Page 38

“This is my home, Adam. You are trespassing. Why are you here?” Her voice tinkled like sighing ice, while crystals sparkled in her white hair.

“Hello?” Zee called. “Are we good? Or do I need to come back there and turn Elsa into a slushie?”

“It’s alright . . .” I checked the witch’s gaze. She nodded but remained suspicious. “Uh, can you maybe melt the door?” I asked the nice ice lady. “I promise they won’t hurt you.” At this moment. I wasn’t making any promises for later, not yet.

“Very well, but their actions are on you, dragon.” She jerked her head and the ice door dissolved, turning into a puddle of water.

Zee and Victor looked on, equal parts concerned and frustrated. Victor’s shirt was all bloody from the melted ice daggers that had just a few moments ago been stuck in his chest. He seemed to be doing okay, though.

“It’s fine, guys. We’re chatting. Nobody is going to hurt anyone, right . . .”

Victor’s fangs were out, and Zee’s tail was poised like a cobra about to strike. They were one wrong word away from attacking. “Uhm . . . What’s your name?” I asked her, hoping some time might defuse things.

“I am Stephanie Frostweaver.”

Oh. Like the hotel. The Stephanie Hotel. Huh. It really was her house.

“Huh, so is this your hotel?” Zee asked, coming to the same conclusion as me. He gave his head a shake, relaxing his stance. “Because we run a hotel too, and lady, you could use some pointers. Cameras in rooms . . . big no-no. Axe-wielding murder golems . . . also no. Turning people into popsicles⁠—”

“Zodiac,” Victor grumbled. “It may be wise to allow Frostweaver to answer your question before assuming you know how she should manage her own hotel.”

Stephanie scowled at Zee, then skipped her glittering gaze to Victor. “You, vampire, are of the old ways too.”

“Indeed.”

She swept her hands over her face and head, then down her sides, shaking off the icy blue aura and smoky cloak, replacing it with a much more subdued, pale-blue lace dress. But the lace was all messy and patched, as though it had been mended time and time again. Her braided white hair was almost as long as Victor’s, and fell over her shoulder in a single chunky braid. Tipped ears poked out from the hair on either side of her head. She was fae, like Agent Leomaris, but different, more . . . untamed. And I suspected, a whole lot more ancient, although she didn’t look much older than me.

Stephanie Frostweaver was likely the source of the storm and the frozen people.

“What is this word . . . hotel?” Stephanie asked. She tilted her head, her movements small and sharp, like a bird’s tiny precise motions.

“Wait, you don’t know your home is a hotel?” I asked.

“I do not know what that word means.”

“How long have you been on this side of the veil, Frostweaver?” Victor asked, not using her first name. But from him, Frostweaver sounded right.

“It has been so long, vampire, I forget where the snowdrops fall and the ice recedes. Long before, these bricks fenced me in, and the incessant humming of machines drove me downward, into the earth.”

“Then you’ve been here several centuries, since before North America was settled?”

“Time and the seasons have passed beyond my grasp, but yes, before those from across the vast ocean claimed this land as their own. They fought their wars, and brought their great machines.”

“I see. And who built this dwelling around you?”

“My beloved . . . a mortal.” Ice crackled in her blue eyes. “He is gone now, like you should all be gone. You and the others and the endless stream of strangers trampling on my land. My guardian will see to it.”

“I see . . .” Victor discreetly caught my eye, then flicked his gaze back toward Stephanie. “A hotel is a place where people pay to rest overnight before moving on. Is this not your intended purpose for your home?”

“People . . . pay?” She blinked, clearly surprised. “Pay whom?”

“That appears to be the pertinent question.” Victor nodded for me to join him for a private chat at the other end of the chamber.

“Can we please uh . . . discuss this a moment? Me and my partners, I mean?” I asked Stephanie.

“As you wish. Then it is time for you to leave . . . for you all to leave. I am tired of it . . . of you.”

I waved Zee to join me with Victor at the far end of the chamber, by the staircase.