***TRICIA***Blake kept working like the air wasn’t tightening around us, like the cold wasn’t crawling up my spine in slow, biting fingers. He was on his knees in front of the ice, arranging his things—candles, a thin knife, some chalk, the strange old book he’d pulled out earlier. But I kept staring at the frozen beast behind him, the same one that had glanced at me before pretending to be lifeless again.

I wasn’t crazy. I knew what I saw.

Blake lifted his head for a moment, eyes ...