The cold had teeth. It chewed their ears and the webs between their fingers as they picked their way along the broken flagstones to Ashmead Pass.
Even the dog, which had grown a husk of gray fur since the city, kept its snout low and refused to whimper. The mountain above was a god's jaw, every cusp and precipice stark in the brittle dawn.
Apollo walked point, not because he was the bravest or the strongest, but because the others trusted his need to keep moving forward, an optimist's compulsion, Lyra had once called it, and meant as an insult.
The carved arch of Ashmead at first looked like little more than two fallen slabs, but as they closed on it Apollo saw the concavity in the keystone: a basin, scorched black with old fire, brimming now with a snowmelt slurry that stank of rotten kelp.
Nik spat into the bowl as they passed, muttering, "Offer your libation, see if the Bastard answers."
