“What the—” Ket yelled.
Somerset shifted a step to the side and glanced toward the house. Just in time to see the black pot, larger than it had looked hung over the fireplace, smash through what was left of the doorway. The base of it was cherry-red hot, and the snow melted under it as it slid and spun toward the fence. Dylan’s foot stuck out over the rim of the pot, and Ket skidded along behind it with his hook snagged through one of the greasy handles.
“Don’t—” he protested, boots skidding in the slush. He only had one hand on his hook. The other swung around behind him like he was riding a bull. “Don’t just stand there! Do something!”
The pot smashed into the fence, bounced off, and took flight. Ket hung onto the hook, knuckles white as bone where they pressed against his skin, until he was about fifteen feet in the air. The extra weight made the pot dip and stagger. Every time it did, Ket swung and kicked and swore.
Most of his curses were so archaic that there weren’t many people in the world who’d understand them. Unfortunately for Ket, everyone currently awake here did, and some of them didn’t appreciate the language.
The witch stalked out of her broken door. Heavy boots sank through ice and mud to grip the ground. She grabbed a log from the pile that Somerset had left by the door and spat on it.
“I’ll wash your mouth out with soap, boy!” she yelled. “Did your ma never teach you manners?”
She cocked her arm back over her shoulder and threw. The log sailed through the air. It missed the bucking Ket by a good yard. He had the bad sense to jeer, somaybethe log went a bit faster as it took a tight corner and came back for the second pass. This time, it clocked him in the back hard enough to make him writhe.
Stúfur tightened his mouth into a sour grimace.
“A witch?”
Somerset grinned. “When you’re King of the Shithole, you get to know everyone,” he said. Then he punched Stúfur in the face as hard as he could. Stúfur’s head snapped back, and his nose broke in such quick succession it was hard to tell which came first. He staggered backward a step and then fell on his ass in the snow. “You should have asked before going onto her land.”
Ket took a log to the gut overhead. He lost his breath and his grip in the same whooping moment. The pot, unburdened, shot up and away. Ket fell like a rock and landed in the field on his back. The hook dropped after him and smacked into the ground by his head, the point buried in the hard ground.
Good.
Stúfur spat out blood and what might have been a tooth. He snorted something wet and sticky back into his nose.
“I could have made this easy,” he said, pulling his knees up. “But fuck it. We’re here for a long time, might as well make it a good time.”
He came up off the ground in one smooth movement and slammed a heavy shoulder into Somerset’s gut. The impact slid Somerset backward, but he only grunted and hammered punches down onto Stúfur’s head and back.
It wasn’t a fight he could win. There was only so far the witch could go to defend her threshold, and the Yule Lads had been made for this. Maybe, once upon a time, Somerset could have held his own against two of his brothers.
He’d been good.
That had been twenty years ago, though. He’d not fought anything but drunks and redcaps since then, while his brothers were still the elite of the Courts.
As if to prove it, Stúfur got one arm hooked under Somerset’s thigh and flipped him. It was his turn to go down hard in the snow, and Stúfur kicked him in the gut.
It didn’t matter.
Dylan…
Thewatchand Dylan were gone. Safe.
Chapter Nine
Hewasgoingtopuke,
The sense of impending vomit clawed down through the layers of cold and hooked into Dylan’s consciousness. He didn’t want to wake up, but the fear of aspirating on his own sick was a tried and true one.
He was cold. Bone deep, shivering he could feel in his liver, cold.
And wherever he was, it was dark and smelled of grease.
Dylan tried to sit up but couldn’t. He was folded up and shoved into somewhere cramped. Whatever he tried to move bumped up against a warm, hard surface. Claustrophobia made his chest tighten and panic thrum against his eyes. A scream squeezed his lungs in tight, choking bands. As he struggled, his fingers dug into something slick and slimy under him.
Under?
