Winter Lost

“I saw a frost giant about a couple of horses,” I tried. I had a sudden thought. “The eggs didn’t make it, did they?”

His warm hand resumed petting me, and his voice was definite when he said, “Mercy, no one is ever sending you to get eggs again if I have anything to say about it.”

Something happened upstairs—I felt it before I heard anything, but the soft cry caught Adam’s attention. I heard Liam’s indrawn breath before a woman’s voice called his name. The stairs were a ways away from this room, but I heard Emily’s footsteps as she ran down them.

Liam got up and strode to the door, throwing it open.

“Emily,” he said in a voice that would carry without being a shout. “Here. What’s wrong?”

“Liam, Liam.” Emily’s steps, already rapid, changed to a full-out run toward our room. But it wasn’t until she burst through the open doorway and Liam caught her by the shoulders that she said, “Victoria and Able are dead.”

The goblins, I thought. I’d all but forgotten about the goblins.

Of course the goblins had figured it out—because we’d never gotten around to asking Dylis about the music in the wall. Liam knew the lodge like a chef knows his kitchen. Therefore, I knew where Dylis’s room was, and what the outside wall butted up against.

Because of that, I knew why Dylis had heard music. The goblins had known it, too. They hadn’t needed to walk through Liam’s understanding, they only had to listen to Dylis and know the layout of the lodge.

They’d stolen the artifact—and paid the price of their theft.

“Able and Victoria?” asked Zane.

Emily asked, “Who are you?”

Liam said, “I’ll explain, but first, what happened to our guests? How did something happen to them?”

A green man couldn’t prevent harm from happening to his guests—he just took it personally when it did. He should have known when it happened…but he hadn’t known about the hungry ghost, either.

But the spirit of the lake was different, and with Liam’s knowledge, I understood why she was different. She should have been able to protect the goblins who were refugees from the storm. She should have protected them.

“How did something happen to them?” was indeed the right question, I thought. But no one in this room had the answer.

“Shot,” Emily said, sounding as if the questions were helping her regain her poise. “Both of them. Right in the middle of their foreheads.”

Goblins were fast. I could see someone shooting one before they understood what was happening, but to shoot the second one—

Adam thought, Elyna. And then he thought, Is it dark enough for her to be about?

But it hadn’t been the vampire who killed the goblins.

Emily couldn’t answer Liam’s real question, either.

That was okay. Liam was thinking what I was thinking. If the spirit of Looking Glass had not saved them, it was because they had never been refugees at all. Predators, not prey. Then, usefully, Liam showed me how the lake spirit defined the status of refugee. The goblins could have defended themselves. But it did not mean they could kill as they willed.

Timor mortis conturbat me, I thought. The fear of death disquiets me. And I knew where I’d heard it, too: English Lit 201, the fifteenth-century poet William Dunbar. My roommate had spent a week trying to memorize “The Lament for the Makaris.” But the phrase was older than that. I shivered. As old as mortal-kind, I thought.

“Let’s go up,” said Zane.

Adam said, “I’m staying here.”

That wouldn’t work. I needed him to go with Liam and Zane. I needed to be alone because I was in no shape to hunt down my prey. If Adam stayed…that would leave too many things beyond my control. I thought that I might have this one chance only.

“Go,” I told Adam, brushing my hand over the carry gun he had in the small of his back. It didn’t feel like his usual HK. “You’ll be useful. None of them can scent a trail.”

I wasn’t wrong. But I didn’t know that for sure until after I’d said it and the thoughts of the others confirmed it. I needed them all out of the room.

I didn’t have much time, I thought with black humor.

Adam stiffened—he knew I was planning something. He hesitated.

“Go,” I told him. “Please.” Oh, dear God, I prayed, let this work. One chance.

“I can stay,” Adam said, and I knew he’d caught my fear and misread it. I wasn’t worried about me; I was worried about him. About what would happen to him if I failed.

“Go,” I said, willing him to continue to believe that what I was afraid of was being left alone. “You need to go.”

He heard the utter truth in my words, because he left, shutting the door and locking it behind him. As soon as they were all gone, I sat up. Then I pulled a pillow over my lap and curled over it, resting my forehead on the cool linen. I waited for the coolness to make my head stop hurting so much, but that didn’t happen.