Smoke Bitten (Mercy Thompson, #12)(64)

“Mawkish sentimentality doesn’t make it untrue,” I told him. And that was a Bran quote as well. One he used both ways—true or untrue—depending upon the circumstances.

“He is dangerous,” I told Bran, “and unpredictable and all of that. But maybe he can be turned into an ally. Adam has made Marsilia an ally.”

“Adam thought Elizaveta was his ally.”

“So did Elizaveta,” I returned. “But that is beside the point.”

He took a long breath, and I pictured him holding the bridge of his nose. The breath had that sort of sound to it.

“I will leave him to you and Adam, then,” he said finally. “For now.”

“Thank you,” I said, and he growled at me.

“A third problem,” said Bran. “The creature who escaped Underhill. What you know about him, even with Beauclaire’s additions, is not enough for me to figure out who he is. It may be that I do not know him, or that I only know him through attributes that you haven’t run into.”

“Okay,” I said. I had really, really hoped that Bran could help us with this one. “He has Ben and Stefan,” I reminded Bran.

“I know,” he said gently. “And I would not like to lose either of them. To that end, I have some conjectures that may be useful.”

“Okay,” I said hopefully.

“First—that Beauclaire could not give you the creature’s name. The fae place great store by names. There are a number of fae who protect their names by not allowing others to speak them.”

“Okay, so the name could be important, once we figure out who this creature is. But we are unlikely to find him just by looking for someone hiding his name—because they all do that.”

“Exactly.” He sounded pleased again.

I wasn’t a child anymore. I shouldn’t be happy that he thought I was a good pupil for his Socratic method of teaching.

“I think you should focus on the bargaining part of what Beauclaire told you,” he told me. And now I could hear in his voice that he thought I’d missed something obvious.

“But they all bargain, too,” I said. And maybe I was a little sharp.

“Indeed,” he said. And the patience in his voice made me want to dye all of his underwear purple, though that hadn’t worked out so well the first time I’d tried it.

But I was a grown-up now, so I set aside petty vengeance and thought about what Beauclaire had said about the bargain.

“But not all of the fae had a bargain with Underhill,” I said finally.

My reward for seeing what Bran had seen was him saying, “And someone I know has a door to Underhill in her backyard, and one whom Underhill treasures to knock upon it and ask her to come out.”

I thought about Tilly and sighed. “You don’t happen to have any hints for dealing with a bloodthirsty immortal being with the attention span of a ten-year-old, do you?”

“Feed her sweets,” he said promptly. “Or call Ariana and ask her. But I think something sweet, especially if you bake it yourself, might be a way to coax out whatever information she might have.” He paused and then said, “And treat her like a co-conspirator, not a naughty child who has loosed doom upon the world. She may not be able to tell you much, but she may be useful to you all the same. Something within the boundaries of the bargain she has with him.”

“Okay,” I said. “Thank you.

“And Adam?” I asked him hesitantly. All I had told him about Adam was that Adam had shut down our bond after we’d killed all the witches.

“Blow up the bond,” Bran said. “See what happens.”

And he hung up.

I stared at my phone. I called him back, but he didn’t pick up. I guess he thought that I needed to figure it out. Did he mean that I should try to destroy the bond between Adam and me? How in the world would I do something like that? I didn’t want to do that.

I tried to call him back again. Maybe if I explained that it wasn’t just Adam changing to the wolf involuntarily? It was . . . what? What did I know? That Adam thought I’d be harmed if the bond between us was open?

What did Adam think it would do to me? Did he think I would get caught up in his madness—assuming he thought that he was becoming a monster? “Argh,” I said in frustration, and hit the red button on the screen.

Bran had obviously decided not to take any more calls from me tonight.

Someone knocked on the door.

“Who is it?” I grumped, trying to figure out what I could text to Bran so that he’d call me back.

“Me,” said Adam, opening the door. “Who were you on the phone with?”

“Bran,” I told him. “You and I need to talk.”

His eyes were so unhappy.

But his face was locked in his I-deal-with-messes expression, so I figured he didn’t know that I could see through it. It was easier to read him with our bond up and functioning—but I’d known him for a long time before we’d been mated, and I’d paid attention.

“I agree,” he said after a moment’s consideration. “But not here.”

“Not here,” I agreed. Too many sharp ears—and at least one of them had been co-opted by the enemy. But it wasn’t just that. With this many of the pack in the house, we wouldn’t have much time before someone needed Adam’s attention—as had been amply demonstrated when I’d been trying to talk to him earlier.