Jackaby shook his head with a wry smile. “Only for the unfortunate city grunts who had to lay them twice. Octagons, the second go-round, by special request of Mayor Spade. I certainly took an interest and investigated the matter, but I can assure you, there wasn’t a hint of anything malevolent about the original batch. They were stones. She’s always doing that sort of thing. Protecting the city from the demons in her head. She once cautioned me that the weathercocks were in league with one another. Just felt I ought to know.”

“So she’s just a mad woman?”

Jackaby hesitated, and when he spoke, his answer had a soft earnestness to it. “Hatun sees a different world than you or I, a far more frightening one, full of far more terrible dangers, and still she chooses to be the hero whom that world needs. She has saved this town and its people from countless monsters countless times. That the battles are usually in her head does not lessen the bravery of it. The hardest battles always are.”

We had come to the edge of town, where architecture ended and a swath of grasses and shrubs separated the city from the forest. Not far from the road, a little bridge hopped over a winding creek, and a thin footpath snaked into the trees. As we left the road and drew closer, the first thing I noticed was that the creek had frozen over. Snow dusted its solid surface, along with a few leaves and windblown branches. The second thing I noticed was a slumped figure by the base of the bridge. She was fishing in the frozen creek . . . or at least, holding a pole and letting the hook scrape lazy lines in the frosted surface. The metal sinker bounced along the impurities in the ice, tinkling like a wind chime. “Good evening, Hatun,” Jackaby called out amiably as we approached. “Are they biting?”

Chapter Twelve

Hatun looked up and smiled at the detective. “You know good and well the fish aren’t biting. I made a promise to try, though, at least once a week. Token gesture, but better a cold backside than an angry you-know-who. Even if he is just a little fellow.” She tapped her nose with her finger in a conspiratorial gesture.

“And you’re good to remember,” Jackaby told her. Then, to me: “She made a promise to a troll . . . Calls the thing Hammett, if I recall. When she does catch the occasional little something, she leaves it under the bridge for him. She’s been at it since early fall.”

“Another one of her imaginary dangers?” I whispered.