Winter Lost

Truth shivered through his words. Which was very helpful because I couldn’t tell if what he said was true—which is what it felt like. Or if it was that he believed what he said—which was a different thing entirely. And it didn’t matter, because what he said didn’t make sense to me at all.

“Why can’t you just go get it?” I asked.

“They fled before me to a place they knew I could not follow,” he told me with sudden coherence. “But they will die there.” He paused and said, with the force of a prophecy, “He will die there.” Sadness came and went so fast I wasn’t sure I had seen it at all. “I may not be able to go there, this is true. But it is also true that they cannot leave unless I let them.”

“If they escape—”

“They die,” he said with a fierce smile, and I thought of the gryphon—or whatever the beast had been.

I rubbed my forehead as if pressure could make the Soul Taker’s damage go away. Wind I did not feel lifted the skins on his back and made them flutter.

“Why can’t you just go to the hot springs and retrieve the harp?” I said, holding up a hand as his anger began to rise. “I am ignorant about holy places of fire and also mostly ignorant about Jötnar. Maybe if I knew more, I could help.”

He considered me.

“This is a place where the heat of the heart of the world rises in the water,” he said. “Rich in magic and healing.” He closed his eyes and turned his hands palms up—and the air became thick with a magic as pure as the snow. Evidently, from the rush of effervescent power on my skin, my senses were noticing magic again.

He closed his hands and I could breathe, though magic still rippled around us.

“This fire I may sup upon,” he said simply. “But the land has been held sacred and the element opposes my own. Generations upon generations have made the springs a refuge. If I get too close to the fire of the holy place, I burn.”

Hot springs were not uncommon in the Rocky Mountains, of which the Cabinets were a small chunk. Many of them were secrets—there was one in the Marrok’s territory that I was pretty sure only Charles and I knew about. But at the turn of the previous century, building hotels and health spas around largish and safe-ish hot springs had been popular. Most of those naturally occurring hot springs had been considered sacred by the original inhabitants of the land. A place that held the touch of God, by whatever name people addressed him by. Holy.

Holiness was one of those things that I knew when I felt it—but I couldn’t have described it coherently if my life depended upon it. I was unclear if holiness was something that was independent of belief or not. I wasn’t even absolutely certain what it was—a force, a warding, or something else entirely. I did know that it could affect magic strongly, and sometimes unpredictably.

“Someone stole your harp from you and ran to the hot springs, where you couldn’t follow them. The harp and presumably the person or people who stole it from you are at the resort. They can’t leave, and you can’t go in to get it.”

“Yes.”

“You have made it so they cannot leave. They will die. Your harp will stay there, and you will never recover it.”

Hrímnir roared, a sound that carried with it the force of the winter wind. Cold bit at my face and burned everywhere I had skin exposed.

“Unless…” I said, letting my voice trail off.

He turned his head to me, and I felt his attention as a wave of cold. I didn’t shiver, but it took an effort.

“What if we go in and get it for you?” I suggested.

Interlude

Zane

“Did you hear that?” Ezra said. “They’ve canceled the flight to Missoula—winter storm.”

A cold chill went up Zane’s spine. They had to make it to the wedding.

“You might not make it to your own wedding, buddy.” Leon’s big grin split his face. “Don’t look like that. Have you even met Tammy? She’s not going to hold the biggest storm in a hundred years against you. You should wait until the weather dies down and go to Hawaii—which is where all December weddings should be held.”

Ezra shook his head. “Nah, this is where generational wealth does its work. Go to it, Zane.” He waved a hand at him, as if inviting him to work real magic.

“I don’t have a wand,” Zane told him, imitating the Harry Potter gesture Ezra had given him.

“Nah,” Ezra said with a grin. “You have real magic. Get your phone out and work your spell.”

With a reluctant smile, Zane pulled out his phone, quickly discovering their flight to Missoula wasn’t the only one canceled. He couldn’t get a flight into Kalispell, Helena, Butte, or Bozeman. Billings was a possibility. When he checked it, Billings was more than five hundred miles from Libby—the nearest town to Looking Glass Hot Springs.

Wealth or not, it was Ezra with his military connections who found a pilot willing to fly into Spokane as long as they didn’t close the airport.

Two hours later they were climbing into a twenty-year-old Cessna 172, having shed most of their luggage.

The pilot gave the three of them an odd look—saying something in Spanish to Ezra, who laughed.