“How long have you known?” Somerset asked as he stopped just out of spear’s reach.
Jars yanked a buckle tight. He gripped the back of the saddle to help him turn, his weight on one heel. His eyes looked like match smoke in the dim fluorescent light.
“That you’re fucking Santa?” he asked. “You weren’t subtle, Skellir.”
The correction was on the tip of Somerset’s tongue. It was habit. This time he swallowed it.
“Why show your hand now?” he asked.
Jars raised his eyebrows and chuckled. “My hand? Everyone in that room already knew you had been death-struck, or were too distracted to pay attention.”
The word made Somerset flinch. “Don’t call it that.”
“It’s what it is,” Jars said bluntly. “To love a mortal is to love a grave. Every day you’re you, and he’s someone a little closer to death.”
“You should know.”
There had been a time that would have made Somerset feel better, to see someone hurt more than he did. Not today. Dylan was a bad influence.
Jars grimaced. “Still the asshole.” He walked toward Somerset, the click of the stirrups looped under his foot loud as they echoed off the wall. “You run away, you come back, you fuck Santa—and you’re still self-righteous. This is why I made you eat goat shit when we were children.”
“And you’re a stiff-necked cod-head,” Somerset said. “That’s why I put coals in your boots.”
“It kept my toes warm on our way down the mountain,” Jars said. “And I get that. We weren’t made to be nice, after all. Why you tried so hard to hide that you were fucking the figurehead, I don’t get.”
Somerset had his next jibe already queued up. He pulled it back as the question knocked him out of the old rhythmic patter of insults.
“I…it’s forbidden,” he said.
“So was the apple. Who did that ever stop?”
Somerset put his hand in his pocket and pulled his magic out of his bones in slow, ice-needled threads. Magic would give Jars an advantage in what would be a short fight, but only if he could open his mouth to get the words out.
It had worked on the wolf.
“Because I think you killed Santa,” Somerset said. “And tried to kill Gull.”
It would be stupid to expect honesty from Jars. If he was anything, Somerset’s brother was a political thing. He knew how to act, and to whom, to get what he wanted. Still, even with that in mind, the lock of total bewilderment on Jar’s face was…convincing?
“I… You think I betrayed Yule?”
Somerset opened his mouth to answer, but before he could get the words out Jars suddenly shoved Somerset with both hands. The blow made Somerset stagger back a couple of steps before he could catch himself. He always forgot that Jars’s lean build was deceptive; he was stronger than most of them. The magic he’d painstakingly, and painfully, twisted through his fingers faded away to nothing again.
“You think you’re going to pinyoursins on me?” Jars demanded. “When I already have your fucking responsibilities?”
He threw a punch, his knuckles already split and battered from the fight upstairs. Somerset swayed back to dodge it and tried to grab Jars’s arm to pin it. Somehow that turned into a grapple, and next thing he knew the two of them were on the ground, punching and swearing at each other as they rolled around on the oil-stained concrete.
Itwasn’ta short fight. Somerset bit Jars’s ear until he tasted blood, and Jars got a handful of Somerset’s hair and smacked the back of his head against the ground. An elbow to the temple made Somerset’s vision bleed red and cracked divots in the concrete, and he knelt on Jars’s leg and bent the struts in the brace.
The scuffle ended with Somerset in a headlock, Jars’s elbow dug into the nape of his neck for leverage. Reluctantly, Somerset slapped his hand against the concrete to tap out. Jars took the opportunity to throttle him harder, then let go. He gave Somerset’s head a shove as he scooted backward until he could grab a car mirror to pull himself back up onto his feet.
Somerset rolled over and lay there as he caught his breath.
“You think I did it?” Jars demanded. He wiped the his hand over his mouth and then wiped his hand on his shirt. “You’re the one that turned up with a new Santa out of nowhere, you anointed him with the missing Watch, and then fucked him stupid enough to do whatever you said.”
“I wish it was that easy,” Somerset muttered as he sat up. “I know I didn’t do it, and if you thought I did, why didn’t you say anything?”
Jars curled his lip. “I didn’t care,” he said. “Santa’s dead, long live Santa. It’s not the first time we’ve replaced the red man.”
