Page 41 of Horn of Winter

She laughed.My sentiments exactly. Especially given I do not trust the elves to learn much from this mishap.

Surely even they will be more cautious about security for at least a few decades.

What are decades when you deal with centuries or even millenniums?

I guess that was true.If I want to use the wind to find the horn, or whoever might be using it to ice buildings over, how do I do that?

You cannot be precise, but it is pointless being obtuse.

Well, that makes everything perfectly clear.

You simply have to define your parameters, such as an intense and sudden increase of ice in the air or a surge within a storm related to such an event.Her amusement spun around me again.I will walk you through this first inquiry, but I will impress once again the need for you to learn via trial and error. As I have already said, your bloodlines mean what you can and cannot do remains unpredictable.

Which is no doubt why my father begat me. Chaos and all that.

Ambisagrus was never a god who played such games. While none of us are privy to his current plans, he would still have seduced your mother with an end goal in mind—and that goal would not have been chaos.

I hesitated, but couldn’t resist asking, Has he had other children with mortal women, be they human or fae?

One, a long time ago.

And?

It did not go as he planned.

Why not? What did he plan?

That is a question I cannot answer, because it is not my story to tell.

Well, that’s fucking frustrating.

No doubt, but we hags had certain boundaries placed on us when we were given these meat suits and, even now, we cannot step beyond them. Are you ready?

I shifted a little on the wooden seat, then nodded. She quickly guided me through the steps of creating a simple inquiry stream, then added,Once you cast it free, you’ll need to be available to the wind at all hours, so sleep with at least one window open.

I nodded and made a mental note to add another comforter on the bed. Her presence within the storm faded, and I climbed off the platform, tugging my trench back down before shoving my hands into my pockets and heading for the exit gate. The phone rang just as I reached it, the tone telling me it was Darby.

“You free right now?” she said as soon as I answered.

“Sure am.”

“Then I’ll swing by and pick you up. We’ve been invited for afternoon tea.”

“By your lonely old ice witch, I gather?”

“Yes, and he was rather excited to be meeting someone new.”

“You know, if he wasn’t coping so poorly with the cold, I’d suggest he catch a cab over to the tavern at night and hang out with Jack and Phil.”

Jack and Phil were a couple of old pixies who were evening fixtures at the tavern. Like many of our elders living permanently here in Deva rather than one of the widely scattered enclaves, they basically treated the Boot as a second home. The fierce joy that radiated off the old oak beams was part of the reason, but the main one was the fact that we supported our elderly with deep discounts on meals—more to ensure they had at least one decent meal a day in a city that didn’t do all thatmuch for its elderly fae, whose needs were often very different to those of humans.

“I might bring him along one night when winter is over, just to introduce him, but I do think he’d really enjoy it. I take it you’re at the tavern?”

“No, just leaving the cathedral.”

“What the hell are you doing there?”

“Communing with the weather.”

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