Page 2 of Horn of Winter

Yet.

“And why am I here? It’s not like you need to be guarded, given you’re no doubt wearing your knives.” He paused, and his gaze skimmed my length. “By the way, that has to be the ugliest coat I have ever seen. It hides your luscious curves and makes you look like a pale green marshmallow.”

“But I’m a very warm marshmallow.”

“Who cannot easily access her knives.”

“You forget they’re not ordinary knives and I don’t actually have to physically draw them. I just have to imagine them in my hand, and voilà, there they are.”

In truth, I hadn’t actually done that very often, mainly because it tended to wreck whatever coat I was wearing, and that was a problem if said coat was expensive or a favorite. I was only wearing the knives tonight out of habit more than any real concern that we’d be in danger, but given how wrong even the simplest of tasks had gone of late, I wasn’t about to take any chances, either. These knives—which weren’t only goddess-blessed but also immune to magic—had saved my life more than once.

He pushed open the wrought iron gate and ushered me through. “That still does not explain why I am here.”

“This particular ghul apparently has a liking for gorgeous, golden-haired men, and if they’re elves, all the better.”

“I’mbait?”

My grin broke free again. “And very natty-looking bait you are too.”

He shut the gate with a soft clang, and the noise echoed across a darkness inhabited by forgotten tombs, gorgeous old trees, and the occasional wisp of a ghost. The latter kept well away from us; as a general rule, the ghosts found in cemeteries tended to be rather elusive, even with those they’d called family. Gran had once told me it was because they feared acknowledging their death or even their kin would force them on to whatever fate awaited—and most of them fearedthatwould be hell rather than heaven.

I’d never actually known how much of Gran’s stories to believe—I’m sure most of them had a large kernel of truth, but she’d had the gift of the gab and always tended to embellish a story.

“If she tries to nibble my neck,” he said, as we followed the path that swept gently to the right, “I will not react well.”

“She won’t nibble. She may run her fingers through your hair and demand a lock of it in payment for answering questions, however.”

He stared at me for a second. “Next time you want someone to play bait, invite your brother. Or better yet, Eljin.”

“Eljin definitely fits the sexy bill, but he’s a Tàileach pixie, not an elf.” As for Lugh, well, he was a six-foot-six giant of a man, and his sheer size tended to intimidate more fragile creatures such as ghosts or ghuls. Or so he claimed. In very many ways he took after Gran and definitely wasn’t above embellishing a story. “A lock of hair is a small price to pay if we get an answer.”

Mathi’s sniff was a disbelieving sound if ever I heard one. “Knowing what guards the scrolls isn’t likely to help, given no one on the council actually knows the location of them.”

“Someone on the council must know something.” I motioned him toward the smaller path that led down into a dell and the oldest part of the cemetery. “Carla apparently got thecontact details of one of the bibliothecaries from someone there, remember.”

That bibliothecary was now dead, of course, so we couldn’t exactly get any answers out of him, and Carla Wilson had not been sighted since murdering some of her “clients” in jail. The womanbehindthe Carla Wilson identity remained very much alive, however. As a multi-shifter, she was able to assume the form of anyone she touched for a reasonable length of time, and we now suspected she had a swath of different personas she could slip into.

Unfortunately, none of us had any idea which one she was currently using. She had appeared in a number of my visions, but I’d only ever heard her Carla identity, and given different forms would have different speech patterns, that probably meant it was her original. Every time I’d visioned her, she’d been speaking to the man we suspected was the key behind the hoard’s theftandmy mother’s murder, which made it doubly frustrating that they’d been voice only, rather than a mix of sight and sound like most of the others.

Whilethatmight be due to my inexperience with second sight—the gift did run through our family, but mine had only appeared very recently—it could also be due to the fact that the man appeared to not only be using a voice modulator, but also some type of invisibility shield. They were expensive, and illegal, but very readily available on the black market if you had the right contacts.

Or so Cynwrig had told me....

A swift stab of longing rose, and I grimly pushed it away. He and I were likely over, and there was nothing I could do about it, not even call or text. I knew better than to even try. His father—who was the king of the Myrkálfar elves—had died five days ago, leaving him and his twin sister to jointly rule. Three-month mourning period aside, he’d have no time for casualdalliances, no matter how incandescent the attraction between the two of us might be. I’d known going in that ours was a relationship destined to burn bright then flame out, and I’d willingly accepted it. I’d just never expected the deep and intense connection that had so quickly developed. It was something I’d never experienced with a man of my own race, let alone one outside of it. I didn’t even have that type of connection with Eljin, though I enjoyed his company immensely, and he was certainly the only real long-term prospect currently in my life. Granted, our relationship was still very new, and a deeper connection might well develop given time, but I rather suspected part of me would always yearn for the man I could never have.

“Even if you do manage to uncover what guards the scrolls,” Mathi was saying, “I can’t see how it’s going to help, given the council has already said you will not be able to view them.”

“No, they said they were dangerous to the mortal eye, but I’m the daughter of a minor god of storms. That might just give me a pass into places others cannot go.”

A smile tugged his lovely lips. “Be that as it may, it does not negate the fact the council will never give us the location. We’re better off trying to find the scrolls your mother took from Loudon. They, at least, might provide information on who is behind the Ninkilim.”

The Ninkilim were a secret society dedicated to bringing Ninkil—a god who reveled in destruction—back from his earthly banishment. Loudon Fitzgerald was an elven dealer of antiquities who’d at one point been Mom’s lover, but over the course of the last sixty years or so had become a trusted source of information. He also happened to be the secretary for the Ninkilim—the organization behind the theft of the hoard. Someone had recently tried to kill him—and almost taken me out in the process—so he obviously could name names. As far as I knew, he hadn’t yet, but he was being protected by theInterspecies Investigation Team, and I had no doubt they’d eventually get him talking. Mathi’s father—who ran the IIT’s daytime division—certainly had a reputation for cracking the most difficult nut.

“It’s on my to-do list,” I replied, “but there’s only so many things I can tackle at the one time.”

He gave me a shocked look, though mirth danced through his blue eyes. “What is this? Bethany Aodhán finally admitting she cannot do it all?” He lightly touched my forehead. “I’m not feeling a temperature....”

I laughed and knocked his hand away. “Idiot.”

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