He cleared his throat to catch Caolán’s attention.
“Time is running short,” he said. “So just tell us who it was and what they did, and we won’t use it against you.”
He closed his mouth harder than he’d meant as he finished the sentence, and he felt asnapof something in the back of his mind. It felt more…weighted than he’d planned. From the scowl Jars gave him, he’d done something.
Dylan decided to worry aboutwhatin the New Year.
For now it had worked on Caolán, who relaxed his shoulders and nodded quickly. “Money went missing,” he said, and shot Jars a scowl before the Yule Lad could interrupt him. “But not a lot. It was petty fraud, pennies in the grand scheme of the Winter Court. A payoff here, a car bought there, or money transferred into an account. They paid property taxes on a house out in Stillwater County. I doubt he even had to pay off my predecessors. Most of Winter’s nobles would consider the amounts beneath their notice, if they didn’t consider skimming off the top a perk of the job.”
“But not you?” Somerset asked skeptically. “You’re…what…different?”
“Bored,” Caolán corrected him. “And eager to accomplish something in my post other than warm a cushion or someone’s bed.”
“And you thought catching someone with their hand in the petty cash would do it?” Jars mocked.
“I thought—”
Dylan interrupted. “Who?”
“What?”
“You already said you didn’t suspect Demre or Hill until today,” Dylan pointed out. “But you just said ‘he,’ so you know who did it.”
Caolán tugged at his earlobe absently. “I do,” he said. “There’s also a reason he thought he’d get away with it. He’s protected by someone much higher in the pecking order than me. Or you.”
Not like the latter would be hard, Dylan thought dryly.
“I don’t think—”
“He means the changeling,” Somerset said. He snapped his fingers as he paused to think. “The one at the Christmas party. Luke…”
Caolán reluctantly corrected him. “Lucas,” he said. “He’s my brother, by fosterage, and by far our mother’s golden child. I thought that was why Demre and Hill turned a blind eye to it, to stay on her good side. Even my mother’s favor, however, wouldn’t protect them from the open treason they committed today. It might not even protect Lucas.”
“It won’t,” Somerset said as he got up from the table. The edge to his voice was as sharp and brittle as the first frost of winter. “Not from us.”
Dylan had to give it to the Brownies, their clothes did a good job of cutting the wind. He stood on the curb outside the North Pole, the flicker of neon colors splattered over the pavement and his shoes, and watched the Yule Lads get ready for a fight.
It was all black leather and the oily growl of motorbikes. The setting sun flashed off oiled blades as they were sheathed, knives and swords and a few long-shafted axes slung across broad backs.
“He’ll tell us what happened to Alice,” Somerset said, his voice low enough to be muffled by the wind, as he zipped up a leather jacket he’d dragged out of some cupboard. He stood close to Dylan, a windbreak of muscle and broad shoulders, but didn’t touch him. “It will be OK.”
Dylan stuck his hands in his pockets to keep them out of temptation’s way.
“What if that isn’t in Yule’s interest?” he asked. “What happens then?”
Somerset snugged the zip up to his collar and then gave Dylan a crooked, short-lived smile.
“There’s no Yule without Santa,” he said. “That makes getting Alice back in Yule’s best interest, since otherwise you won’t drive the Sleigh.”
“Good point.”
Somerset put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. It wasn’t quite an intimate gesture, but the weight of it was still enough to make Dylan’s stomach fill with butterflies.
“I know you want to come,” he said. “But you’d just distract us. Just this once, let me keep you out of trouble. I’ll send word as soon as we know anything.”
He was right. Dylan knew that. It didn’t mean he liked it.
“I’ll try,” he said. “And if anyone tries to hit you? Duck.”
