The first thing Samuel said was, "You have a real gift for getting into trouble, don't you? That was one thing I forgot when you left the pack."

"How is any of this my fault?" I asked hotly.

He sighed. "I don't know. Does it matter whose fault it is once you're sitting in the middle of the frying pan?" He gave me a despairing look. "And as my father used to point out, you find your way into that frying pan way too often for it to be purely accidental."

I put aside the urge to defend myself. For over a decade I'd managed to keep to myself, living as a human on the fringe of werewolf society (and that only because, at the Marrok's request, Adam decided to interfere with my life even before he built a house behind mine). It was Adam's trouble that had started everything. Then I'd owed the vampires for helping me with Adam's problems. Clearing that up had left me indebted to the fae.

But I was tired, I had to get up and work tomorrow—and if I started explaining myself, it would be hours before we got back to a useful discussion.

"So, finding myself in the frying pan once again, I came to you for advice," I prodded him. "Like maybe you can tell me why neither Uncle Mike nor Zee wanted to talk about the sea man or how there happened to be a forest and an ocean—a whole ocean—tucked neatly into a backyard and a bathroom. And if any of that could have something to do with O'Donnell's death."

He looked at me.

"Oh, come on," I said. "I saw your face when I told you about the funny things that happened in the rez. You're Welsh, for heaven's sake. You know about the fae."

"You're Indian," he said in a falsetto that I think was supposed to be an imitation of me. "You know how to track animals and build fires with nothing but sticks and twigs."

I gave him a haughty stare. "Actually, I do. Charles—another Indian—taught me."

He waved his hand at me; I recognized the gesture as one of mine. Then he laughed. "All right. All right. But I'm not an expert on the fae just because I'm Welsh."

"So explain that 'ah-ha' expression on your face when I told you about the forest."

"If you went Underhill, you just confirmed one of Da's theories about what the fae are doing with their reservations."

"What do you mean?"

"When the fae first proposed that the government put them on reservations, my father told me he thought that they might be trying to set up territories like they once had in Great Britain and parts of Europe, before the Christians came and started ruining their places of power by building chapels and cathedrals. The fae didn't value their anchors in this world because their magic works so much better Underhill. They didn't defend their places until it was too late. Da believes the last gate to Underhill disappeared in the middle of the sixteenth century, cutting them off from a great deal of their power."

"So they've made new anchors," I said.

"And found Underhill again." He shrugged. "As for not talking about the sea fae…well, if he were dangerous and powerful…you're not supposed to speak about things like that, or name them—it may attract their attention."

I thought about it a moment. "I can see why they'd want to keep it quiet if they've found some way to regain some of their power. So does it have anything to do with figuring out who killed O'Donnell? Did he find out about it? Or was he stealing? And if so, what did he steal?"

He gave me a considering look. "You're still trying to find the killer, even though Zee is being a bastard?"

"What would you do if, in order to defend you from some trumped-up charge, I told a lawyer that you were the Marrok's son?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Surely telling her that there were killings in the reservation doesn't compare?"

I shrugged unhappily. "I don't know. I should have checked with him, or with Uncle Mike, before I told anyone anything."

He frowned at me, but didn't argue anymore.

"Hey," I said with a sigh, "since we're friends and pack now, instead of potential mates, do you suppose you could loan me enough to pay Zee what I owe him for the garage?" Zee didn't make threats. If he told his lawyer to tell me that he expected repayment, he was serious. "I can pay you back on the same schedule I was paying him. That will get you paid off, with interest, in about ten years."

"I'm sure we can arrange something," Samuel said kindly, as if he understood that my change of subject was because I couldn't stand to talk about Zee and my stupidity anymore. "You've got a pretty solid line of credit with me—and Da, for that matter, whose pockets are a lot deeper. You look beat. Why don't you go to sleep?"

"All right," I said. Sleep sounded good. I stood up and groaned as the thigh muscle I'd abused at karate practice yesterday made its protest.

"I'm going out for a minute or two," he said a little too casually—and I stopped walking toward my bedroom.

"Oh, no, you're not."

His eyebrows met his hairline. "What?"

"You are not going to tell Adam that I'm his for the taking."

"Mercy." He stood up, strode over to me, and kissed me on the forehead. "You can't do a damned thing about what I do or don't do. It's between me and Adam."

He left, closing the door gently behind him. Leaving me with the sudden, frightening knowledge that I'd just lost my best defense against Adam.

My bedroom was dark, but I didn't bother to turn on the light. I had worse things to worry about than the dark.

I headed for the bathroom and took a hot shower. By the time the water had cooled and I got out, I knew a couple of things. First, I was going to have just a little time before I had to face Adam. Otherwise he'd already have been waiting for me and my bedroom was empty. Second, I couldn't do anything about Adam or Zee until tomorrow, so I might as well go to sleep.

I combed out my hair and blow-dried it until it was only damp. Then I braided it so I could comb it out in the morning.

I pulled back my covers, knocking the stick that had been resting on top of them to the ground. Before Samuel moved in, I used to sleep without covers in the summer. But he kept the air-conditioning turned down until there was a real chill in the air, especially at night.

I climbed into bed, pulled the covers up under my chin, and closed my eyes.

Why was there a stick on my bed?

I sat up and looked at the walking stick lying on the floor. Even in the dark I knew it was the same stick I'd found at O'Donnell's. Careful not to step on it, I got out of bed and turned on the light.

The gray twisty wood lay innocuously on the floor on top of a gray sock and a dirty T-shirt. I crouched down and touched it gingerly. The wood lay hard and cool under my fingertips, without the wash of magic it had held in O'Donnell's house. For a moment it felt like any other stick, then a faint trace of magic pulsed and disappeared.

I searched out my cell phone and called the number Uncle Mike had been calling me from. It rang a long time before someone picked it up.

"Uncle Mike's," a not so cheerful stranger's voice answered, barely understandable amid a cacophony of heavy metal music, voices, and a sudden loud crash, as if someone had dropped a stack of dishes. "Merde. Clean that up. What do you want?"

I assumed that only the last sentence was directed at me.

"Is Uncle Mike there?" I asked. "Tell him it's Mercy and that I have something he might be interested in."

"Hold on."

Someone barked out a few sharp words in French and then yelled, "Uncle Mike, phone!"

Someone shouted, "Get the troll out of here."

Followed by someone with a very deep voice muttering, "I'd like to see you try to get this troll out of here. I'll eat your face and spit out your teeth."