Page 72 of First Snow
“I would never have allowed anything to happen to him.”
Jareth pats her back awkwardly, while nuzzling Arttu’s neck. They have so much talking to do. This is going to be a long night. He always preferred to work alone, and suddenly his most private place is filled with people and chatter. But he’s fine with it, as long as he can have Arttu close.
Chapter 23
Arttu
“I’msogladthatyou’re okay,” Emily says as she sinks down onto the couch next to him.
They have relocated to the fireplace room to drink some more coffee and continue their conversation. Arttu leans against Jareth, soaking up his warmth. It feels surreal that only 24 hours ago he was locked in Jareth’s bedroom—his personal bedroom, a shameless part of Arttu adds, not without pride—and yet, he feels safe with the man. He’s so fucking relieved that Jareth didn’t kill Mikael, and his brain is working overtime to rationalize away that he most probably did kill Suoranta and Scott. Luckily, Arttu has accumulated a bunch of half-crazy friends who seem to be okay with this madness.
He turns his attention to Tuulia, Emily, and the self-proclaimed witch. Taking a deep breath, Arttu decides their priority is to bring down Lord Briar. If these spell books are able to cause so much harm, it’ll be like arresting an arms dealer. But the point is that no one is going to arrest him. What crime would he be charged for? Or should Arttu look the other way when Jareth kills him?
Emily bumps their shoulders and smiles at him.
Right, he needs to gather more information before he makes up his mind.
“What are you even doing here?” he asks Emily. “Shouldn’t you be at uni?”
“You wouldn’t answer my texts, so I decided to come and visit Finland for the weekend.”
“You just decided to fly over? Without having my address? Without any hint whatsoever?” Arttu can’t quite believe her.
Emily blushes. She looks over at Tuulia, whose cheeks are beginning to color too. What have these girls been up to?
“When you didn’t answer your phone for days, I contacted Emily,” Tuulia starts. “I was desperate, and I hoped that she could provide me with some further information about Jareth and Lord Briar.”
“You just vanished, and we needed to find you.” Emily clears her throat. “That’s why we came up with a plan.”
“A plan?” Arttu echoes.
“We had no idea what was going on. For all we knew, Lord Briar had captured both of you,” Tuulia says.
“Or Jareth had locked you up somewhere. Sorry, Mr. Faeling,” Emily adds with a sheepish grin.
Now Arttu feels himself blushing. Great, why must they have this conversation in front of an audience? Tuulia shakes with suppressed laughter, and Loki is observing the whole scene over the rim of his coffee mug, as if watching an entertaining movie. And Jareth is sitting there in all of his half-Fae glory, as if he leads conspiratorial gatherings on a daily basis.
Arttu forces himself to concentrate on Emily and Tuulia. “What have you two been up to?”
Tuulia raises a haughty eyebrow at him. “Now, don’t be so judgy. You have no reason to be.”
“We needed to find out if you were still at Lord Briar’s hunting lodge, and I happened to know how to contact his spawn,” Emily says.
“You contacted the younger Lord Briar?” Jareth chuckles.
“How?” Arttu doesn’t like where this is going.
“You remember Martha from the escape room? She’s friends with one of his friends,” Emily says. “I contacted him and he was, uhm…willing to deliver some information.”
Tuulia grins. “He’s quite taken with Mistress Emily.”
“Isn’t he betrothed?” Arttu knows that he has zero reason to criticize Emily’s actions. What he did was a hundred times riskier, and morally questionable to top it off. But it feels different when a friend’s well-being is at stake. Arttu simply can’t help but worry.
Emily glares at him. “He isn’t, if you must know,” she says saltily. “His father is a demanding asshole, and a friend agreed to fake date him.”
“Seriously? When did he tell you all this?”
“When you were missing, and we feared that you were trapped somewhere. You could’ve been injured. Or worse!”