The Snow Queen's Shadow

said dryly. Seeing the worry on Gerta’s face, she added, “Thank you.”
    Gerta brightened. “It’s not much, but it should help. Be careful.”
    “Why start now?” Talia made her way to the foredeck. Danielle’s two dolphins swam alongside the Phillipa . She climbed onto the rail and swung her legs around to the outside. Waves broke against the ship, the spray chilling her bare feet. Holding her breath, she braced her legs and kicked off.
    It was like diving into a wall of ice. Air burst from her lungs. Her cape yanked at her neck as she kicked for the surface.
    She found herself staring into the glassy black eye of a dolphin. “I don’t suppose you come with a saddle?”
    The dolphin tilted backward until it was swimming upright with only the head protruding through the waves, almost as if it were standing.
    “Could be worse,” Talia muttered. “Last time, she called sharks.”
    The dolphin’s skin was smooth, almost silken, yet it wasn’t slippery. It reminded her of fine, well-oiled leather. She grabbed the dorsal fin with one hand and reached for a flipper with the other.
    She barely had time to hold her breath as the dolphin’s body curved and flexed, and then they were shooting through the water like they had been launched from a cannon. The dolphin surfaced a short time later, just before Talia ran out of air. She glanced behind to see the Phillipa already shrunken to the size of a toy. The dolphin’s power was equal to any horse, and Talia stopped worrying about anything save breathing and holding on.
    The heat of Gerta’s magic enveloped Talia, pushing back the water’s chill. Her hands and feet were numb, but her core was warm. Spray washed over her as the dolphin surfaced again. She could hear it sucking air through the blowhole on the top of its head. The second dolphin swam a short distance to her left, their movements almost perfectly synchronized.
    Her hands were starting to cramp by the time she spied Snow’s ship in the distance. The moonlight showed only a black outline sailing east. As they neared, Talia began to make out the details of the stolen ship. Snow had taken the Lynn’s Luck , a square-rigged, three-masted vessel. She sailed in darkness, her lamps cold.
    Anticipation warmed Talia’s blood as they swam closer. She studied the Lynn’s Luck , gauging the best way to sneak on board. A small boat hung from the stern, offering one option. She could also try to reach the anchors near the bow.
    “The stern,” she decided, giving the dolphin’s dorsal fin a gentle tug. The boat shouldn’t make much noise, and hopefully most of the crew would be looking ahead, not behind. She brought one bare foot up onto the dolphin’s back, behind the dorsal fin. She braced herself there, legs taut and ready to spring as the dolphin swam closer.
    Talia’s breath hissed. The boat was still too high, and she had no way to climb the hull. Nothing that wouldn’t draw attention, at any rate.
    The dolphin ducked beneath the waves. Talia bit back a yelp as the water swallowed her. She clung to the fin as they swam deeper, then somersaulted underwater. The movement nearly flung Talia loose. The dolphin’s body flexed hard, shooting them upward. Talia realized what was happening an instant before they broke the surface and launched into the air.
    Any closer and she would have smashed her head against the boat. She reached out, catching the edge of the boat as the dolphin dropped back into the sea. The boat swayed, knocking once against the Lynn’s Luck ’s hull before Talia could steady herself. She waited, but nobody came to investigate.
    Talia pulled herself up and grabbed the closest of the ropes securing the boat to the ship. She never could have done it without the added strength of the wolfskin. She climbed higher, doing her best to avoid the windows built into the ship’s stern. She listened again, then pulled herself up to the rail and onto the Lynn’s Luck .
    She crouched low and slid a dagger from its sheath. A single crewman stood on the yard overhead, working with no light save the moon. Talia crept toward the pin-rail at the base of the mizzenmast.
    Other shadows crawled through the sheets or worked the main deck. The Lynn’s Luck could have been a ghost ship for all the noise they made. Not a single man spoke.
    Talia sniffed the air, hoping to pick up Jakob’s scent. Wrapping herself in the wolfskin would strengthen the wolf’s senses further, but the transformation was