“Hush,” Lynet said. “Just watch.”
She hadn’t tried this before, but she knew it would work, because she knew this was her true purpose—not to become her mother, but to end this curse at last. The snow was still steadily falling on them, but Lynet turned her face up to the gray clouds and told the snow, simply, to stop.
And it did.
Nadia’s forehead wrinkled as she looked at Lynet’s face, watching as she’d been ordered. It took her several seconds to look up and notice that the snow had stopped falling. But Mina—Mina had noticed at once, her eyes widening in awe.
“The snow stopped,” Mina whispered.
“Did you—?” Nadia started saying at the same time.
Lynet laughed. “I think the snow deserves a rest.” She turned her attention to the place where the statue had once stood, and she concentrated again until the snow there melted, leaving a square of damp brown soil. “A little at a time,” she said. “People will need to adjust gradually, and I’ll have to keep some of the snow, or else I’ll grow too weak. But I want to make the North bloom again, to make life easier here. I have to try, anyway.”
“If anyone can do it, I know you can,” Nadia said, gazing at her fondly. “I think—” Nadia stopped and frowned as something over Lynet’s shoulder caught her eye. The frown softened into that expression Lynet had seen on her before when she was studying her books—an expression of curiosity and amazement that there was still so much in the world to discover. “Lynet, look,” she said.
The first thing Lynet noticed when she turned was a flash of green. She thought it was just a trick of the light at first, but then she saw it clearly: a long, thin stem with a perfectly formed leaf. When Lynet examined it more closely, she saw that the budding plant was real, a single sign of life in place of Sybil’s statue.
“Lynet.” From behind her, Mina spoke with such breathless wonder that Lynet wasn’t sure what she would see when she turned around.
Mina was pointing to the trees in the Shadow Garden. Lynet stepped closer, coming to stand beside her stepmother, and saw the scattering of leaves and the closed pink buds that were beginning to grow on the dead branches.
The two of them walked through the garden without speaking, and Nadia seemed to know not to follow for now—this was something Mina and Lynet needed to share alone. Mina was looking around in amazement at what was probably the first new life she had seen since leaving the South, and Lynet went up on her toes to examine the delicate leaves, brushing her fingers carefully against their edges. They were so small, like little pink and green stars against the dark wood, but they held the promise of spring.
“We broke the curse, Mina,” Lynet said softly.
“You broke the curse,” Mina said, tearing her gaze away from the trees.
Lynet shook her head. “You’re the one who tore down the statue. It took both of us to break the curse.”
Even as she said the words, she was sure they were true. Sybil’s garden. Sybil’s statue. Perhaps the dead queen had only been waiting for someone to put an end to her grief at last, to offer her some kind of hope that life would return to the North.
A small smile crept over Mina’s face. “Maybe you’re right,” she said, her hand slipping into Lynet’s.
And as they walked back from the garden together hand in hand, Lynet knew that this would be their legacy, the story they had chosen—two girls made of snow and glass who were more than their origins, two queens who had come together to reshape their world.