Page 79 of Winter Lost

“Mr.Hauptman.” Our host shook Adam’s hand and then his eyes widened just a touch. I saw comprehension dawn and he quit meeting Adam’s gaze by briefly looking at me, rather than by dropping his own gaze. A move that did not challenge Adam’s rank—nor admit to a lesser status. People learned those kinds of manners when they hung out around werewolf Alphas. Or when their magic was geared to making their guests feel welcome and comfortable.

“Ah, that Hauptman,” the fae said. “Forgive me for not making the connection. It is an honor to have such guests. I am, for my sins, Liam Fellows—please call me Liam. I have not been to the desk yet this morning, not expecting anyone could make it through the roads. I hope you find our hospitality up to your needs.”

“Sir,” Adam said. When Adam is wary, he gets military. I was pretty sure he couldn’t feel what Liam Fellows was, but he knew that I had been surprised.

He also didn’t accept the role of guest that our would-be host offered. Offered again. Guesting laws are very important to the fae. They’d provide some protections—but also restrict what we could do.

If we were Liam’s guests, we could not, for instance, steal the lyre without consulting him about it ahead of time. If the lyre was a fae artifact—not all of them were, and the frost giant had not been clear—I wasn’t sure any fae would be okay with us giving it back to someone who was not fae.

“Mrs.Hauptman.” Liam held his hand out to me. I wasn’t surprised that he air-kissed my knuckles. Uncle Mike did that kind of courtly greeting occasionally, too.

“Mercy, please,” I said.

There was no way around it. If we were going to remain at the lodge, it would have to be as guests. We wouldn’t be able to find the artifact if we were staying however many miles up the mountain at the ranch my brother worked for.

“With that storm outside we are”—not grateful, good grief, Zee would have my hide if I said something that stupid to a fae, especially a powerful fae I did not know—“happy to be your guests.”

Liam’s body relaxed. I was surprised that he let me see that—or that it mattered so much that we accepted his hospitality.

I’d asked Zee one time why Uncle Mike wasn’t a Gray Lord. Zee had told me that within the walls of his pub, Uncle Mike’s power was formidable, but outside of his center of power, he was too vulnerable to be a Gray Lord. We were in Liam’s territory here. He would have no trouble chucking us out if he wanted to. I wondered why he didn’t want to.

“Good, good,” Liam said. “Let’s hope this storm ends soon, but we should have sufficient fuel for the generators and food for our guests for the next few days.” He smiled. “I am not ashamed to say that I am a good cook. So perhaps the food will make your stay with us worth the price of the storm.”

Uncle Mike would have known if someone brought an artifact into his pub. Adam and I needed to talk to Liam Fellows at a time and place when there weren’t all these other ears listening. The first step to that was to establish that though he knew who we were, we also knew who he was. Or at least what he was.

“You remind me of a friend,” I told him. “He likes to feed people as well. Most of us call him Uncle Mike.”

Beside me, Adam drew in a breath—so I’d been right. He hadn’t known what Liam was.

Our host’s smile became careful, and he assessed me more deeply. “Runs a pub up your way, doesn’t he? Aye, I know him. You also remind me of someone, Mrs.Hauptman.” He paused and said, deliberately, “Mercy.”

“My brother, Gary, is a caretaker for the ranch up the mountain from here,” I said.

“Ah, of course,” he said, as if that had not been the person he’d been thinking of. “You do remind me of Gary.”

Had he been talking about someone else? Who else could I remind him of? Coyote? A green man living in the wilderness might have met Coyote.

“Sure and your brother’s a fine fellow,” Liam, the green man, continued. “He was supposed to come down with the horses yesterday, but I expect the storm derailed his plans. With the phones being disobliging, there was no way to check. Do you intend to try to reach him today? I feel it’s my job to discourage that. It’s not the kind of storm to be careless with.”

“We’ve already been there,” my husband told Liam. “He’s not at the ranch. The truck he usually drives was gone.”

All true, if misleading. The deception wasn’t directed at Liam, but for our audience, I thought.

I glanced around the room and was surprised to see that we were no longer the center of attention. Given our sudden appearance, I was pretty sure that their disinterest was probably something Liam was doing. I’d seen Uncle Mike redirect a crowd now and then in the same way.

Peter had retaken his seat. His fellow police officers and his daughter were cleaning the last bits of food off their plates. The hikers had their heads together and were speaking rapidly. I should have been able to hear what they were saying, but the perfectly judged volume of the music did its job. All I could catch was the occasional consonant.

At the Heddars’ table, Dylis was back to picking at her food with even more disinterest than before we’d come in. I was starting to think that my initial impression that she was on something was correct. Addiction could be the source of the wrongness I felt in her magic. I wondered what medication she could possibly be on.

The only person who was still paying attention to us was her husband, Andrew. He was staring at Adam the way one Alpha looks at another, assessing the threat. He saw me observing him and abruptly pulled out his charm and smiled.

I smiled back. With teeth.

Liam noticed the exchange, glanced around the room, then took a step away from us toward the kitchen.

“Your brother is a man of rare sense,” Liam told me. He was a fae and could not lie. Maybe “rare sense” meant something other than “good sense.”

He must have seen my disbelief, because his smile widened and turned genuine for a moment. “He is. A storm—even this kind of storm—is not going to harm him.”

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