There were boots walking the deck; Edmund knew the glassy click of them, ice on ice; it was a sound that followed him in his very shadow, sleeping or waking. The darkness closed around them, so complete and consuming he felt the muggy lick of it all over him, under his clothes, down his throat, but the breath of the thing approaching him clouded the air with a silvery winter haze that had the sharp, sweet smell of rosewater. It settled very close to him, close enough to see the frost prickling at the corners of its dark eyes like a rind of salt, to see the crown of iced steel it wore in its dark hair, to see its teeth when it smiled, coated with the diluted bloody pink of Turkish Delight.