Page 61 of The Hearth Witch’s Guide to Spite & Spellwork

This had the precisely desired effect as Saga’s attention shifted to her instantly. “Sword?”

“Yes, quite a great big one, forged from the permafrost of Faerie’s Winter Court,” continued Avery, aware she might have been gilding the lily a bit at this point. “Used it to end a mad king’s reign. Now that was true cold iron.”30

“Feeling sentimental, are we?” The voice rumbled from the dark hallway ahead, resonant with a Nordic lilt. She knew it well. The dragon emerging from its lair. Avery suspected when he was not directly tending the desk, he lurked in the vault itself, delighting over his hoard in his natural form, which is why his voice always sounded so much deeper and greater than it did in person.

“Does that mean it is here?” Avery called, her voice echoing along the cavernous structure.

“Of course it is here. Everything is here. And before you ask, no, you cannot see it.” The man was approximately four feet, five inches, and dressed in a brown tweed suit. His face briefly illuminated as he breathed a spark of flame into the bowl of a churchwarden pipe that he then stuck in the corner of his mouth. He, like another dragon she knew, had not changed in the two hundred years since she’d seen him. His dark hair and beard were both a few inches too long to be considered short, but they were well-groomed. He fixed his unnervingly bright green eyes on them as he stepped onto the platform behind the desk. “Does that conclude your business here, or have you more sensible requests?”

Avery gestured grandly. “Saga, allow me to introduce Fáfnir Hreiðmarrson, Head Keeper of the Winter Court. Fáfnir, this is Saga Trygg of the Hudson line. She is assisting me on my case.”

“Not the Fáfnir?”31 Saga said in an awed tone.

Fáfnir puffed on his pipe, unimpressed. “Are you working off your own parole?”

“My participation is voluntary,” replied Saga, standing up straight and folding her coat neatly over her arm.

“Hm, community service, how noble.” Fáfnir folded his hands on the counter, his nails vaguely clawlike, even in this form. “Now, have you a key to give me, or are you craving gossip?”

Avery leaned on the counter. “Have you started hoarding gossip?”

An indignant breath out of Fáfnir’s nose caused a small puff of smoke to curl around his nostrils. “Dragons do not hoard, we collect.” His hand rested meaningfully on the large green ledger. “And catalog.”

“Merrill said we should talk to you about whether any relics had gone missing—recently or otherwise,” Saga chimed in.

Fáfnir’s expression grew colder and his accent a little thicker. “Nothing is missing from the vault.”

“You seem overly confident about that.” Avery stepped between Saga and the dragon’s glare.

It caused a flash of irritation in Fáfnir’s disposition, and his pupils slitted from human to dragon, then back again. “Do you see this ledger?” He stroked it as one would a beloved pet. “Every item within it is filled out because the container it is housed within directly correlates to its line item. It is not subject to error, because the magic translates an item by its name.” He snapped his fingers, pointing at Saga. “If I was to take your lovely charm bracelet and lock it in one of our vaults…” He easily opened the ledger to the last page and pointed to the vacant line. “It would populate here with ‘charm bracelet’—or whatever the name of the object is—and your name would appear here under the keyholder column.” He dug into a drawer and produced a small iron key. “You would then be given one of these.”

Velouette had collected one of those keys before she’d left Avery in her office. What had she retrieved from the vault? “Could someone steal a key?”

Fáfnir rolled his eyes at the notion. “Even if someone were to steal the recall key assigned to your container or manage to forge the paperwork to obtain one, the line item would illuminate in red in the ledger unless I personally signed it out. I would not sign it out unless someone could prove their identity, as well as their right to the items. Nothing goes in or out of here without my knowledge and the proper paperwork.” He huffed and his pipe sputtered, a flake of tobacco ashing into the air.

“It intrinsically knows the name of an item and whom it rightfully belongs to?” Saga clarified.

“Precisely. Which leaves no room for error, as you might imagine.”

This posed an interesting dilemma to Avery. “Who is the keyholder for my sword, then?”

Both Saga and Fáfnir stared at her.

“You say I may not see it, which suggests I am not the rightful keyholder. That is understandable. It was, after all, confiscated as evidence. I do wonder, however, if the vault then determined the council as the keyholders, or, as I did borrow it, if the original owner’s name might be listed as the keyholder.”

“The weapon you used to slay the mad king of winter…was borrowed?” Saga asked.

“Is that not how regicide is done? Something old, something new, something borrowed…” Avery flashed her a smile.

Saga returned it, despite her best efforts to not look like she was encouraging such behavior. Fates, she did enjoy making that woman smile. “I’m pretty sure that’s weddings.”

“Really?” Avery tsked and snapped her fingers. “Damn, I am always getting those two mixed up.”

Saga giggled.

“The Winter Council maintains ownership of Djævelens Klinge, regardless of whom you may have borrowed it from.” Fáfnir turned the ledger to show them. “An order imbued with the seal of all currently serving members must be provided in order to retrieve it.”

Avery felt a chill run down her spine. Why that name? Had she known that was the name when she gave it to Avery?