Chapter 13: Almost

The first frost came in November, and it came into the Boundary Gallery through the window glass.

Draconia had worn two cardigans and a pair of gloves with the fingertips cut off, so that she could hold her wand.

Harry had worn his coat.

By midnight his knuckles had gone the colour of candle wax.

She watched them for a quarter of an hour before she said anything.

"Your hands are blue," she said.

"They're cold."

"Blue is not cold, in here. You told me so yourself, on the second night."

"I told you cold was blue," said Harry. "That's a different thing."

"It is the same thing said backwards, and you know it."

He did not answer.

He flexed his fingers on the dark wood of the wand and tried not to shiver.

Draconia knew rule three as well as anyone, because she had written it.

No casting for show.

She took her left hand off her own wand, which she was permitted to do.

The permission lasted exactly as long as the other hand stayed on it.

She held the hand out over the table, an inch above his, and said the warming charm under her breath.

It was a small, dull, household charm, the kind a nursemaid used on a cold bed.

It came out of her palm in a wash of gold so bright that it threw her shadow up the wall.

The whole gallery went the colour of honey.

Beyond the window, on the hill, the silver lines of the wards bloomed warm.

They ran along the ridge to the next stone, and the next.

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