“Wizard,” he rumbled in a voice so deep that I could feel it better than I could hear it. “I have come hence to speak to thee about mine younger brothers.” The gruff ’s huge eyes narrowed, and its knuckles creaked like shipping hawsers as its fists tightened. “And the harms thou hast wrought upon them.”

Chapter Seventeen

I picked up my staff and rose to face the enormous gruff.

Murphy watched me with very, very wide eyes.

“This is neutral ground,” I said quietly.

“Aye,” the gruff agreed. “The Accords alone keep thy neck unbroken, thy skull uncracked.”

“Or your enormous ass uncooked,” I replied, staring up and setting my jaw. “Don’t start thinking it would be easy, Tiny.”

“Mayhap, and mayhap not,” the gruff rumbled. “’Tis a question answered only by the field.”

I breathed as shallowly as I could. The huge gruff didn’t smell bad, precisely—but he sure as hell smelled a lot. “Speak.”

“We find ourselves at odds, friend of Winter,” the gruff rumbled.

“Friend of Summer, too,” I said. “They gave me jewelry and everything.”

“Aye,” the huge gruff said. “You have done good service to my Court, if not to my Queen. I am surprised, then, at your use of the bane ’pon two of my younger kin.”

“The bane?” Murphy said quietly.

“Iron,” I clarified. I turned back to the gruff. “They were trying to kill me. I wanted to survive.”

“No friend of either Court would so employ the bane, wizard,” the gruff growled. “Did you not know this? It is more than a mere weapon, and the pain it causes more than simple discomfort. It is a poison, body and spirit, that you have used ’pon us.”

I glared at the big idiot. “They were trying to kill me,” I repeated, only more slowly, you know, so it would be all insulting. “I wanted to survive.”

The gruff narrowed its eyes. “Then you intend to continue as you have begun?”

“I intend to survive,” I replied. “I didn’t ask for this fight. I didn’t begin it.”

“Thou’rt fated to die in any case, mortal, soon or late. Why not face it with honor and make thy passing more peaceful thereby?”

“Peaceful?” I asked, barely containing a laugh. “If I go down fighting, Tiny, I plan for it to be about as unpeaceful as things get.” I jabbed a finger at him. “I’ve got nothing against you and your brothers, Tiny, except that you keep trying to freaking kill me. Back off, and it won’t have to get any uglier than it already has.”

The gruff growled. It sounded like a dump truck grinding its gears. “That I will not do. I will serve my Queen.”

“Then don’t expect anything but more of the same from me,” I replied.

“You would behave this way in the service of Winter?” the gruff demanded, incredulous. “You, who struck the heart of Arctis Tor? What hold has the Dark Queen ’pon you, mortal?”

“Sorry, Tiny, but you aren’t nearly as special as you think you are. This is pretty much the way I behave every time someone tries to whack me.” I gestured at him with my staff. “So if you came here to try to talk me into lying down and dying, you can leave the way you came in. And if you’re the one coming after me next, you’d better have more brains than your brothers did, or I’m going to leave you as a great big pile of cold cuts and spare ribs.”