Page 82 of Winter Lost

“The Marrok might hunt artifacts,” Adam conceded, as if he’d followed my thoughts. Or maybe he knew something I didn’t—like that Bran had a massive collection of fae artifacts. “I have no useful knowledge about that. But he’s not hunting them with us. We have a treaty with the fae.”

One that did not say we were obliged to give them any artifacts we might find.

Victoria saw something over my shoulder, and whispered, “He’s coming.” She waited long enough for someone to walk from the kitchen to our table, and then smiled. After a second, the smile became genuine.

Liam brought two plates, overflowing with food, and set them on the table in front of Adam and me. We got glasses, which he filled with orange juice from a pitcher he’d also carried. He refilled the other glasses in front of our companions.

Victoria thanked him.

I had to work hard to keep from showing my shock. There was no way that she didn’t know Liam was fae. Maybe she didn’t realize that he was more powerful than she was? Or she was too young to know how dangerous thanking the fae was?

Liam accepted her thanks blandly, said a few hostly things, and took himself back to the kitchen. I wondered if he could hear what we were saying. I didn’t think so, because I hadn’t been able to eavesdrop over the music—and my hearing is very good.

“This elemental whose artifact was stolen is causing this storm?” Victoria asked. “It was stolen near here?”

I nodded.

“I thought you were here about your brother,” said Able. “That’s what you told Liam.”

“I am,” I said. “But it’s turned into something more complex.”

“Well,” said Victoria, “I don’t know why you’re talking to us.” She gave Adam a sour smile. “Neither of us has stolen an artifact.”

That put the goblins in the clear. Fae couldn’t lie. There were ways, I’d been told, very secret ways that goblins could lie. But her words struck me as the absolute truth—and I could tell truth from lie more accurately than any lie detector.

She pushed back her chair, stood up, and strode out of the room, Able trailing behind her.

“I thought we weren’t going to tell people about the artifact and ask them if they stole it?” said Adam, but not as though he was upset.

“Time is short,” I said. “My brother is—” I had no words for what had been done to him. I knew what it was like to be helpless. “My brother is in trouble. We can’t even get in touch with Honey to check on him. Or the pack. Or what is going down in New Mexico. And this storm.”

Even tucked deeply inside the lodge I could hear the winds blowing.

“I know storms like this, Adam. They kill people. People who are heating their homes with fireplaces and don’t know their chimney is blocked until everyone dies of carbon monoxide. People who don’t have enough money to heat their homes. Emergency workers.”

“Other people, too,” said Liam.

I hadn’t heard him approach. Adam turned his chair around, but I stood up.

The green man looked at us and frowned thoughtfully. “I think we need to talk.”

Adam leaned back and raised an eyebrow. “Here?”

Liam glanced over his shoulder to the kitchen, where I could hear the murmurs of voices. “My apartment, where we won’t be disturbed.”

That pretty much answered the question of whether he could hear what we’d been talking about from the kitchen, even over the music.

—

Liam’s apartment was on the third floor, where the ongoing renovations were on full display. The flooring had been taken down to the original boards, and sections of the walls had great gaping areas where the lath and plaster had been removed to expose new electrical wiring.

There was a sort of creaking sound above us. Adam crooked his neck and looked at the ceiling. “Sounds like you need to get someone up there to get the snowpack off.”

Liam stopped, looking up, too. I felt his power slide through the structure of the roof.

“Ice dam,” he said. “I’d fix it, but this old building takes magic oddly sometimes. I don’t want to bring the whole thing down on our heads. We’ll have to get someone up there to clear it manually.”

He looked at Adam, as if measuring him for duty. But then he said, as if to himself, “There is time for discussion first.”