Frost Burned

Neither could he. Not for long.

Mercy put her hand on Adam’s, and he could feel the silver go to work on his skin. He didn’t react because he craved her touch more than he minded the burn—and she’d taken it for him, hadn’t she? So maybe part of it was guilt, feeling that he deserved to hurt because he’d brought harm to her.

She leaned forward, reading the titles on the books again. He opened his eyes a bit more to make sure she didn’t try for that book that called to her again.

Zee had a modern college text on metallurgy right next to a very old book bound in leather with a title that was nearly indecipherable, between the faded gold embossing and the old German script. And just out of easy reach was the little green linen-bound book with the warped cover that had fascinated her earlier. Mercy shifted restlessly then froze, jerking her hands away from him.

“I’ve burned you,” she whispered, horrified.

Tad looked up from dealing another round, and Asil glanced their way—and then returned his attention to the fae weapons on the shelves.

“I’m a werewolf,” Adam said softly. “It won’t kill me.”

She frowned at him, and he closed his eyes again.“It’s all right, Mercy. It’s already healed.” He wanted to tell her not to worry, but then maybe she wouldn’t. Not because she chose to follow his advice but because of the damned fae artifact that made her obedient. An obedient Mercy because she had no choice—that was an abomination.

She curled up, tucking her hands in where they couldn’t accidentally touch him. She closed her eyes, too—he knew because he had onlymostly shut his.

The better to see you with, my dear, said the Big Bad Wolf.

He also saw something else. Adam had a habit of keeping track of things in his environment—situational awareness. It had saved his butt more than once. He was especially aware of things that could be used as weapons.

One of the blades on the shelves was moving. He didn’t catch it in actual motion, but when they’d first come into the room, it had been in the back corner of the bottom shelf of the bookcase nearest the mirror. Now it was in the middle of the shelf and had slid nearly off the edge.

He wondered if it might be chasing Asil, if only very slowly.

It was a hunting knife with a dark blade that showed just a touch of rust. The hilt was some sort of antler. When he closed his eyes a little more and turned his gaze so that the knife was in the corner of his vision, he could tell that there was some sort of runic lettering down the blade. But as soon as he looked directly at it again, the runes disappeared.

Because Adam was carefully not-watching the blade, he noticed something was happening to the mirror.

The corners were darkening until, gradually, it quit reflecting the room and looked more like a huge photo of a heavy, gray, silk curtain than a silver-backed glass mirror. Adam lifted his head to see it more clearly. As soon as the whole of it was dark, frost bloomed. It started in the very center of the mirror, as if it were very cold and someone was blowing on it with a warm, wet breath. A fog of ice spiderwebbed out in a crystalline sheet across the glass.

As soon as the ice covered the entire surface, a darker line dripped down the middle of the mirror and dark, callused, long-fingered hands slid out of the glass and pulled the gray aside, sending a light snow to the rug that butted up against that end of the room.

Zee stepped through the mirror. Tad looked up and started gathering his cards together, though his game wasn’t half-finished yet. Asil’s eyes slitted, and he rolled to the balls of his feet, ready for whatever would come. Mercy turned her head, and said, “Hey, Zee. Long time no see.”

The Zee that stepped through the mirror wasn’t the one Adam was used to. Gone was the glamour that he’d presented to the world. He was no slender, balding old man—his sharp-featured face was both unaged and ancient, with skin the color of fumed oak. His body showed the musculature of a man who spent his days before a hot fire bending metal to his will—wide shoulders and taut flesh that knew hard work.

“Mercedes,” he said. “What have you done to your lips?”

Mercy touched her lips but didn’t say anything. Adam found that a hopeful sign.

White-gold hair slicked down over Zee’s shoulders like a waterfall of pale wheat. He wore, incongruously, a pair of black jeans and a gray flannel shirt with a motor-oil stain on one cuff. On his feet were his old battered, steel-toed boots.

Asil’s lips curled back, and he snarled softly.

“Peace, wolfling,” said Zee in his usual impatient and crabby fashion. “It’s been a long time since I hunted your kind. And, as I recall,you got away cleanly anyway. You have no axe to grind.”

The old fae frowned at Tad, who had set the deck of cards on the poker caddy and gotten to his feet.

“What’s wrong, Tad, that you’ve called me here?”

“What isn’t is a better question,” said Tad. “I’m really glad to see you. I don’t know exactly where to start.”

“If it helps,” Zee said, “I’m caught up to where someone has apparently taken most of the wolf pack captive. Last I heard, Mercy set you to guard Jesse and Gabriel while she went off to see how Kyle fared. I see that you managed to recover at least one of the wolves, Mercy.”

“Adam recovered himself,” Mercy told him. “The lips are from the silver.”

Zee frowned at her and took a couple of steps nearer. Adam stood up and pulled Mercy to her feet beside him, unwilling to let this stranger with Zee’s eyes and voice approach him when he was in a vulnerable position.

“Silver?”

Mercy explained how Coyote told her to change the rules and so she’d drunk the silver out of Adam’s body. Adam intended on having a word or two with Coyote the next time he saw him—not that it would do any good. Mercy backtracked and began again with Stefan’s helping her free Kyle and ran all the way through to escorting Asil to Sylvia’s house.

“So I sent Jesse and Gabriel to take the kids to Kyle’s house,” Mercy said.

“In Marsilia’s car, which now has a dent and a dead body in the back,” said Zee.

“It sounds worse than it is,” she assured him.

“No,” Adam disagreed. “It is exactly as bad as it sounds.”

“You know these assassins?” Zee asked Tad.

“It was Sliver and Spice.” Tad leaned against the bookcase nearest him and caught the hunting knife before it fell on the ground. He frowned at it and set it back in the corner it had started in. “You stay there,” he told it.

Zee smiled, and his face suddenly looked a lot more like the Zee Adam knew.“I wish you better luck than I have with that.” He nodded toward the knife. “It doesn’t like to stay in one place when interesting things are going on. How do you know it was Sliver and Spice? They are both skilled at hiding who and what they are.”

“Here,” said Tad, taking out the small bit of metal that the fae man’s sword had turned into. “This is yours. Sliver was using it on Asil—who fought him off with a baseball bat from Walmart. And Sliver had to drop the glamour to keep up with him.” There was a bit of hero worship coming off Tad.

“The Moor doesn’t need a pesky magic blade to triumph over evil,” Mercy murmured, and Adam gave her a sharp look.

Zee took the object from Tad, and in his hands, it formed once more into a blade. This time, though, it was black as pitch but only two feet long.

“Of course he did,” Zee said, sounding a little put out that Asil had triumphed over one ofhis blades. But his face smoothed out, and he said,“He outsmarted me for three weeks in high winter in the Alps. It stands to reason that a spriggand would have no chance at all, even with such a blade as this.”

“Sliver got away,” Tad said. “But not before Adam showed up out of the blue and stole that sword from him.”

“You didn’t bring me here to tell me this,” Zee said. He didn’t look at Mercy, but Adam could feel his attention.