Magnus turned sharply at those words, his eyes widening as he found Allie standing in the office doorway. She looked a little better than she had when he’d laid her in the bed upstairs last night, but was still incredibly pale. She was also swaying slightly on her feet, he noted with concern.

“Where is my son?” Allie repeated grimly, her eyes sliding anxiously from man to man. “What have you done with him?”

Magnus was the first to recover from his shock, or perhaps Tybo and Mortimer were merely leaving him to deal with Allie since she was his possible life mate, but whatever the case, he was the first to speak.

“Liam is fine.” Magnus crossed quickly to her side, intent on reaching her before she fainted or passed out again. The woman’s lips already had a slightly blue tinge denoting a lack of oxygen, a sure sign that her blood levels were low. “He is safe and well. You are both safe now. No one can get to you here.”

“But where is he?” she growled with frustration.

“He’s outside playing with—”

“Outside?” The word was a bare breath of horror.

“Yes,” Magnus said, confused by her upset.

“But he can’t be outside. It’s daytime,” she protested, and whirled to leave the room, only to stagger as the swift movement set her off balance.

Magnus caught her at once, sweeping her off her feet to keep her from falling. He then carried her quickly to the window and set her down in front of it.

“Look. He is fine,” he said, pointing out the window.

Allie stared out the window, her eyes widening as she took in the scene playing out before her. Liam—in his secondhand, gray, and slightly grubby coat—and another boy who looked to be about the same age, but in a bright red obviously new coat, were trudging through the snow side by side, pushing a large boulder of snow ahead of them as a blonde woman in a white winter coat and a white knitted hat cheered them on. The woman was smiling as she watched the boys laugh and chatter as they moved across the yard one way and then another so that their boulder of snow stayed round as it grew in size, but finally they rolled it to a second, even larger boulder of snow and worked together to lift the new ball on top of the first. The boulder was easily the size of the boys themselves. She was sure it would have taken two normal adults to lift it, but the two little boys raised it like it weighed nothing and it was simply the awkward size that forced them to work together.

Once they had it settled on the larger boulder, they began to pack snow around where the boulders met to ensure it didn’t fall off.