Frost Burned

bit more to make sure she didn’t try for that book that called to her again.
    Zee had a modern college text on metallurgy right next to a very old book bound in leather with a title that was nearly indecipherable, between the faded gold embossing and the old German script. And just out of easy reach was the little green linen-bound book with the warped cover that had fascinated her earlier. Mercy shifted restlessly then froze, jerking her hands away from him.
    “I’ve burned you,” she whispered, horrified.
    Tad looked up from dealing another round, and Asil glanced their way—and then returned his attention to the fae weapons on the shelves.
    “I’m a werewolf,” Adam said softly. “It won’t kill me.”
    She frowned at him, and he closed his eyes again. “It’s all right, Mercy. It’s already healed.” He wanted to tell her not to worry, but then maybe she wouldn’t. Not because she chose to follow his advice but because of the damned fae artifact that made her obedient. An obedient Mercy because she had no choice—that was an abomination.
    She curled up, tucking her hands in where they couldn’t accidentally touch him. She closed her eyes, too—he knew because he had only
mostly
shut his.
    The better to see you with, my dear, said the Big Bad Wolf.
    He also saw something else. Adam had a habit of keeping track of things in his environment—situational awareness. It had saved his butt more than once. He was especially aware of things that could be used as weapons.
    One of the blades on the shelves was moving. He didn’t catch it in actual motion, but when they’d first come into the room, it had been in the back corner of the bottom shelf of the bookcase nearest the mirror. Now it was in the middle of the shelf and had slid nearly off the edge.
    He wondered if it might be chasing Asil, if only very slowly.
    It was a hunting knife with a dark blade that showed just a touch of rust. The hilt was some sort of antler. When he closed his eyes a little more and turned his gaze so that the knife was in the corner of his vision, he could tell that there was some sort of runic lettering down the blade. But as soon as he looked directly at it again, the runes disappeared.
    Because Adam was carefully not-watching the blade, he noticed something was happening to the mirror.
    The corners were darkening until, gradually, it quit reflecting the room and looked more like a huge photo of a heavy, gray, silk curtain than a silver-backed glass mirror. Adam lifted his head to see it more clearly. As soon as the whole of it was dark, frost bloomed. It started in the very center of the mirror, as if it were very cold and someone was blowing on it with a warm, wet breath. A fog of ice spiderwebbed out in a crystalline sheet across the glass.
    As soon as the ice covered the entire surface, a darker line dripped down the middle of the mirror and dark, callused, long-fingered hands slid out of the glass and pulled the gray aside, sending a light snow to the rug that butted up against that end of the room.
    Zee stepped through the mirror. Tad looked up and started gathering his cards together, though his game wasn’t half-finished yet. Asil’s eyes slitted, and he rolled to the balls of his feet, ready for whatever would come. Mercy turned her head, and said, “Hey, Zee. Long time no see.”
    The Zee that stepped through the mirror wasn’t the one Adam was used to. Gone was the glamour that he’d presented to the world. He was no slender, balding old man—his sharp-featured face was both unaged and ancient, with skin the color of fumed oak. His body showed the musculature of a man who spent his days before a hot fire bending metal to his will—wide shoulders and taut flesh that knew hard work.
    “Mercedes,” he said. “What have you done to your lips?”
    Mercy touched her lips but didn’t say anything. Adam found that a hopeful sign.
    White-gold hair slicked down over Zee’s shoulders like a waterfall of pale wheat. He wore, incongruously, a pair of black jeans and a gray flannel shirt with a motor-oil stain on one cuff. On his feet were his old battered, steel-toed boots.
    Asil’s lips curled back, and he snarled softly.
    “Peace, wolfling,” said Zee in his usual impatient and crabby fashion. “It’s been a long time since I hunted your kind. And, as I recall,
you
got away cleanly anyway. You have no axe to grind.”
    The old fae frowned at Tad, who had set the deck of cards on the poker caddy and