“Very fucking funny,” he said sourly.
Somerset stepped outside. The blast had melted the snow, exposing ground that was slushy underfoot.
“It always cracks me up,” Somerset said. “This makes it what? Twenty times I’ve done that on you, little brother?”
Stúfur wiped his ruined eye and aimed a rude gesture at Somerset with the bloody finger.
“Some people would answer the door.”
“And I would, for some people.”
Stúfur brushed himself down. Bloody bits of wood broke or pulled out of his flesh and scattered over the snow. The irritated expression on his face didn’t change.
“Where’s Gull?” he asked. “Where’s Santa.”
Somerset kept his face still as he tried to read Stúfur’s expression. Was he a conspirator? A traitor? Or was he loyal to the Sleigh and wondering the same things about Somerset?
It didn’t matter.
Stúfur had expensive tastes and there was a bounty on Somerset’s head. Nothing flamboyant, just the standard offer, enough gold to cover his hide from scalp to toe. Somersetwastall, though; at least a yard more coin in the purse than from the average criminal.
Plus, Stúfur hadn’t much of a sense of humor.
“What makes you think I know?” he asked.
Stúfur stepped forward, one hand dropped to the butt of his gun. “You think we didn’t know where you were?” he asked. “Belling isn’t exactly the end of the earth. You don’t keep your head down. King of the exiles and the shithole.”
“I run a bar.”
“Great, you own property,” Stúfur jeered. “If our mother ever needs to retire, she can move into your basement. What did you do? You abandoned your oath years ago. Have you broken it now?”
He sounded genuine. Liars always did, though.
“Who sent you after me,” Somerset asked. It had been decades. The fact that two of his brothers had come hunting himnow—even though it was days till Christmas and Santa was missing—couldn’t be a coincidence.
Stúfur screwed his face up suspiciously. But he apparently couldn’t see the harm in an answer. “Jars,” he said. “You shouldn’t have used the Yule magics if you wanted to stay hidden.”
That was true, but Somerset hadn’t expected anyone to be looking. Yule magic. Blood magic. They were the old ways. There weren’t many left who practiced it. It was just Somerset’s bad luck that his older brother was one of them.
Luck. Or something else.
“Tell us where Santa is, brother,” Stúfur prodded. “Whatever the plan was, it’s not going to work. There’s no coming back into the fold for you… there never was.”
That was OK. Somerset had no desire to make peace with his brothers. They didn’t get to judge him, though.
“How many of the Sainted did you kill in the Succession War?” he asked. “How many would have died before Winter found a Santa to their liking? When I forced their hand, I saved Yule. And if you put a hole in me, the Court won’t pay you for that bit.”
That made Stúfur frown. He moved his hand from his gun and reached up to unzip his jacket, exposing a K-pop T-shirt.
Nerd.
“Then we do it the old-fashioned way,” he said as he pulled a knife with a serrated blade from a sheath under his arm. His human slipped enough with the irritation that when he smiled, his teeth mimicked the blade. “Sounds fun to me.”
Somerset grinned as he flicked the tails of his heavy coat back. He shifted his weight onto the balls of his feet and loosened his knees. The weight of his own knife pulled at one side of the coat, but he didn’t want to pull it yet.
“Anything to shut you up,” he said.
Stúfur’s lip curled. He flipped the knife in his hand, the blade angled back along his forearm in a chambered position. There was probably a jibe already queued up, but as Stúfur slid one foot forward, Ket howled from inside the house.
