Ice Apprentices by Jacob North

Author:Jacob North
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Published: 2025-01-30T00:00:00+00:00

16 A HEIST IS BORN

At night, when no one else would be around, Oswin traipsed down the curved-enough-to-mess-with-your-head corridor, which was also not-curved-enough-to-notice. He fiddled with his citizen watch as he went. He’d got in the habit of taking it everywhere with him. When his nerves about the Utility Proving grew unmanageable, he tinkered with it.

The corridor opened onto the common room. An interior tree was twined with orbs of light, gleaming like scales that, unlike candles, didn’t flicker or emit heat. Oswin much preferred them. There was a firepit further down, but thankfully it was nothing but soft embers. Roots spread over floorboards from the tree and hanging chairs swayed from branches. Paintings of mamats, their manes of ears listening for predators, hung on the walls.

Oswin braved steps to a mezzanine – because books waited at the top – and grabbed a handful before sitting by a globe. The air smelled of dusty paper, and the ceiling arched within reach of his fingertips.

None of the books explained oddities. One mentioned Huvect, a card game where miniature monsters battled each other. Another talked about survivalism, a view that anyone not ideal for survival should be committed to the ice. Supposedly, it had caused civil war during the Great Freeze. Oswin had a sneaking suspicion the following ripped-out pages would have spoken about Michael Fields.

He thumbed through a picture book, Creatures of Tundra and Beyond, which showed long-furred animals dashing between shrubs and ice snakes gripping swords with their tails. On its final page was a human with arrows pointing to a variety of creatures. He saw mamats, sticelings and vohoonts, which were furry four-legged creatures with bird-heads and wagging tails. Without words explaining the images, he was only annoyed.

When he’d exhausted the reading, he walked back to the firepit, staring anxiously at the ashes. The embers stared back.

The noise of footsteps pulled him from his trance.

‘I thought everyone would be asleep,’ said Ennastasia, looking as surprised to see him as he was her.

‘Why were you waiting for everyone to be asleep?’

‘Why aren’t you asleep?’

They stared at each other, and an unspoken bet on who could hold their tongue the longest formed.

Without knowing why, Oswin blurted, ‘My brother gave me my hat when Tundra took me in six years ago.’

Ennastasia leaned against the tree-trunk, her face shadowed.

‘He left to become an ice apprentice. My mother told me I’d never get that chance because—’

‘You’re a stray.’

Oswin nodded shamefully. ‘I thought I’d never come here, thought I’d hardly see my brother, but when I wore the hat it felt as if I had a piece of him with me. I felt just as rugged and grown up as him.’ Oswin took his hat off, holding it tightly. ‘There’s the answer to your question from our first day. That’s where I got this hat.’ He gestured at her earring. ‘Where did you get that?’

Ennastasia pushed off the tree. ‘It’s…’ She clenched her fists. ‘We’re not going to be friends. Not because you’re a stray, to be clear,’ she said, evidently noticing his miserable look.

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