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He smiled. “Worried about the horses?”
“Got to keep the watering troughs filled and ice-free so they don’t colic, and plenty of food so they keep warm,” Mercy said. “Perils of growing up in Montana with a bunch of people who still think of horses as their primary source of transportation.”
“Charles?” Adam asked.
“Could be.” She sighed. “He scared a whole bunch of information into me that comes out at odd moments.”
“December weddings in Montana seem pretty optimistic,” Adam said. He did not have fond memories of Montana winters—and this storm wasn’t going to help that.
“There’s supposed to be one this weekend,” Mercy said. “Some famous billionaire marrying a regular working-class girl.” She paused, gave him an amused look, and whispered, “It’s a secret.”
“So how did you find out about it?” Adam asked. “Was it in the local newspaper?”
She laughed. “I thought you grew up in a small town. The clerk who gave me directions told me about it. The guy behind me in line used his cell phone to show me photos of the groom. No one knows who the bride is except the local baker who made the cake—because the father of the bride paid for it. Not that they are going to use it now.”
People talked to Mercy. He thought it was because she listened. She was interested in their stories.
“The baker was sad about the cake,” she told him. “It wasn’t huge, but pretty. Paid for, of course. You don’t make a wedding cake without making them pay for it up front.” A little mournfully, she said, “It’s a lot of work to build a wedding cake, and now it will probably just get cut up and used for sampling.”
“Shame,” he said. “Didn’t we get our cake because someone ordered one and didn’t pay for it?”
She flashed a smile at him and leaned her head briefly against his shoulder. “So we did.”
Outside of Libby, the already ferocious wind picked up. Adam had to pay attention, conscious of fatigue trying to fog his reactions. This kind of driving was harder on his brain than his body. He finished off his coffee. He was pretty sure that caffeine worked differently on him than it had before he’d become a werewolf, but it still helped to keep him sharp.
Mercy opened her window and dumped her cup of sludge. He’d probably be washing hot chocolate off the side of his SUV when they got home. She stopped the window as it started to roll back up, and he felt something flash in the bond they shared.
“There’s magic in this storm,” Mercy said.
As bad as the road was, he still glanced at her, getting a quick snapshot. She was holding on to the grab handle above the door with a white-knuckled grip—as if without that hold, she might fly out the window. Her eyes, normally a dark chocolate, were bright yellow, as if she were a werewolf, too. He’d seen that happen before—more often since the incident with the Soul Taker. For a werewolf it was a sign that their wolf was trying to take over. He wasn’t sure what it meant in Mercy.
“Magic?” he asked.
“Can’t you feel it?” Her voice was dreamy, and she tipped her chin to allow the cold wind to blast over the skin of her face more effectively. Their bond was lit up with a fizzy static he couldn’t read anything through.
He hit the button on his side of the SUV that would close her window.
“Mercy?” he asked. “Are you okay?”
Interlude
Last Night
Hrímnir
The pain of the theft was not lessened because he was old. Experience meant he trusted less often and with more sureness.
He had believed.
When the phone rang, he’d been sitting in his chair before the dead fire for a full day, held suspended by sorrow and despair. By his trust, he had ruined everything. He let the telephone ring itself into silence.
When the phone rang again, the being known in this time and place as John Hunter refused to answer it. There was no information the phone would provide him that would make the situation better. The effort of centuries, in the face of fate, was brought to nothing because of him. Because he had trusted the wrong one.
The second silence lasted for long enough he believed they would not call again. He heard the memory of the music of the lyre transforming this mundane little cottage into something more, a magic that had less to do with the power of the artifact than it had to do with the roughened hands on the strings.
When the phone rang a third time, he picked it up.
He did not speak. Not once. But he didn’t need to. His name-brother knew what had happened in astonishing detail. He had suggestions—and he had a warning.
