Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

car. The Fideal says that he didn’t touch it. I suspect it will show up again—it has been persistent in following you.”
    â€œIt is the walking stick that would make all my ewes have twins, isn’t it?” I asked, though I was almost certain. The stories about the others had worried me enough to be grateful the stick was useless to me.
    He laughed. It started from his belly and worked its way to his eyes, until they twinkled merrily. “You have some ewes you plan on breeding?”
    â€œNo, but I’d like to be able to travel more than five miles from home without finding myself on my own doorstep—or worse, be able to see all the faults in the people around me without any of the goodness.” Not that any of that had been happening, but for all I knew, the stick had to be activated somehow in order to work.
    â€œNot to worry,” he said, still grinning. “If you decide to be a sheep farmer, all of your sheep would have healthy twins until the stick decided to roam again.”
    I let out a sigh of relief and turned back to what I needed to know. “When O’Donnell was killed, were you and Zee the only ones who knew he was the killer?”
    â€œWe hadn’t told anyone else.”
    â€œWere you the only ones who knew the murderer was stealing artifacts?” I caught a whiff of something magical and tried to keep my face from showing my sudden alertness.
    â€œNo. It wasn’t talked about, but as soon as we discovered that Connora’s list had been taken, we started asking around. Anyone would have made the obvious connection.”
    Beside me, Samuel nodded in happy agreement. Not that he should have objected to anything Uncle Mike said but…
    â€œQuit that,” I told Uncle Mike. I noticed that the tiredness I’d seen in him when he came was gone and he once more appeared to be a kindly man who made his living making people happy.
    â€œWhat?”
    I narrowed my gaze at him. “I don’t like you right now, and no fae magic is going to change that.” Samuel jerked his head toward me. Maybe he hadn’t caught that Uncle Mike was using some kind of charisma magic—or maybe he smelled that I was lying. I did like Uncle Mike, but Uncle Mike didn’t need to know that. He’d be easier to pry information out of as long as I could keep him feeling guilty.
    â€œMy apologies, lass,” he said, sounding as appalled as he looked. “I’m tired and it’s a reflex thing.”
    That might be true, it might be reflex, but he didn’t say he wasn’t doing it deliberately either.
    â€œI’m tired, too,” I said.
    â€œAll right,” he said. “Let me tell you what we are going to do right now. It is agreed among us that the Fideal offered first offense. It is agreed among us that your death would cost the fae more than it would gain us—you can thank Samuel and Nemane for that.”
    He leaned forward. “So here is what we can offer you. As it seems important to you that Zee be proven innocent, we can work on that—so you don’t cause even greater problems for us. We are allowed to aid the police—except that we cannot tell them about the stolen things. They are powerful, some of them, and it is better if the mortals don’t have any idea that they might exist.”
    Cool relief flowed down my spine. If the Gray Lords were willing to accept the time and notoriety of an investigation, then Zee’s chances had risen exponentially. But Uncle Mike hadn’t finished speaking.
    â€œâ€¦So you may leave the investigation to us and to the police.”
    â€œGood,” said Samuel.
    Now it was true I had no idea where to look for O’Donnell’s killer. Perhaps it had been Fideal, or another of the fae, maybe someone who cared for one of the victims, who had somehow discovered O’Donnell was the killer. If it were one of the fae, which at this point was probable, I didn’t have a chance of finding out anything. So maybe if Samuel hadn’t said “Good,” my response to Uncle Mike would have been different—but probably not.
    â€œI’ll make sure and keep you informed when I find out anything interesting,” I told them gently.
    â€œIt is too dangerous,” Uncle Mike said, “even for heroes, Mercy. I don’t know what relics the killer has, but the things we recovered were lesser items, and I know that