“What’s the general consensus?”
Somerset picked up the spoon and dipped out a taste of stew for himself. “That it would be bad.” He licked the spoon, wiped his mouth, and glanced across at the woman. “That’s good. Just like my mother used to make.”
That made the woman snort. “Flatterer.” She kicked a big bin over and swept her arm across the table to brush what was left of the carcass into it. “Sit. I’ll serve up.”
They took their places at the table. The woman hummed to herself as she doled out hot bowls of beige grains and bone. Dylan flicked a gritty bit of pink marrow off the table and wondered how he was going to get out of this.
Or did he need to? Somerset had told him not to eat anything, but he’d gone along with the meal. Maybe it would be worse to reject the offer…?
The bowls—they were chipped and mismatched; Dylan’s had a duck on it—were slid onto the table. There were no spoons. The woman tossed a hammer of a loaf into the middle of the table and sat opposite them, her back to the fire.
Behind her, the cat, still sprawled out along the warmed stone of the mantle, looked smugly at Dylan with half-slit, mismatched eyes. Somerset reached over to grab a hunk of bread from the loaf.
“Eat,” the woman ordered. She tore off a chunk herself and sopped it into the bowl. Sharp eyes stayed on him as she chewed. “Eat up. That’s how you get fat for Winter.”
Dylan reached for the bread. It was coarse and dense, almost charcoal-caked.
“Somerset said you were married to Santa,” he said. “What do you think will happen if we don’t find him in time? It’s not long until Christmas. What if we don’t have a Santa by then?”
The woman looked pensive. She scraped the crust of bread around the curve of her bowl before she sucked it off her fingers.
“I think we’d make our own,” she said slowly. “The Winter Court’s old, cold god—his sleigh full of meat for the cold months. The human’s kind, old toymaker, fat on milk and cookies. Then we’d see which was strong enough to live. I wouldn’t put money on your man.”
No.
Dylan wasn’t sureMiracle on 34th StreetSanta would win against David Harbour’s version either.
“Either way,” the woman said. She knocked her knuckles on the offal-coated table and then pointed at Dylan. “Eat!”
Chapter Eight
Fromthecornerofhis eye, Somerset saw Dylan squeamishly dunk a gobbet of bread into the stew and swill it around slowly. This time he’d apparently remembered what Somerset had told him. Or maybe he didn’t find this as appetizing as the cookies.
Somerset couldn’t relate. He tore the heel of the black loaf and sopped up the juices from his bowl. There was nothing like a good witch stew to set you up for the winter. It would stick to their ribs.
His ribs, at least.
Somerset straightened up in the chair with a jerk, the uneven legs clattered on the flagstones, and pointed at the fireplace.
“What’s that in thechimney?”he demanded.
The witch jerked around to look. Somerset grabbed Dylan’s portion of stew and, in one smooth motion, tossed it onto the floor under the table. Then he dropped the now empty bowl back down in front of him.
“I see nothing,” the witch said suspiciously as she turned back around. She paused when she saw the scrubbed-clean bowl in front of Dylan. Her lips curled in a mixture of amusement and annoyance. “Ah. The old standards.”
“He licked it clean,” Somerset said. He fished a chunk of bone out of the broth and chewed the tough, half-raw meat off the outside of it. His teeth scraped along the rough, porous surface of the bone to suck all the flavor out along with the marrow. “I think he’s got hollow legs.”
Blue eyes narrowed at him, and then she decided to find his trick funny instead of offensive. She chuckled as she pushed a wad of stew-soaked bread into her mouth. “Seconds then,” she said as she put both hands on the table to push herself up. “He’s a growing boy..”
“He’s human,” Somerset reminded her. “That’s as tall as they get. And I’m afraid I can’t linger anymore. We’ve places to be before dark. I had hoped to go back to Winter with a better idea of the lay of the land, but I guess I’ll have to do it blind.”
She opened her mouth to say something but stopped as she turned her head toward the door. The creaky, groaned bellow of uneasy reindeer filtered through the cracks. The corners of her mouth curled up in a snarl.
“They’ve found us.”
“Us?” Dylan asked.
Humans. Somehow, during his exile, Somerset had forgotten how clueless they could be. Cute enough, some of them, but clueless.
