Winter Lost

She grew still and her eyes were full of starlight—though between the mist and the storm, there were no stars visible above us. “You must be precious to him for him to go to all this trouble.”

Coyote.

“But we’ll talk of him later,” she said, closing those strange eyes and snuggling down in the water. “Tell me about the thing that hurt you.”

“It was an artifact,” I said, “called the Soul Taker.”

Unlike Hrímnir, she didn’t appear to know about it. She was a good audience and she hummed a little as I talked, weaving her hands through the water. I couldn’t see exactly what she was doing. It was dark, and the water from the lake made a small waterfall into the pond, keeping the surface rippled. But I could feel her power fizz against my skin where it touched the water.

When I’d finished my story, we sat in silence for a space.

“Now tell me,” she said slowly, “how Coyote poked his nose into the frost giant’s business.”

“I think he convinced my brother to steal Hr—” I stopped at her hiss.

“Let’s not name him now,” she said, “in his storm. He can’t come here, but still…”

I nodded. “My father convinced my brother to come and steal the frost giant’s harp.”

How had Coyote found out about it? How did he find out about anything?

“Possibly the wind told him,” Grandmother Spider said, as if I’d spoken aloud. “The wind likes to flirt with Coyote.” She nodded gravely. “Go on.”

“I think my brother was supposed to steal it so that Victoria and Able, the goblins, couldn’t steal it and take it to Ymir.”

“He couldn’t be bothered to just drop in with a warning,” she muttered, her attention firmly on what her hands were doing under the water. I caught a glimpse of light playing along one of her fingers, but it was gone before I could be sure I’d actually seen anything.

“Hey, look, frost giant. Your brother is sending thieves to steal that artifact you need to keep the world from ending,” I said in a cartoon Coyote voice, before dropping into my own. “Not his style. But my brother stole the artifact. I think something about the situation tipped Gary off that our father was playing a game, though. I think he went back to check with a source he could trust. So he went to talk to H— to the frost giant, who, instead of discussing matters, hit my brother with a spell that made communication impossible.”

“By then your father knew what the Soul Taker had done to you,” Grandmother Spider said comfortably. “He had this plot going already and saw an opportunity. A unique opportunity, in fact. So he saw to it that one sibling was replaced with the other. The one who needed to be here, in this place, at this time.”

Yep. That’s what I’d thought. Coyote had played my brother not once but twice.

“To what end?” I asked.

“Hmm,” she said, bending down a bit and bringing her hands up to the surface. I saw light then, like a red thread in her hands. She lowered them again, and the water was all darkness once more. “Let me tell you how I was brought here, to this pond, to tell stories with you.” She paused and smiled. “The night before the shortest night of the year is a good time for stories. For remembering.”

The water tingled a little against my skin.

“Do you know Baba Yaga?” she asked me.

“Do you know,” I said seriously, “that is the last question I expected you to ask me tonight. Yes. Or at least I have met her. And she has taken an interest in me a time or two.”

“Ah, that might explain things,” she said. “Baba Yaga told me that she had a decoration job in Uncle Mike’s pub, and would I do her a favor?” She paused. “I owed her a small favor. And a Christmas tree in a fae pub sounded amusing—at least in theory. In practice…let us just say that I was looking for something interesting when you wandered in. Soul damage is unusual by itself. But there was more to it. And your power tasted…There are not many of Coyote’s descendants running around anymore. He doesn’t bestir himself to flirtation as much as he used to and—” She gave me a rueful look. “They do tend to die young, child.”

“Mmm,” I said.

“He and I are…well, not friends exactly, but we are friendly, and I decided to follow you a bit and see if I might mend what was broken.”

“Heal me?” I said.

“I am not a great healer,” she offered. “But I do weave, and sometimes that will substitute.”

“You came here to help me?” I said slowly. “But what about Jack? Why did you attack Jack?”

“Jack?” She paused and gave me a faintly bewildered look before comprehension dawned. “Ah, the vampire’s true love.”

I think it was supposed to sound ironic, but it sounded a little tender to me. Maybe I was projecting.

“You’d mucked about trying to heal your damage,” she said. “And it looked like you had some help, but you might tell the Dark Smith to stick to metalwork next time you see him. Clumsy repairs are guaranteed to make things worse eventually. I needed to see the actual wounding—and it was better for you to rip that patchwork off than for me to do it.”

“You can fix me?” I said.