He frowned. “You have a point, but . . .”
I waited for the chief to finish his sentence, but he didn’t. I guess he didn’t need to. Even in her absence, Persephone’s charm held sway. Yes, she’d bankrupted the community, but she was paying it back with interest. She could walk aboveground among mere mortals, she was beautiful, she brought sunlight with her, and she smelled like an orchard on a summer day.
Hel was right. This was probably a battle I was never going to win.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll try it myself. I just wanted to warn you.”
“What are the repercussions for the community?” Chief Bryant asked.
“Of two goddesses going to war?” I asked. “Sir, I honestly have no idea.”
“Daisy.” He called me back as I was preparing to leave his office, his expression grave. “Whether you like it or not, Persephone will hold legal title to that property. And all I can do is uphold the law. I expect you to do the same.”
I didn’t answer.
I ran into Cody on the sidewalk outside the station. He looked like he hadn’t slept since yesterday. “Daisy.” He caught my arm. “I wanted to talk to you after the meeting, but Jen and Lee said you’d been summoned to Little Niflheim. What did Hel have to say?”
I told him about the coming war, then lowered my voice. “Where do you think the, um, Fairfax clan will stand on this?”
“I don’t know,” Cody admitted. “We were up all night talking about it, but at this point everyone’s in a state of shock. This is our home! Generations of Fairfaxes have lived their whole lives here in Pemkowet!”
“I know.” My eyes stung and I gave a choked half laugh. “How do you feel about Seattle?”
He shook his head. “Not good. This war . . . is there a chance we can win it?”
“Mikill said that as long as Yggdrasil’s standing, there’s hope,” I said.
“I’ll tell the clan,” Cody said. “I’ll let you know what they decide.”
I nodded. “You should probably know that the chief warned me about upholding the law.”
“Do you think he’ll fire you for siding with Hel?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I think that come the second day of spring, he might not have any choice, but right now I can’t afford to worry about it. By the way, if any of the guests from your mixer were planning to relocate, you might want to tell them to put those plans on hold.”
“Good point.” He paused. “For the record, I’m not seeing her.”
“Who?”
Cody smiled wryly. “Stephanie. After her visit, we decided not to pursue a relationship. I don’t know what to call whatever it was you and I had going on, Daise, but I’m not ready to move past it yet.”
“Oh.” I flushed. “And you thought now would be a good time to tell me?”
“No.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Not really. Actually, it’s a pretty terrible time. I just thought you should know.”
I eyed him. “You know . . . never mind. Right now, I’ve got to go summon the Oak King.”
I drove out to the meadow where I’d first encountered the Oak King and he had given me his token—the meadow where Sinclair and I had laid the remains of Jojo the joe-pye weed fairy to rest.
Everything was quiet and still. Although it was a few degrees above freezing, we’d had a blizzard the previous week, and the meadow lay under a thick coat of wet snow. I plodded through it, my footprints leaving deep, waterlogged impressions charting my progress across the landscape. In the center of the meadow, I fished out the Oak King’s token, the silver acorn-shaped whistle I wore on a chain around my neck.
Setting it to my lips, I blew the whistle.
It had a high, clear sound that seemed to hang in the air long after I’d stopped blowing, echoes sounding through the trees.
I waited, trying not to think about Cody’s revelation. I mean . . . Jesus! Seriously? That was one infuriating werewolf. What did that even mean, that he wasn’t ready to move past our sort-of affair?
I’ll tell you what: Nothing. Unless Cody was willing to defy his clan, it was just another version of the same I-want-you-but-I-can’t-have-you dance we’d been doing for months.
Of course, if he did defy his clan for my sake . . . I’m not sure how I would feel about it. At least with Stefan, we’d gotten to a place where matters between us were clear and direct. Exhilarating, occasionally terrifying, but clear.
Anyway.
All thoughts of Cody, Stefan, and my overly complicated love life went out of my head the moment the Oak King appeared on the verge of the woods.
The Oak King wasn’t a god, but he was eldritch royalty and he ruled over the nature fey in Pemkowet, which included the fairies who adored Sinclair so much, a phooka or two, the brownies and hobgoblins, and possibly others I didn’t have recorded in my ledger yet. In appearance, he looked like a tall man crowned with antlers, brown-skinned and brown-haired, a long cloak hanging from his shoulders that looked like deerskin one moment and a garment woven of leaves and moss the next.
The meadow seemed to shrink as the Oak King crossed it, until he stood looming before me, his antlers silhouetted against the wintry sky, sorrow and foreboding in his dark eyes.
I knelt in his presence. “Your majesty.”
“Rise, Daisy Johanssen.” His voice was deep and hushed, like the stillness at the heart of an ancient forest. “It is not required that you kneel in my presence.”