Winter Lost

I had to squint, because I’d been right: keeping my eyes open made my head hurt worse.

“Once upon a time,” he said, “there was a good dog who was bored. And his master said, ‘I will give you a body, and you can go live in the world for a while as a human. Until winter solstice, when I shall take back the gift.’ ” His voice broke and he continued in a whisper. “I learned that I liked to grow plants and be useful. I liked to meet new people.” He stumbled to a halt. Then he said, “If the wedding doesn’t happen, maybe Hugo can live.”

“You became Hugo,” I said. “And you knew that Hrímnir couldn’t come here. When my brother stole the artifact, he brought it here and left it with you. Where he thought it would be safe. Why did he go back to talk to Hrímnir?”

Hugo shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said.

“I don’t think that preventing the renewal of the spell will save you,” I told him gently.

He looked down. “You don’t know that. Ymir said…”

“Ymir lies,” I told him. “You know that.”

“Maybe so,” he said. “Probably. But at least Garmr will be free. I…I will be free. And there will be no more lies.”

I was ready when he pulled out the revolver. I’d smelled the peculiar combination of gun oil, gunpowder, and char that is the scent of a recently fired gun when he’d come into the room.

Still, I waited until I saw his finger twitch before I shot him through the pillow I held in my lap. Adam’s gun, the one I’d liberated with his permission, given with a nod because Zane and Liam and Emily had been watching, wasn’t the HK I was familiar with. But Hugo was less than six feet away.

He will die there, Hrímnir had told me the first time I’d met him. I’d thought he’d been speaking of Gary. I knew now that he had not been.

Hugo’s body hit the floor, and a few seconds later, the giant beast that had ripped my mind open stood over it. He was still not quite real. His lips drew back in a snarl.

“You’ve done your job,” I told Garmr. My head hurt too much—and I was too sad—to be afraid of him. “I played my part in this farce. If you had left me alone, I’d never have figured everything out before Hugo killed me, too. Save your snarls for your master.” I put the safety back on Adam’s gun. “Hugo was always fated to die.”

The words tasted like ashes and truth on my tongue.

Adam would be here soon, drawn by the sound of his gun being fired. Zane was with him, and apparently Zane had been able to drive off Garmr. I wasn’t surprised when the door flew open with enough force to hit the wall.

But it wasn’t Adam who came in.

An elderly Native woman entered the room, clothed in a white deerskin elk-tooth dress and white leggings, her long hair a shade of gray that looked metallic silver, plaited into two braids that draped over her shoulders and down her chest, ending at her waist.

Her feet were bare and thick-soled, as if she spent most of her days without shoes. Her strong, fine-boned hands bore long, thin calluses, as if one of her usual tasks wore her skin.

Her attention was not on me but on Garmr.

“Poor boy,” she said. “Poor, dear boy. It was not her fault. She only had her part to play, and she played it. Come here.”

Garmr closed his lips over his teeth and quit growling at me. He carefully stepped over the body, around the bed, and sat at the old woman’s heel. His attention focused on her face.

She set a hand on his head, unbothered by the not-quite-realness of it. “This has been difficult for you, and your tasks are not done, poor boy. Fetch the harp for me, if you would. We have need of it tonight.”

He whined softly.

“Hugo doesn’t need it anymore,” she said. “He never did. You know that. Be a good boy and fetch it.”

He chuffed and padded out the door—giving me a baleful look over his shoulder when the old woman couldn’t see him. Then all that was left was the soft clicking of his toenails on the floor outside as he went about his task.

She surveyed the room and sighed. “Poor thing.”

I couldn’t tell if she was talking about the dog, the dead man, or me. I was feeling sorry enough for myself that I didn’t need anyone else’s sympathy.

“I don’t know why they put locks on the doors in this place,” I complained mildly.

“Locks only ever keep out people who aren’t determined to come in,” she said.

She sat down on the bed beside me. Without asking, she took the gun from my hand. I looked at it, too. It was Adam’s 1911, his spare carry gun. I had killed someone with it. I had known I would use it to kill when I took it from Adam’s holster.

After a brief examination, she set it on the bed. She put her hands on my face and looked into my eyes.

And all the pain in my head fled at her touch. The only thoughts running through my head belonged to me. I could think. I could wonder who this woman was. The spirit of Looking Glass Lake, maybe? That didn’t seem right.

“I didn’t fix you,” said the old woman. “I isolated us—gave us a pocket of time to solve our problems.”

I blinked at her. With the pain gone, I recognized her voice. “You’re the spider. The silver one.”