“Hauptman. I apologize for my disbelief. I apologize for not recognizing the truth of what you told me. I apologize for not listening.” He paused, looked at the walking stick again, and his eyebrow rose, almost as if it had said something to him.

He gave me a faint, ironic smile. “My thanks for retrieving this one from the”—he paused—“sanctuary that you had found for it. I owe you a favor of your choice.”

“No,” I said. “No. You don’t. I know about favors from the fae.”

“That,” he said austerely, “is not for you to accept or reject.”

“Information, then,” I said. “Do you know anything about Guayota?”

He shook his head. “I have heard about your trouble. The fae do not live on the Canary Islands, and I know nothing more than that he is a volcano spirit taking flesh. Zee’s young one has been asking around without luck, I believe.” He hesitated. Gave me a look that said, There is another question to ask me here. But I can’t tell you unless you ask. Something about Tad.

“If I ask you to help us defeat Guayota?”

He smiled grimly. “If I were the Dark Smith of Drontheim, I would offer to help and leave you so far in my debt that you would be my puppet until the end of your days.”

“That’s what I thought,” I told him. “But I needed to ask.”

“Information would be a reasonable balance,” he told me. “You know that the Smith’s son has been requested and required to attend the fae court in the reservation. So that would not be new information to you.”

That there was a fae court was new information. I wondered if it was a court in the sense of a court of law, or a more traditional fae court. And what the answer to that might mean in the future.

But he’d told me the information he was willing to give us. “In repayment of the favor you owe me, is Tad being held prisoner?”