Poison Fruit

It was a good point.

“I need to pick up a few things from home,” I said. “If Hel doesn’t summon me herself, I’ll request an audience.”

It was Cooper who gave me a ride back to my car, which was parked on the unpaved access road that led to the old Cavannaugh property. I held tight to the sissy bar affixed to the back of his dirt bike as we jounced over the loose, sandy terrain. “Go and fetch what you need, m’lady,” he said to me, pulling over and nudging the kickstand down with one heel. “I’ll wait here for you.”

In my apartment, I retrieved the iron casket containing scales of bark from Yggdrasil II that I’d stashed in the top shelf of my bedroom closet. Mogwai wound around my ankles, purring loudly. I have to admit, being back in my apartment felt familiar and comfortable and safe. There was a part of me that wanted to stay, to lock the door, hunker down, and let the battle take place without me. Mom was right. This shouldn’t have to be my fight.

Except it was.

I filled Mogwai’s bowl to overflowing with kibble. Since cell phone reception was sketchy out in the dunes, I took the opportunity to call Jen and tell her how much I valued our friendship, and ask her to take care of my cat if anything happened to me.

I called Chief Bryant and asked him to tell people to stay inside and off the street tomorrow, because I didn’t know what might happen if or when the Wild Hunt was unleashed.

And I called my mom and told her that I loved her.

After that, I grabbed an extra sweater, stripped one of the pillowcases from my bed, and drove back to meet Cooper.

      Fifty-one

Cooper eyed me. “What’s the pillowcase for?”

“Truce flag,” I said briefly.

He raised his fair brows at me. “You think to bargain with the goddess Persephone herself, then?”

I shook my head. “I think to beg, Cooper. It’s the only move I’ve got left.”

His pupils dilated. “Sure, and you know that’s not true. If I had your leverage, I’d bargain.”

“How?” I challenged him. “And for what?”

“How?” Cooper gave a bleak laugh. “Don’t ask me, m’lady. I thought to drive a bargain on the gallows, but the divvil himself wouldn’t have it. But for what?” His ancient eyes gleamed in his narrow seventeen-year-old’s face. “Me, I’d just like a chance to grow to a man’s full stature.”

“I know,” I murmured.

Cooper gunned the dirt bike. “Hold tight.”

By the time we returned to the campsite, it was late afternoon on what was technically the last day of winter. I was hoping that some of Persephone’s forces might have moved into place in advance of her arrival, which would have given us the opportunity for some fey-style sabotage and vampiric terrorism in the middle of the night, but our scouts were reporting everything was quiet.

The campsite looked great, though. When I’d left, it had been nothing but a few tents pitched below the denser cover of a stand of white pines, with a path leading to the lookout point. In the hour I’d been gone, Mrs. Browne had transformed the campsite into something from the set of a Peter Jackson movie, the aboveground equivalent of a hobbit hole. Churned sand and pine mast had been swept smooth, obliging branches woven into snug little shelters. A teakettle hung from a spit above a lively campfire, whistling a merry tune.

“Here ye go, dearie.” Mrs. Browne handed me a steaming mug of tea. “It’ll warm your bones.”

She was right. It tasted of ginger and cinnamon, and it spread a pleasant warmth all through me. “Than—” I caught myself before thanking her. Brownies had very specific rules governing their magic. You can’t ask them for assistance, and it’s dangerous even to thank them for it. Compliments were okay, though. I smiled at her. “It’s delicious, Mrs. B.”

If Mrs. Browne had been human, I would have said she flushed with pleasure. “Oh, it’s nothing, nothing at all,” she said modestly before bustling on to another chore.

Even if we did have a much nicer place to wait than anticipated, the waiting made me antsy.

I talked to my co-commanders, Stefan and Cody, about my plan to approach Persephone under a flag of truce and beg her to call off the war.

Unsurprisingly, neither of them approved.

I listened patiently to their arguments, the gist of which was that it was a pointless risk, dangerous and unlikely to succeed.

“You might be right,” I said calmly. “In fact, you probably are right. But I’m doing it anyway.”

Stefan’s jaw was rigid with tension. “I’m tempted to forbid you,” he said in an ominous voice. Beside him, Cody uttered a low growl of agreement.

Great, the two of them had found common cause. “I have to try,” I said. “What kind of liaison would I be if I didn’t at least try?”

Cody and Stefan exchanged a glance. “Then I will accompany you,” Stefan said in a quieter tone.

“No.” Cody shook his head. “I’ll go.”

I raised my voice. “We can’t spare either of you! Hell, we can’t spare anyone. I’ll go alone.”

They didn’t like it, but in the end they agreed.

I didn’t have to request an audience with Hel that evening. The sun had barely sunk behind the dunes in the west when Mikill’s dune buggy roared out of Yggdrasil II’s entrance and charged up the side of the basin, skidding a little in the loose sand as it crested the rise.