Chapter Five

    I'm inside a volcano, thought Eoin. I'm actually inside a volcano.  He had never thought it would be possible, but then he had always imagined active volcanoes, with their steaming lava floes and explosions.
     This volcano, though not extinct, had been inactive for many years. The magma chamber had drained away to leave the centre of the mountain hollow, a vast cone-shaped space unlike any place Eoin had ever imagined. The floor rose in the middle and dropped low at the sides to create a hill inside the cone, and steam rose in bursts from fissures hidden at the bottom of the hill. Just like in the antechamber, the lack of a horizon or any kind of flat ground made it hard for Eoin and Freya to keep their balance, as gravity seemed to be pulling in slightly the wrong direction. The only way to orientate themselves was to crane their heads back and stare straight up to the tiny patch of blue sky that could be seen way off in the distance at the top of the cone. The faint light this let in reflected on a myriad of colours seared into the rocky walls.
     The man coughed again. There was no echo; rather, the sound was absorbed as though they were still in the passage.
     "You're early," the man said. He looked young, and had long curly hair tied in a bunch and hanging down his back. His voice, despite croaking from all the coughing, sounded friendly and amused. "I didn't think you'd come for another few years, at least."
     "Where is..." began Freya tentatively. "We're looking for Father Tim."
     The man smiled in her direction. "That's me. Well, you're pronouncing it wrong, but I think you mean me. And which one are you?"
     "I'm Freya," began Freya, but Father Tim shook his head.
     "No, you're Earth, Wind and Fire. Only Earth, Wind and Fire could move that boulder, blow that smoke away and get through that heat." His smile became broader. "That's what they were there for. My question is, which of you is which?"
     "We didn't do those things," said Freya slowly. "They just happened."
     Father Tim nodded. "Things like that just happen a lot to you, don't they, Freya? Set anything on fire recently?" When Freya didn't reply, he nodded to himself. "Thought so. And one of you can shape the rocks like putty, am I right? And I'm guessing that one of you isn't even touching the ground right now."
     Freya looked at Willow uncertainly, then again at Father Tim, who was still standing several metres away, looking in their direction but not directly at them. "Eoin!" she whispered. "I don't think he can see us!"
     Father Tim gave a brief laugh which sounded almost like a bark, and started walking towards them, placing his feet with practised precision on the sloping ground. "My dear, I can't see anything. I'm blind. But I can hear you just fine." He stopped a few paces away from them and gestured around at the huge chamber. "Lava tubes run out in all directions from here. Most of them are too small for a person to fit through. But they carry sound pretty well. That's why I live here. Sound is my world, and from here I can see with my ears better than most people can with their eyes."
     "Are you sure you're Father Tim?" said Freya slowly. "Father Tim's old, much older than you."
     Father Tim laughed at some private joke. "Old, my dear? I can be. As old as you like. As old as the mountains, as young as the flowers. But I'm sure you don't want to talk about me. You must be here for a reason."
     "The Ice," said Freya, nodding. "The Ice is chasing us. It broke our home, separated us from our parents. And then it turned into..."
     "Parents?" broke in Father Tim with a laugh. "Do you mean Hope and Frank?"
     Freya frowned. "Yes."
     "And they told you that they're your parents?" He gave another of his strange short laughs. "And told you your name was Freya? So I'm guessing they didn't tell you about your brother?"
     "My brother's right here," began Freya, but Father Tim shook his head.
     "Your little brother. The one who's chasing you. Water."
     There was stunned silence in the chamber for a few moments.
     Father Tim sighed and shook his head. "They should have told you all this years ago. Listen, you're not.... How can I put this? This might come as a bit of a shock." He took a breath and considered his words carefully. "You're not children. You're not people. You don't have any parents. You're elements, the four of you. Earth, Wind, Fire and Water. Two pairs of twins."
     Eoin and Freya looked at each other in confusion. Freya raised her hand and made a gesture at the side of her forehead to show Eoin what she thought of Father Tim, but Eoin didn't smile.
     "You probably think I'm crazy," said Father Tim, guessing their thoughts. "But only as crazy as water flowing uphill, right? The four of you are supposed to be in balance. Supposed to keep each other in check. But Water, he's pretty unstable. Like a toddler with power. You've let him get out of control."
     "Us?" gasped Freya indignantly. "How is this our fault?"
     "You're the only ones who can keep Water in check," repeated Father Tim.
     "And if we can't?" said Eoin, speaking for the first time since they'd entered the volcano.
     Father Tim smiled again. "Solid, down-to-earth comment. If you can't, Earth - or whatever you think your name is - then, well, I assume you all know what an Ice Age is?"
     Freya and Eoin struggled to digest all this. "That sounds serious," said Freya at last.
     "It might not be too bad," said Father Tim. "Just a few thousand years. Or tens of thousands."
     "What can we do?" said Eoin. "I mean, apart from start fires and push rocks, what can we actually do? What powers do we have?"
     Father Tim brushed a few wisps of hair out of his face. "You can do as much as you think you can. You, Earth, you will be able to move mountains, but not until you realise that you can move mountains."
     Eoin frowned. "But surely, if you tell me I can do something, then I know I can do it, and so I can do it."
     "Okay, let's give that a try," said Father Tim, laughing. He drew himself up and said theatrically, "Earth, you can move mountains."
     Eoin thought about this. He knew for a fact that he couldn't move a mountain. It sounded ridiculous. "You're right," he said at last. "That's not enough."
     "Not much help, I know," said Father Tim. "Sorry about that. Now, I hate to hurry you, but I've been listening to a very interesting argument going on at the other end of that tube, there, and I was rather hoping to hear how it ended."
     "Wait," said Freya. "We've got a book. Our parents..." She thought about what she was saying, but was not yet prepared to admit that Frank and Hope might not be her parents. "Our parents," she went on determinedly, "gave us a book. Called Earth, Wind and Fire. Except there's nothing written on the inside, the pages are just blank." She was about to explain about the diagrams on the other side, but Father Tim cut her off.
     "I've got books like that," he said. "To tell the truth, all my books are like that. Maybe you just don't know how to read it." He held his hand out. "Let me have a look."
     Eoin pulled the book out of his waistband and reluctantly handed it over. He had closed the spine up again and it looked just like a normal book.
     Father Tim opened it at the first page and put his fingers down onto the paper. He smiled. "Just as I thought," he said. To Freya's and Eoin's amazement, he passed his index finger over the page in lines, following row after row down the page. As he got further down the page, his expression changed from amusement to horror.
     "What is it?" demanded Freya, but he ignored her and kept reading.
     "No, no, no," he started saying. "This is all wrong. This is..." He raised his head to Eoin and Freya. "Did Frank and Hope give you this book? And they told you to bring it to me?"
     Freya nodded. "Yes."
     "This is not good. Not good at all. This means..." He shook his head and began pacing round the chamber. After a few minutes he stopped and marched back over to Eoin, Freya and Willow. "You need to leave," he said. "Now. You need to get out of here. You need to stop Water. By any means necessary."
     "But," said Freya, "but we don't know how. We're just supposed to go to the Steam Caves."
     Father Tim gave another laugh, but this one was sharp and bitter. "The Steam Caves! Who told you that, Hope and Frank? Think, girl, think. What's steam made of? Water! No, my dear, stay away from the Steam Caves, stay well away. Unless..." He paced on the spot for a few more seconds. "Maybe not. Maybe you should go to the Steam Caves. They won't be expecting you to, not after talking to me. Trust no one. No, wait, you will need help. Go towards the sea caves. You'll meet my daughter on the way, she can help you. Trust her, no one else."
     "You're frightening us!" said Freya.
     "Good," said Father Tim. "You should be frightened. Water has followed you. That was his plan all along. He can't get in here, normally, but you've moved the boulder and cooled the heat. And now he can get in." He hurried over to the passage they'd come in by and cocked an ear, then nodded to himself. "Thought so. I can hear the sound of running Water. You need to leave, as soon as possible." He beckoned for them to follow him over to the other side of the hill, and pointed down to a dark fissure at the very edge of the chamber. "There's a passage down there which will take you out onto the beach. Follow the beach to your left - no, your right - no, definitely your left, that will take you towards the sea stacks and the sea caves."
     "Hang on," Freya broke in. "The sea? You want us to run towards a mass of water?"
     "Salt water, my dear," said Father Tim hurriedly. "Your brother isn't fond of it. Won't do you much good either, I'm afraid, sorry about that. On you go now."
     "What about you?" asked Eoin. " Aren't you coming with us?"
     For a moment Father Tim looked as though he were tempted to say yes. Then he slowly shook his head. "I'm never leaving this volcano. I'm relying on you. You've got to stop Water. Otherwise an Ice Age will be the least of our worries. Go, now. Go on. Shoo." He ushered them down into the fissure.
     Eoin climbed down first, then Freya passed down Willow and climbed after him. She looked back up at Father Tim, but he was already climbing up the hill. Without turning, he raised a hand and waved, then passed out of sight.

Chapter Six

Eoin and Freya hadn't realised that Father Tim's volcano was so close to the sea, and almost as soon as they started following the passage they could see daylight in the distance. As they got closer they could see they were looking at a wide expanse of blue, and the fresh tangy air that swept up the lava tube was unlike anything they had felt before. The tube ended on a windswept beach of black sand and the three of them looked out over the sea for the first time. Freya instinctively hated it but Willow, once again in Freya's arms, giggled and spread her arms out wide into the breeze.

"Freya, do you remember when we were Willow's age?" asked Eoin suddenly.

Freya thought for a moment but shook her head. "No, not really. I remember things we did, you know, last year or whatever, but I don't remember how old I was."

"What about Willow? Do you remember when she was a baby?"

Freya frowned. "She's never been a baby. She's always been this big."

Eoin nodded. "That's what I remember. That's odd, isn't it?"

"I... yes, I suppose so. Eoin, let's just find Mum and Dad. I don't want to think about this any more. Look, there are the seastacks."

Off to the left the beach ended in a jumble of boulders and broken down cliffs. A headland jutting out into the sea had once been a row of arches, but the arches had collapsed to leave a series of pillars, towering proudly out of the rolling waves like the fingers of a giant underwater hand.

"That's where we need to go," said Freya. "We need to find Father Tim's daughter."

"Freya," protested Eoin, "I just think we need to talk about..."

"Listen! No, listen, Eoin! I can hear it again."

It was hard to hear over the sound of the waves surging up the beach, but from far up the passage came the same screeching noise they had come to dread.

"The Ice!" said Eoin, and the three of them hurried along the beach towards the seastacks.

A few moments later, a figure appeared in the passage. From the front, it looked exactly like Eoin, except it was pale blue and translucent. It stopped for a moment and looked at the sea. It looked at the distant figures hurrying towards the boulders. Then it started striding across the beach after them. 

The black sand was dry and powdery and Eoin's and Freya's feet kept sinking into it. At the water's edge the sand was wet and much firmer, but Freya refused to walk any closer to the sea. As they got close to the stacks Freya saw with despair that the beach stopped under the mass of boulders.

"We've got to go in the water to get round," said Eoin.

Freya shook her head. "I can't, Eoin. I can't go in the water."

"We could try climbing," said Eoin doubtfully, looking at the cliffs which towered up above them, but there was nothing to hold on to. The Ice-Eoin was still back down the beach but was marching steadily towards them. It would only take it a couple of minutes to catch up. "We're going to have to swim," he said. "It's the only way round."

"I can't!" cried Freya, her eyes wild. "Don't you understand? I can't touch the water!"

They looked up again at the cliff. Standing beneath it, it looked as tall as the volcano.

"We can't go round," said Freya. "And we can't go over. We'll have to go through."

Eoin frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Through, Eoin. You can do it."

Eoin turned to look at the solid rock in front of him. Tentatively, he reached out a hand and placed it on the rock. It felt soft and yielding. He gave it a push but nothing happened.

"Quickly, Eoin!" cried Freya, hugging Willow tighter. "It's getting closer."

There was a small crack in the rock. Eoin put both his hands into the crack and tried to widen it a little. To his surprise, the rocks parted like curtains, revealing dark emptiness behind.

"That's it!" cried Freya, and she ducked under his outstretched arms and into the darkness. Eoin stepped through and let go of the rock curtains, which slammed together behind him, closing the entrance.

He found himself in darkness. He could just about make out Freya's outline, just as he had been able to in the lava tubes. "Freya, we need light," he said.

"I haven't got one," said Freya.

"If I can open the rocks, then you can make fire," said Eoin.

Freya passed Willow across to him, then thought about how she might possibly make fire. No sooner had she thought it than her right hand burst into flames. She looked at it, mesmerised. It didn't hurt at all; on the contrary, it felt warm and comfortable, and it lit up the cave they were in.

"The sea caves!" exclaimed Eoin. They were in a series of huge interconnected caverns. Arches and pillars of all shapes and sizes reared up over their heads. Faint shafts of daylight trickled down in places through holes in the caverns' ceilings. Many of the caverns were flooded, and they could see the entrance where the sea poured in, wide enough to row a boat straight into the sea caves. There was enough dry ground for Freya to walk around clear of the water and they ventured further into the caverns, Freya holding her flaming hand in front of them. 

"Put that light out!" called a deep rasping voice from the shadows. 

"Who's there?" called Eoin.

"Put it out!" said the voice again.

Freya clenched her fist. She wasn't sure how to put the fire out, but as soon as she thought about it the flames died away and her right hand looked no different to her left. The two of them, with Willow peeking curiously around, ventured forwards warily. As their eyes grew accustomed to the half-light, they made out a figure, a very large figure sitting on a rock, half in half out of the water.

"Freya, she's a mermaid, look!" Eoin said.

"She's a very big mermaid," said Freya. "And I thought all mermaids were supposed to be young."

The mermaid didn't seem to have heard them. She sat listlessly on her rock, staring vacantly at the water.

"She must be Father Tim's daughter," whispered Eoin. "We're supposed to ask her for help. Hello, there," he called out. "We're Eoin and Freya. Father Tim sent us."

The mermaid made no move to show she had heard.

"Hello?" said Eoin again. "Can you hear me?"

The mermaid looked up at him, and Eoin suddenly felt as though the breath had been drawn out of his body. He felt cold and alone, and felt that things were very wrong and couldn't be put right. He heard Freya gasp beside him and knew she felt the same. Willow began to cry.

"What is this?" said Freya. "What's happening, Eoin?"

Eoin shook his head. "I don't know. We've got to get out of here. We've got to get to..." All of a sudden, he couldn't remember where he had to get to. He looked round the cave, but now he had no idea where he was. 

There was a little girl crying in his arms. A little girl he'd never seen before. He put her down on the ground.

"Who are you?" said a voice beside him. He turned, and a girl with fiery red hair was standing next to him looking at him in confusion. "Where are we? What have you done to me?"

Eoin shook his head. "My name's... my name's..." But he couldn't remember.

"Come into the water," called a deep rasping voice, and they both took a step forwards.

"Don't move, don't look at her, just stay there!" cried a voice they'd never heard before and a figure with black hair and a purple dress rushed up to them, grabbed the little girl that was standing sobbing at their feet and ran off.

"Who was that?" said Eoin to the girl with red hair.

"Who was who?"

"That person that grabbed the, um..." What had they grabbed? Something important.

"Come into the water," said the voice again, and they took another step forwards.

"Don't move, don't move, don't move!" cried a voice and a figure with black hair and a purple dress rushed up to them, grabbed them each by the hand and pulled them away from the water, away from the mermaid, and half-dragged them through cavern after cavern until they felt daylight on their faces and suddenly they were in bright sunshine, gasping for breath and looking around in confusion.

They were standing on a ledge about half-way up a cliff, like a natural balcony overlooking a small bay between two headlands. 

Eoin and Freya felt like they were waking up from a bad dream. "Freya!" said Eoin. "Freya, I forgot who you were! I forgot who I was!"

"That's Nullie," gasped their rescuer. She was a girl, about their own age and height, with long black hair in hundreds of tiny plaits. She wore a heavy glove on the hand holding Freya and was struggling to breath normally. "She takes everything. She takes light, hope, even your memories. Lucky I turned up just in time, before she did any permanent damage. A few minutes later and you would have forgotten how to breathe."

"Thank you," panted Freya, her eyes on the heavy glove the girl was holding her hand with. "You didn't get burnt. How did you know?"

The girl smiled. "Oh, is that why? I found the glove lying around this morning and thought I might put it on for the day. And before you say it, yes, that was extremely lucky."

"Who are you?" asked Eoin. 

"Serena," said the girl. "Short for Serendipity. Know what that means?"

Eoin and Freya shook their heads.

"It means good luck," said Serena. "I am good luck. You two look like you could do with some good luck. What were you doing in Nullie's cave?"

"Father Tim sent us," said Eoin. "He told us to find his daughter in the sea caves."

"Father Tim? You mean Dad? Well, by amazing good luck, you have found his daughter." She smiled again and did a little bow.

"You're his daughter?" said Freya in surprise. "But... you don't look like him." Serena's skin was much darker than Father Tim's.

"I look like my mum," she explained, and winked. "Luckily for me."

"Willow!" exclaimed Eoin suddenly. "Where's Willow?"

Serena stopped smiling and looked round in confusion. "The little girl? I brought her out first and put her down here," she said. "I thought she'd still be here. It's not like she can walk off anywhere." 

Eoin and Freya looked at each other and groaned. "She floats," said Eoin. "In air."

"Oops," said Serena. "Sorry. Didn't know. Well, she's not down in the water, so she must have gone up the cliff."

They all turned to look up the cliff. There was nothing to be seen above them, but Freya suddenly gasped and pointed to the headland on the other side of the bay. Willow was standing at the top. 

"Oh, no," cried Freya. "No, no, no, no, no. Willow! Willow!"

But Willow was too far away to hear her. Instead, she looked like she was chatting to someone else. Someone pale blue and translucent, who looked remarkably like Eoin.

As they watched, Ice-Eoin held out his hand. Willow took it, and the two of them walked away from the edge of cliff and out of sight.

Chapter Seven

It only took Eoin, Freya and Serena a matter of minutes to work their way to the top of the cliff, thanks to Serena who had chanced upon a series of ledges that they could climb up on one side of the rocky balcony. It was a dangerous climb, but neither Eoin nor Freya thought twice about throwing themselves into the pursuit of their little sister who had been taken by the Ice. Eoin soon found that handholds and footholds seemed to grow where he needed them, and Serena climbed with the confidence of someone who knows that if they slip, they will always have the good fortune to find something to hang on to just in time.

It had still taken too long. There was no sign of Willow or the Ice-Eoin, just a few drips of water at the top of the cliff to mark the place where they had been. The three of them scanned in all directions, but the landscape was broken up into small craggy hills and ravines and it was impossible to say which way they had gone.

"We could just chance it," suggested Serena, who felt as though the loss of Willow were entirely her fault. "I nearly always hit on the right way."

"We need to be certain," said Freya, shaking her head.

"If it helps," said Serena, "your sister didn't seem to be scared or anything. That Ice-guy didn't look like he was dragging her away or anything. In fact she looked like she knew him."

"It's her twin brother," Freya conceeded. "Apparently. And he looks like Eoin. But I don't know that she's safe with him. What do you think, Eoin?"

But Eoin wasn't listening. He was fumbling with the catch of the leather-bound book he had been carrying in his waistband. He unclipped the spine and the covers of the book fell apart, the whole book opening up like an accordion. Various drawings and diagrams covered the pages, but there were no words, and nothing to tell them apart in Eoin's eyes. He gathered the book back together and started flipping through the pictures in despair.

Serena watched him impatiently, then snatched the book out of his hands. She opened it at random then handed it back to him. "That one," she said.

Eoin stared at the mess of lines on the page in front of him. "But this doesn't..." he broke off as he realised that the line at the bottom of the page matched up exactly to the sea stacks and the bay behind him. He looked up at Serena in confusion. "But...?"

Serena shrugged as though it were too boring to explain. "Just lucky, I guess. We probably need to go here." She pointed randomly at a spot marked in an oval near the top of the page. "And the quickest way to get there is probably this way."

"You're not even looking!" complained Eoin.

"One thing I've learnt from my father is that looking at things often doesn't help. I feel it's right; I know it's right. Looking would just distract me."

Eoin shook his head in despair. He looked at the diagram for a while, uncertain if what he was looking at was a map or just a doodle. A burning sensation in his left ear told him that Freya was looking over his shoulder.

"We can't stay here," she said. "And Serena did save our lives. We're going to have to trust her, Eoin."

Eoin nodded in resignation. "But she didn't even look," he muttered.

"Nor did you," said Freya, "when you moved that boulder in the lava tubes."

Following the line on the map took them into the hills and after a few minutes they found themselves walking alongside a small stream. Freya looked at it warily but it looked unnervingly like the way streams had always looked, all the water flowing calmly in the right direction. "Makes sense," she said, "that the Ice would want to stay near water."

"Looks like we basically just have to follow the stream," said Eoin, squinting at the map. The sun was high overhead now and glaring off the page into his eyes. The hills around them sloped gently up, and though occasionally Eoin climbed a hill to look ahead, he always found the horizon blocked by yet more hills. 

Serena kept up a constant chatter on the way, about how lucky it was to find them in the caverns, about her mother Destiny who she'd just left at home and the surprise visit she had planned for her father.

Eoin frowned when he heard this. "But your father was expecting you, wasn't he? He sent us to find you."

"I didn't tell him," said Serena. "I don't think he was expecting me. Did he mention me by name? I'm not his only daughter, of course. Maybe he meant Nullie. But I'm not sure how she could help you. Help you drown, of course."

"Wait, wait," said Freya. "Nullie is his daughter too?"

Serena nodded. "My half-sister, technically. We're not big on family reunions, though. That reminds me, last year I went to visit my sister - well, half-sister, one of my other half-sisters, I've got quite a few, you know, my half-sister Patience, well anyway..." She launched into a story which lasted for rest of the walk, until the three of them followed a bend in the stream and stopped abruptly as they found the stream's source. Serena's voice tailed off.

The stream flowed out of a lake which stretched away into the distance. The glass surface mirrored the sparse clouds drifting aimlessly overhead. Near the centre of the lake was a small island, almost entirely covered by a perfect hemisphere of ice which caught the late morning sun and refracted it into thousands of points of light, giving the hills to one side a soft glow. It looked almost like a giant igloo but there was no entrance or opening to be seen.

Freya looked at the lake in despair. "I can't get across that," she groaned. "If that's where it's - he's - taken Willow, I can't get there. Unless... Serena?"

Serena shook her head. "Luck's got nothing to do with this. You can't be so lucky that you find out that water's not wet."

"We'll have to get rid of the water," said Eoin thoughtfully. He looked at where the stream left the lake, a small waterfall dropping about a metre before it flowed away back the way they had come. He approached it cautiously.

"Don't touch the water," said Freya.

Eoin watched the water carefully. "Now it's got Willow it doesn't seem bothered about us. I wonder if it ever wanted us at all. Perhaps it was just after Willow this whole time." He took a large step and placed one foot the other side of the stream, straddling the little waterfall, but nothing happened. He thought back to how he had opened the rock like a curtain back on the beach. Then he placed one hand on the rocks either side of the waterfall and pulled them apart.

They moved as easily as pulling the pillows apart on a bed. The waterfall was instantly a little wider, but it wasn't enough. He put his feet up on one side and his hands on the other and pushed them as far apart as he could, but it still wasn't enough. 

There was only one thing for it. He took a deep breath and stepped into the water. It swirled around his ankles, but did no more damage than water ever had before it had torn his home apart that morning. He braced himself against the bed of the stream and started to push at the side of the waterfall, like opening a giant door.

A torrent of water poured down, the force of it sweeping him off his feet and carrying him a little way down the stream. If only I was heavier, he thought, and abruptly stopped dead in the middle of the stream. The water didn't seem to be pushing him with so much force anymore. He stood up and waved to Freya and Serena, who were watching anxiously from the bank, just a few metres away. "I'm fine," he said. "I think I've just made myself really heavy." He walked back to the waterfall and kept pushing at either side until the water was pouring from all along the edge of the lake and the little stream they had walked beside was now a gushing river just like the one that had swept their hut away. 

Eoin climbed out and stood on the bank. At first Freya shied away from his dripping body, but then she had an idea and held up her hands wide around him. The gushing water was creating a breeze and as it passed Freya's hands it became a blast of hot air that dried Eoin out in seconds. Eoin caught Freya's eye and they smiled at each other.

"You guys are so lucky," said Serena. "Having a twin. I've only got half-sisters and I don't get on much with any of them."

As she spoke, the sound of the waterfall slackened off, and the three of them turned to see why.

The lake was almost empty. There were still large puddles of water, but between and around them were huge expanses of mud and rock.

"What do you think?" said Eoin to Freya, but she shook her head.

"Still too wet for me. Unless..." She climbed up to stand in front of the wet rocks and concentrated for a moment. She thought about how she had made flames in the caverns and how she had felt when she had dried Eoin. Then she held her hands out at the wet rocks. There was no breeze here to carry the heat, but she could feel a force pushing out along her forearms. Blue flames pulsed outwards from her palms and scorched the rocks in front of her, drying them instantly. She moved forwards into the lake bed, keeping away from the mud, but finding a way along the rocks, drying them in front of her as she went. Eoin and Serena followed at a safe distance, the steam from the baked rocks rising up around them and making them sweat. In less than ten minutes, the three of them arrived at the island and climbed up to stand beside the ice dome, which was smaller than they had expected, not much taller than they were.

Without breaking step Freya turned her hands on the dome to try and melt a way in, but as soon as her hands got close a sharp crack made her step back like a startled animal, almost colliding with Eoin and Serena behind her.

"Look!" cried Eoin. A huge crack had appeared in front of them, zig-zagging its way like lightning up to the top of the dome. "And there!" he pointed. More cracks were appearing round the dome. "Is it hatching?" he said.

Freya shook her head slowly. "Something worse than that," she said.

The top of the dome was folding inwards, and pieces of ice were bending in on themselves as though the dome were forming new shapes.

"Get back!" said Freya. "Back in the lake!"

"Willow!" cried Eoin.

Through the gaps in the ice blocks he could see Willow, standing with her back to him, watching the ice reforming. She turned and saw him and jumped up and down in excitement. "Eoin! Freya!" Her face split wide in a massive smile and she waved with both hands.

"Willow, we're coming!" said Eoin.

"It looks like a trap," warned Freya.

"I know," said Eoin. "But what choice do we have?"

Serena stepped nervously up to the dome. "I'll get her," she said. "I lost her last time."

"No. We're strongest together," Eoin said. "Luck might not be enough this time. Ready?"

One after the other they jumped through the gap, avoiding the edges of the ice as though it were broken glass, into the middle of the broken dome, and into the trap.