Page 70 of Horn of Winter

Reginald steepled his fingers on the desk and said, “I apologize for greeting you in the manner I did, but I’m afraid when I saw your face in the camera, young woman, I saw red.”

“Why? I look nothing like Riayn or Vincentia.”

“After a more thorough look, I agree, but at first glance, through a tiny screen, there’s definitely a resemblance. Are you related?”

“Riayn is my aunt.”

“Then why are you here asking about the horn?”

“Because her records show you commissioned her some nine months ago to find it for your collection, and that the transaction was completed five weeks later, after she handed over one half of the horn.”

“All of which is true. I also commissioned her to continue searching for the remaining piece.”

“Then you still have your half of the horn?”

“I do not.”

“What happened to it?” I asked.

“What do you think happened? The bitch came here under false pretenses and stole it back.”

“Under what pretense?”

“She said she’d found the horn’s remaining piece, but needed mine to enter the underground chamber in which it was held.When I didn’t believe her and refused to hand it over, she pixied me.”

Is that why Stace had been in that chamber? Had she gone in with my aunt to dismantle the magic within the chamber so that Riayn could retrieve the other bit of horn? If shehad, then why had my aunt killed her?

Even more interesting was the fact that, while she’d forced him to hand over the horn, she hadn’t taken that extra step and forbidden him to speak about either it or her. Did that mean she simply didn’t care anymore? Or was it more the knowledge she likely wasn’t going to get out of this mess alive, so it didn’t really matter?

“Do you know where she found your section of the horn?”

He shrugged. “Some private collection.”

“And she stole it from said collection?”

A smile briefly touched his lips. “I commission. I do not question methods. Why?”

I took out my phone, brought up the pic I’d taken of the plinth, and showed it to him. “It means she wasn’t actually lying about the other half of the horn, even if she used it as a ruse to get your half back.”

He sucked in a breath, staring at the image on the phone with more than a hint of avarice. “May I?”

I handed over the phone, and he spent several minutes examining the photo. “Solid gold, by the look of it. The plinth is also an unusual-looking stone, and the inscription not a language I’m familiar with.”

“It’s old Brythonic,” Mathi commented.

“Ah, that explains it.” He handed the phone back. “I take it the plinth remains where you found it?”

I raised an eyebrow. “If you’re thinking to acquire, I would not. Borrhás remains active in this world, and he would not be pleased with the desecration of his relic’s tomb.”

He stared at me for a second. “You’re serious.”

“I am. And the last person who abused Borrhás’s trust ended up entombed in ice.”

“But that’s just a legend?—”

“No,” I cut in. “It is not. When was my aunt here?”

He went back to scowling. “A good three weeks ago now.”

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