It had been a close-run thing, but Alice’s concern over the baby had swayed Irene to agree. On condition that Dylan didn’t go anywhere near her. She’d clutched Alice’s hand the whole ride down in the elevator, as if whatever bad luck she thought Dylan brought with him would jump out to bite her.
She needn’t have worried.
The North Pole might not be thrilled with their new Santa, but they weren’t going to try and get rid of him. Not with only three days until Christmas Eve, at least. They had cut it close enough last year to know they didn’t want to risk what happens to Yule with no Santa at the reins of the Sleigh.
Dylan turned onto Wild Avenue, past the strings of fairy lights strung from the holly bedecked lampposts. In the plate glass window of Wick’s Furniture Store, an animatronic Santa raised a plastic cookie halfway to his mouth and dropped it again on repeat.
“Dylan?” Alice said as she leaned in from the back. She put her hand on his shoulder. “The baby has started to show signs of distress. We need to get to the hospital.”
Shit.
“On it,” Dylan said.
He flicked the sirens on and put his foot down. Alice patted his shoulder and disappeared into the back of the ambulance to check on the patient. The traffic lights on the intersection ahead flickered to red. Dylan put off radioing in the upgraded code to the hospital long enough to hit the pre-empt switch on the dash.
Ahead of him the light turned green. Dylan glanced down briefly as he reached for the radio.
His fingers had just touched the dial when the glare of lights through the side window made him look up. He didn’t have time to brake. He had just long enough to wish he’d fucked Somerset more and listened to him less. The last year would have been a lot more fun. Then the Jeep slammed into the side of the ambulance.
Chapter Two
The coffee in adive bar wasn’t any better than the whiskey.
Somerset downed it anyhow—it washisdive bar, he couldn’t really complain—and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He put the empty cup down on the desk and fixed his visitor with a hard look. The myrkálfar visibly shrunk down in the chair and squirmed uncomfortably.
“Nothing?” Somerset said.
“I can’t find what isn’t there,” Enid said, as she spread her hands in a helpless gesture.
She’d scrubbed them recently, from the raw knuckles and smell of Irish Spring soap, but her nails were already rimed with black. They were born to the forges, her kind, and even a decade spent among mortals couldn’t wash the stain of it away. To the Courts, it was a badge of honor. For the unCourted…either they got into manual labor or they spent a lot on soap.
Enid spent a lot on soap. She was a loan officer at the Belling National Bank, which was why Somerset thought she might be able to chase something up.
The Courts were hidebound by choice, but even they had to adapt to the mortal world’s economic discipline. Plumbers didn’t accept enchanted apples as payment. For that matter, neither did most of the fey. Fairy gold was all well and good, but there was always a chance it would turn into acorns in your pocket. A bank transfer didn’t have that problem. Not after the first time a highborn of the Courts had their assets frozen for wire fraud.
Wolves didn’t have pockets, of course, but a plot to overthrow the Winter Court’s most powerful vassal had to involve people who did. Someone out there had been bribed, bought, or bullied into their part in it. That meant money had changed hands, andthatshould leave a trail of some sort.
Yet here Enid was to tell him there was nothing.
Somerset leaned forward and braced his elbows on the table. He cocked his head to the side.
“My brothers still bank there?” he asked.
Enid ran her finger around the collar of her shirt. Her eyes darted around the room shiftily, as if something might jump off the walls to get her out of this.
“I…I could lose my job over this,” she muttered. “There are rules. A lot of rules.”
Somerset raised an eyebrow. “Tell me,” he said. “Any of those rules about using forged credentials to get a job?”
Hot color flushed Enid’s face for a moment and then, just as quickly, drained back out of it. She was left pallid and queasy-looking.
“That’s not…” She stopped and twisted her hands together in her lap. Her knuckles pushed, white and bony, against scrubbed raw skin. “I paid for those. Fair and square. You can’t hold them over me forever.”
“Paid for,” Somerset agreed, “but not paid off. But that’s beside the point, because you’re talking about a debt. I was threatening you. Do you see the difference?”
He waited, and Enid glared at him, her mouth pinched tight shut to keep the words in. The deadlock didn’t last long, and Enid was the one who folded. Her shoulders slumped, and she looked down at her hands.
“Your brothers are still some of the bank’s ‘special clients,’” she admitted in a low, sour voice as she picked at her dirty nails. “Nothing has changed there, but there was none of the activity you asked me to look for. No large transactions, no regular withdrawals, and no new payees on the accounts.”
