well.” The bundled stranger shook Jo’s head playfully, driving another helpless whimper from her numb lips.

  “Oh let her go, Nance!” The pretty voice, coming from somewhere farther off, yelled over a fresh gust of wind. Jo’s head was released back to the snow with a thump. Sounds were lost for a few moments as the storm kicked up.

  “—Down that way,” The meaner voice became audible again. There were a few confused sounds of movement, a loud thump of something hitting the snow, and then- worst of all- a pained whinny.

  “Tum-ul!” Jo grunted. Her lips barely formed the word, but she remembered at last. She knew exactly what horse these people had been referring to, and she welcomed the surge of adrenaline at the thought of Tumble being stolen.

  Her muscles seized and cramped as she found some movement again and squirmed in the snow. Her limbs were leaden, but she managed to roll over. It was a start. She strained to hear the voices as they spoke again.

  “Loop it under the strap there. Yeah, I got his legs.”

  Adrenaline surged again, flushing her skin with much-needed warmth. She got one elbow under her, then the other. Almost sitting up now, and just able to see over the snow. The effort of moving made her feel so warm that she wondered distantly if she had a fever.

  Dizziness made the world totter confusingly. She blinked away snowflakes and turned towards where the voices had been. Through the snow, what she saw was too confusing to make sense of. Two vaguely human shapes and a larger one on the ground beside them, and two stocky shapes larger than both of the humans but lower to the ground. Piles of snow muddled the scene even further.

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  One of the people straightened and turned back towards where Jo sat propped unsteadily on her elbows. The other one seemed to be busy with a length of rope, then leaned away towards the two other shapes.

  Jo squinted through a break in the snow and thought they might be oxen. She was maddeningly warm now, and shakily peeled off her coat. It offered little relief. Both of the people were standing, now, and looking at her. The taller one turned away and stepped around the prone horse-shape.

  “Let’s go!” The taller person shouted. They were the mean-voice.

  “Hang on,” the prettier voice— the shorter person— called back. She picked her way across the snow, shrugging a layer of outerwear off as she approached. “Here.” She tossed it Jo’s direction. It was a bulky, rubber-lined coat, and it landed over Jo’s head like a shroud. There was a thunk of something else hitting the ground, too.

  “I don’t like killing.” She stated simply. “And put that on, even if you feel hot. You’re already stripped half naked. That’s how we usually find bodies in the snow.” A pause broken only by the hiss of snowfall. “Good luck.”

  Her footsteps squeaked in the snow as she turned, and then receded. Jo struggled with the coat draped on her head, trying to shake its bulk off with uncooperative arms. By the time she succeeded, the two strangers were gone. And so was Tumble.

  She looked around for some kind of landmark, but in every direction there was only dark and snow; a swirling sky above an endlessly monochromatic waste. There was no light, no trees, nothing to guide her back towards civilization.

  Despair bore her slowly to her feet. She didn’t feel cold anymore, but she got into the big, dry coat that the stranger had thrown at her anyways. It took three tries just to get her arms in the sleeves. Her skin still felt like it was burning, but fear of what that woman had said kept her in the coat.

  A particularly bitter gale forced her eyes closed for a few moments. When she opened them again, she was looking down at something small and silver resting in the snow. It must have been whatever else that woman had thrown. She groped at it for a minute before managing to pick it up, eventually having to squeeze it between her palms since none of her fingers wanted to work.

  It was a dull metal canteen, and it was warm. A delirious giggle bubbled out of her. She hugged the thing against her chest, ignoring the pain that the sudden heat brought into her fingers.

  Inside it turned out to be some kind of tea she didn’t recognize. It smelled a little like pine sap mixed with mint. She took cautious sips, delighting in each one as it gave precious heat back to her body. Her head began to clear a little, and she started shivering. That, she remembered from Nate’s lecture, was a good sign.

  Buoyed by the hot drink and the dry coat, she turned a slow circle again, scanning the unbroken snow for anything familiar. Except, she realized, it wasn’t entirely unbroken; the people who had taken Tumble had left an enormous trail behind them. It was fading fast as new snow piled down over it, but she reckoned it might be visible long enough to get somewhere.

  She tucked the half-full canteen into one of the coat’s pockets, pulled the collar tight around her neck, and took up the twin ruts that the thieves had left behind. It was almost like a wagon trail, except thicker and with smoother curves on the turns.

  The cold didn’t begin to seep in again until about an hour later, when the trail had gone from a distinct print to a subtle divet in the otherwise flat blanket of white. Jo had drunk the tea down to the last few sips by then. It was still warm, but just barely.

  The trail had taken her to a place where the land suddenly dropped out into a deep ravine. There was light, now, coming from below. Jo squinted through the slurry of wind-borne snow and could just barely make out a neat row of lamp posts at the bottom of the valley. The yellow-orange lamps topping each one were barely above the snow.

  From that high point the trail made a sharp left and followed a steep ledge downwards. Jo, afraid of heights at the best of times, pressed her back into the cliffside the whole way down. The wind stilled to a softer drone once the top of the ravine was above her, and the air no longer seemed to bite at her exposed skin.

  By the time she made it to the bottom she felt the first stirrings of real hope at survival. The high cliffs offered protection from not only the wind but the worst of the snow as well. It was wetter and slushier down here, and the trail wasn’t fading as fast. It continued down the belly of the valley, and she continued to follow it.