Ember Frost’s POV

We ran toward the house ahead of us. From a distance, it looked like nothing more than a small, lonely place in the middle of the snow.

It was pointless.

We had spent the whole afternoon digging through the rubble of the houses, and all we had to show for it was dust in our hair and aching backs.

The old witch settlement wasn’t very large. Maybe thirty, forty houses at most, built close together like they once relied on each other to survive. Eira and I searched ...