Pip shut the door to the lodge, wincing as she stared back out at the cold, air nipping at her exposed face. Maybe the snowball fight had gotten a bit out of hand. She hadn’t meant to hurt anyone, especially not a stranger. A cute stranger, at that.

  Khione rushed up, an excited grin on her face, flushed from the cold. It only made her look more alive, happier than Pip thought she’d ever seen her back home. Having her along was great, though Pip had no idea what she’d told her parents to be able to come. Hopefully, she wouldn’t get locked up for kidnapping when she got back home. She was eighteen now, she could be tried as an adult!

  “What was that?” Khione asked, squinting through the frosted window on the door.

  “Your snowball hit that girl,” Pip said. “Hit her good. Pretty damn good snowball, though.”

  “Who would have thought I’d be good at making balls.”

  “Shut up,” Pip said, even as a smile pulled at the words. This was the best birthday she could have asked for, and she hadn’t had to ask for it. Mountaintop vacation with her girlfriend, her family, and plenty of new friends. Even Florence had shown up, grumbling about the cold the entire time, though they’d still dragged him out to play in the snow. “Maybe I should go check on her?”

  “Or we could get back out there,” Khione said, nodding over her shoulder.

  “You just want to destroy me the moment we’re out of the safe zone,” Pip accused.

  “Maybe,” she said. Khione had such a huge advantage it wasn’t even fair. She didn’t get cold, she could shape and control snow without ever needing to touch it, and she was getting better at it the longer they spent fighting. For elemental manipulators, being immersed in their element often helped with power and control, but Khione had grown up in New Denver. Surely, she’d spent time in the cold before.

  “Hey!” A skittering noise came from the roof following the voice, only for a pair of long legs to appear over the edge before dropping into the snow below. Florence straightened, doing his best to look dignified and put together while he brushed snow from his body. “What’s going on? You aren’t making out under here, are you?”

  Khione met the boy with one of her icy glares, though much like fire often was, he was impervious to it. At least she was no longer jealous of their relationship, now that she knew Florence was very much a boy and very much not Pip’s type. When Khione had admitted that after meeting Florence earlier in the morning, Pip hadn’t been able to keep from laughing, much to Florence’s annoyance. Thankfully, they were both over it now.

  “Hey!” Florence held up his hands, fingers long and thin, uncalloused, a bit like a pianist. “I’m not protesting. Just saying, you could have warned a guy before disappearing like that. I thought we’d planned out our attack and then you just weren’t there.”

  “Sorry,” Pip said, wincing again. “I got distracted.” Florence turned his gaze on Khione, and Pip quickly protested. “I hit a girl with a snowball and had to make sure she was okay.”

  “Right,” Florence said, smirk dancing onto his face. “I believe you.”

  “Shut up,” Pip said, turning away from him to Khione. “You should run, there’s two of us now and only one of you.”

  “Two, versus my army?” With a dramatic wink, she stepped backward, raising her arms. From the snow all around, multitudes of snowmen rose up, brandishing artillery of their own. A vein in her forehead bulged under the strain.

  The door opened, releasing a burst of hot air and breaking Khione’s concentration enough to turn her army of snowmen into a graveyard.

  Athena stepped out onto the covered porch, looking down at the three of them. “Did you make someone bleed?” she asked, her voice stern.

  “It was an accident,” Pip said immediately, rushing to explain under her mother’s hardened gaze. “Khione threw a snowball. I hit it off course, and it hit her. I helped her immediately though.”

  “I hope this isn’t getting out of hand,” Athena said, leveling her gaze at Khione and Florence as well. “I wouldn’t want to have to stop it.”

  “No, of course not,” Khione said, tucking her hands behind her back.

  “It’ll probably time for food soon anyway, right?” Pip asked. “We can finish up and head inside.”

  Athena stared at them for a moment before her expression softened, and she nodded. “Make sure you let everyone know,” she said. “I haven’t heard from your younger siblings in a while and I’d prefer if your party didn’t turn into a search and rescue party.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Pip said. She knew exactly where her siblings were. On opposing sides of the Great Snowball War, split down the middle like the civil war. Brother against brother. Sister against sister. Girlfriend against girlfriend.

  Athena stepped back inside, shutting the door behind her.

  “One final battle?” Pip asked the moment her mother was gone. “I’ll even let you get away without attacking, so long as you don’t attack until we’re back in position.”

  “Deal,” Khione said. She took off immediately, sprinting around the back of the lodge.

  Pip spun around to face Florence. “Back to the roof,” she said, reaching out a hand. She stepped out from beneath the awning, growing a glass pole in her hand, reaching the edge of the sloped roof. She reached out the other hand to Florence. “Need help?”

  “I’m fine,” Florence said, looking up. He reached for the roof, fingertips barely scraping the edge despite being a solid foot taller than Pip. She rolled her eyes and sent the slightest bit of attention to her feet, growing spikes from the soles of her winter boots and using them and the pole to climb up onto the roof.

  She twisted around, knee deep in the snow, grinning at Florence. He jumped, snagging the edge for a moment before his gloves slipped and he landed in the snow.

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  “All that power, and no skill,” she said, clucking her tongue.

  “Just help me up, will you? Do you want to lose?” he snapped, glaring up from the ground with his vibrant orange-flecked eyes. It was a feature Pip desperately wished she had, rather than her brown ones. They weren’t bad, but they weren’t the exciting colored eyes that came along with some superpowers. It was especially bad considering Grandma Thalia was known for her purple eyes. Why couldn’t she have purple eyes too?

  Reaching over the side of the building, Pip grabbed onto Florence’s arm and helped haul him onto the roof, giving him enough of a lift he could eventually grab onto the roof and support some of his own weight. He wasn’t all that heavy, though he was very muscular, even if he was kind of scrawny at the same time. Pip was pretty sure she could throw him over her shoulder and carry him, though she wasn’t tempted enough to try. Not right now.

  They raced up the roof, quickly reaching the top where it turned into a plateau. The snow had been plowed through, turned into walls, bridges, and dunes. Smoke billowed from twin chimneys on either side of the roof, marking the home bases of the two teams. Pip’s team, consisting of Pip, Florence, Theo, Dyiona, and one of Florence’s friends, Raesha. And Khione’s team, with Khione, Galen, Amalia and Emilios, and another one of Thalia’s finds, Harper.

  Snowballs fired across no-man's land, shooting at them as Florence and Pip raced for cover. Raesha leapt up from behind a wall of snow, whistling sharp and fast. A snowball the size of a marble, packed as solid as ice, whipped through the air like a bullet, striking the snowballs before they could reach Pip and Florence.

  Pip dove behind the nearest snow wall, landing on her arms and legs, letting out an oof as she struck. It didn’t hurt, she’d been taught how to fall, and she quickly pulled onto her knees. Florence simply ducked into place beside her, the wall steaming and melting as he came near, heating the very air around him.

  “Hey,” Pip said, poking him in the arm. “You’re melting things.”

  “Oh!” He pulled back his hands, taking a sharp breath. The heat stopped immediately, air turning frosty again. “That doesn’t normally happen.”

  “I would hope not,” Theo said, his voice dry but the look he gave Florence entirely the opposite. However Theo was looking at her friend, Pip didn’t like it, and shot him a glare. He didn’t notice, too absorbed in staring at Florence. What was it about Florence? He wasn’t even that good looking, with that scrawny build and blonde tipped hair that had died out as popular decades ago.

  “What have they been doing?” Pip asked, looking at her crew. The only one missing was Dyionia, which wasn’t great, considering Athena had told her specifically not to lose her youngest sister, but surely she was around here somewhere.

  Hopefully.

  She hadn’t awakened her power yet, despite being eight years old, which was unusual for a Carter and also put her in some amount of jeopardy when everyone else in the snowball battle had a superpower of some form.

  “They’ve been working on something,” Theo said, finally snapping back to attention. “So we sent in a spy.”

  A grin curled across his face, and Pip’s stomach dropped. “You sent Dy over there?” she demanded. Mom was going to be pissed.

  She’d be fine. She was a Carter after all. Durable, smart, good at fighting. Eight years old, but scrappy if you set her off. She’d be fine. Definitely wouldn’t get hurt spying on the other team for them.

  Galen, Amalia, and Emilios were over there. They wouldn’t let her get hurt.

  “She knows what she’s doing,” Theo said. “She’s done this before?”

  “Wait, what? When has she done this before?”

  “We put her on the roof outside your room to spy on you and Khione,” he said casually.

  “What?” Pip screeched. Fuck teams, she was going to kick Theo’s ass. That was so wrong on so many levels. An invasion of privacy. Irresponsible. Gross. Now she’d have to make sure to lock and bar her window to make sure nobody could spy on her through it.

  “Okay, process later,” Florence said, stepping between them. “We don’t have that much longer.”

  “Wait, why not?” Raesha asked.

  “Dinner soon,” he said. “We have to finish up the fight and head inside.”

  “Then let’s attack now,” Raesha said, balling her hands into fists, clutching the marble in her fist.

  “Wait!” Theo said. “Just wait. Dyionia should be back any moment now.”

  Just as he spoke, someone on the other side screamed. A familiar, girlish scream.

  Pip popped up from behind the barrier, glaring daggers across the divide.

  Khione had Dyionia trapped. Two snowmen held onto her sister, preventing her from moving even as she struggled against their grip. And Khione had transformed, turning into a warrior of snow and ice that left Pip drooling and desperate for a chance to fight against her girlfriend in a proper brawl.

  The armor made Khione stand six feet tall, bulky and shiny from frost.

  Pip went weak in the knees staring at her. She was terrifying, and it was gorgeous.

  “Surrender!” Khione shouted, projecting her voice across the rooftop battlefield. “Or risk your sister’s safety.” She pointed at Dyionia, the snowmen tightening their grip on her.

  Pip stared across at her, then leapt to the top of the snow wall in a single movement, making herself taller. Behind her, Theo scoffed.

  She looked at her sister, then at Khione, and spoke. “We cannot abandon our beliefs on the risk of one man’s life!” she shouted back across the rooftop.

  “Hey!” Dyionia squeaked. “I’m not a man.”

  Pip ignored her, not breaking eye contact with Khione. Perhaps she should construct her own armor, though it hadn’t been perfected yet. She needed to be able to balance the strength of the glass with her own safety. Glass could be fragile, or it could be bulletproof. She had to make something that allowed her to move, but wouldn’t cut her apart if someone hit it hard enough.

  This was not the time for that.

  “I’ll tell your mom you sacrificed your sister,” Khione said, losing a bit of the edge in her voice.

  “She’ll understand,” Pip said, shrug hardly visible beneath the bulky puffy coat she had on. Whether her mother would actually understand was debatable, but Khione wouldn’t hurt Dyionia. Which meant, Pip was safe to attack.

  “If that is your choice…”

  Pip barely had a chance to drop off the wall and behind it as a flurry of snowballs flew through the air, some thrown by hand and others by Khione’s power.

  “Attack!” she shouted, her voice carrying across the rooftop.

  Without missing a beat, her team gathered their own projectiles and attacked. They fought furiously, trying to dodge the oncoming attacks and hold their ground, but Khione’s team was too powerful. They advanced, Khione’s power giving her an advantage that could not be overcome.

  With an ice-coated fist, Khione tore through the snow wall, grabbing Pip by the front of her puffy coat.

  The ice melted away from her face, revealing a prideful smirk as she leaned in for a kiss.

  “I win,” she murmured against Pip’s lips.

  “I surrender,” Pip said, dropping the last snowball in her hand. She called the order out to her group, watching as Khione’s team piled them with snowballs, before returning her attention to Khione. “This ice armor is really hot.”

  Khione snorted. “Sure, like the Yeti is hot.”

  “If you were the yeti, I’d hit that,” Pip said.

  “Sure you would, virgin,” Khione teased, giving Pip another kiss before pulling back. “We should head down now. I’m getting hungry.”

  “You two are disgusting,” Florence said, wrinkling his nose at them as he passed by to get off the roof. “And you missed a perfectly good pun back there.”