“You wouldn’t happen to know why Órlaith and several other fae of her cadre are missing, would you?” Beauclaire asked Zee.

Zee smiled and said nothing.

Beauclaire smiled back. Evidently, none of the missing would be missed by him.

Beauclaire reached into a desk drawer and brought out a roll of vellum. He stretched it out across his desk, so the lettering faced us, putting a paperweight at the top and the bottom to keep it rolled out. “The others have signed,” he told Adam. “When you have read it and signed, I’ll make my mark, and the bargain will be made.”

Adam nodded, pulled up a seat, and began to read. I read over his shoulder.

We, the Gray Lords of Faery, representing themselves and all of Faery, do make this bargain with Adam Alexander Hauptman and his mate Mercedes Athena Thompson Hauptman, who represent themselves and the Columbia Basin Pack . . .

When Adam was finished, he stood up and looked at Zee. “Would you mind going through it as well?”

Zee nodded. It didn’t take him as long as it had us. “It says what we think it does,” he said, his smile brief but real. “It helps that the fae want this more than you do.”

After Tad nodded, too, I wrote my name in the space left for me, then handed Adam the quill pen to sign. Beauclaire rounded the desk to sign rather than turn the sheet around.

When he was finished, he set the pen aside and put his hand on the vellum. He took three deep breaths, and magic swelled. I sneezed twice and still couldn’t get the tickle out of my nose.

Beauclaire bent his head then, and spoke a word. Adam put his hand on my shoulder, but Beauclaire didn’t use the kind of power he’d called when destroying the bridge. When he took his hand off the document, there were two copies.

He rolled them both and wrapped some kind of keeper around the rolls. One of those he left on his desk, and the other he gave to Zee.

“I’ll take you to a door,” he said, and started out of his office, only to pause in the doorway. “You should take off any iron or steel you have on your persons.”

But Adam had spent the night going through the go-bags he kept ready and waiting in our closet. He’d substituted plastic and nylon for most of the metal.

I had a thought. “Adam. Your dog tags. What are they made from?”

“Stainless steel,” Adam told me, and started to take his off.