Page 8 of Winter Lost

She wiped her eyes and recovered herself a bit. “By the end of it the parents arrived. The girl’s mom”—she had to giggle for a minute—“her mom said, ‘At least this phone is waterproof.’ ”

“I would never use that phone again,” I said sincerely. “Even if it was waterproof.”

“My hiking boots were waterproof, too,” she said before giggling some more. “I tossed them.” She stuck her feet out and wiggled her toes. Something about that set her off again.

She was back to being face down on the table, this time laughing helplessly, when Uncle Mike came in with two bowls of stew and two frosted glasses containing some sort of amber liquid. He set my stew in front of me and put Mary Jo’s near the center of the table, where it would be safer from being knocked over by the incautious moves of someone who had had a bit too much to drink.

After he’d deposited the glasses, he tapped the one in front of me and the color changed slightly.

“For your headache, Mercy,” he said. “It shouldn’t affect the taste.”

I nodded. Not quite a thank-you, so it should be safe.

He nodded back, and then snuffed out the candle. Immediately the room filled with the scent of stew and apple cider, more strongly than I’d have expected. As if they flowed in to fill the gap in scents the candle had left behind. I hadn’t noticed when the sewer-and-chemical smell had vanished, but it was gone.

“Effective,” I said.

Uncle Mike gave me a professional smile, warm but without intimacy, and said, “It’s done its job. No reason to ruin the meal.” He looked at my helplessly laughing companion and said, “That elixir doesn’t last long with werewolves. She’ll be herself again in a minute. Eating will help.”

“Did she order stew?” I asked. Mary Jo was a burger kind of person who viewed any vegetables that weren’t fried and salted with suspicion.

“On the house,” he said. Then his eyes chilled a little. “An apology for the incident at the—” He said a word I didn’t catch.

“At the what?” I asked.

He repeated himself. When I clearly didn’t understand him again, he rolled his eyes and dropped the jolly innkeeper role. “The pine tree. I let someone else decorate, and she thought the tree would be funny. If it weren’t for the spider, I’d take it down, but—”

“Let’s not annoy the silver spider,” I said.

“Indeed.” He rocked back on his heels and pursed his lips as if in thought. “Larry was here earlier. Gave me a message for you. Said he’d tried calling but you hadn’t picked up.”

Larry was the goblin king. I’d never managed to discover if he ruled over all goblins or just the goblins in the Tri-Cities. He had a gift for seeing the future. Possible future, anyway.

I checked my phone. “It’s on silent,” I apologized, fixing that. Larry had called, but he hadn’t left a message.

“He said he was headed out of town on business for a day or two, but he said, ‘Winter roads are treacherous, but necessary to get you where you are going.’ ”

I waited for the rest.

Uncle Mike shrugged. “That was it.”

I bit my lip, unease stirring in my stomach. “Seems like he put a lot of effort into getting a warning to me that is—”

“Inherently obvious, assuming you are going to be traveling,” agreed Uncle Mike, staring at me as if I were interesting. Or about to become interesting.

It made me want to look over my shoulder, because my half brother maintained that whenever he or events around him started to become interesting, our father was likely about.

Coyote wasn’t anyone’s idea of a typical father. He’d once shoved me into the Columbia to see if a river monster would eat me. Not so much the kind of parent who threw their children into a lake to teach them how to swim, but one who did it to see if they would drown.

“I’m not planning on going anywhere,” I said. Then thought about the trouble in New Mexico that Adam was dealing with tonight. My mate might be traveling soon. “I’ll keep Larry’s words in mind.”

Uncle Mike gave me a half nod and, once more, closed the door behind him.

The stew was good, and the apple cider—a nonalcoholic version—complemented it. It also killed most of my headache. I was halfway through the glass when Mary Jo quit laughing into the table, sat up, and gave the empty glass that had held her lavender drink a considering look.

“Not quite like being drunk,” she said. “Better in some ways, not as good in others.”

“Did it help?” I asked.