Ice Kissed Read Online Free PDF Page B

smile. “You came over here to talk about something, and there’s no point in dancing around it.”
    I took a deep breath before launching into it. “Konstantin Black went to Storvatten to take Queen Linnea, but he didn’t. He swore on his life that he had no idea where she was, and it didn’t appear that anyone in Storvatten knew where she was either. At least not the people who cared the most about her.”
    Mom considered this for a moment. “And you believe Konstantin?”
    “I do,” I told her, and she inhaled sharply but said nothing. “There are three options—Konstantin took her and killed her, someone in Storvatten killed her and tried to frame Konstantin, or she ran off. In the first two scenarios, she’s dead, so the only one that’s really worth following up on is the third option.”
    “You think she ran away?” Mom asked, her interest piqued. “Why would she run off?”
    I pursed my lips, wishing there was another way to say it. My mom was not a particularly hateful or vengeful person, but I couldn’t blame her for the anger and distrust she still felt toward Konstantin. After all, he had nearly killed both her husband and her daughter.
    “I think Konstantin warned her,” I said finally. Mom lowered her eyes and shifted her weight in her chair, growing irritated, but I pressed on. “After what happened with Emma Costar in Calgary, when Bent Stum killed her, I think Konstantin didn’t want anybody else to get hurt.”
    “Bryn.” She raised her eyes so she could stare harshly at me. “You can’t possibly believe that.”
    “There’s something really weird going on in Storvatten,” I said, ignoring my mom’s challenge. I couldn’t win that argument, so I didn’t engage it. “It doesn’t fit Konstantin’s pattern—he had been targeting Kanin changelings still living with humans. Linnea was a Skojare Queen in her palace, and she’d never even been a changeling.”
    Mom fidgeted with her tea cup, twisting it on the table and staring down at it. Her shoulders were rigid, her entire body held at nervous attention.
    “Let’s say I believe you,” she said, almost reluctantly. “Why are you here? What light do you hope I can shed on any of this?”
    “If I’m right, and somebody warned Linnea that she had better get out of Storvatten, where would she go?” I asked.
    Like my mother, Linnea had been born and raised in Storvatten. She had probably never met a human and hardly stepped out of the palace, except to go for a swim or visit other royalty. Thanks to her Skojare gills, she would never be able to blend with human society.
    The Skojare didn’t have that much money anymore, and most of what they did have of value were jewels locked up in safes. None of it had been reported missing when Linnea had disappeared, so if she was on the run, she had no money with her.
    Her options as a penniless, sheltered, beautiful but mutated teenager were extremely limited.
    “When I was growing up in Storvatten, locked up in that frozen palace while my parents tried to sell me off to a suitor for the highest price, I often dreamed of running away,” Mom admitted quietly. “I finally did when I ran off with your father, but I hardly imagine that Linnea is hiding among us in Doldastam. We Skojare tend to stand out here.”
    She offered me a weak smile then, and I knew how painfully true her statement was. Thanks to the unique fair skin of the Skojare, Linnea would be unable to blend in with any of the other tribes of trolls.
    “There’s nowhere?” I pressed. “Didn’t you tell me once about how you and some of your friends took off somewhere for a week when you were a teenager?”
    A look of wistful surprise passed across her face, and the corner of her mouth curled up slightly. “The ton å ren. I’d nearly forgotten about that.”
    “Yeah, the ton å ren,” I said, trying to remember what she’d told me about it.
    “It wasn’t an official thing,” Mom explained. “That’s just the