Page 61 of Soothsayer

“With this thing?” He held up the little Buddha figurine. “I was close to getting out of those cuffs myself.”

“Yep, that’s the story your black eye is telling for sure.”

“Forget my eye, man. Tell me what the hell happened to mycar.”

“Um.” It was hard to know what to say to that, actually. “It died a noble death?”

“Goddamnit!”

“I’m sorry.” I really was, too. I was sorry for dragging Andre into all this in the first place. “Look, I’ll replace it, I promise.” I’d been making a lot of promises lately, but I planned to follow through on all of them.

Andre sighed. “It’s already a done deal, man. The guy in charge—Jakob—he gave me more than enough money to replace the car, called it ‘reparations.’ He’s paying to fix up my house, too.”

“Oh.” That was a little surprising. “Good.”

“And Sören already told me the score on my wife and little girl, so thanks for taking care of them.”

“Jesus, don’tthankme,” I said, appalled. “Look what I dragged you into.”

Andre ducked his head for a moment. “Yeah. Foreign cartels, crazy magic, and gunfights. It’s the best story of my life and I can’t even report on it.” When he looked up, he was smiling, just a little. “But the hell with it. I was kind of bored anyway.”

“Glad I could help you with that.”

“Yeah, but…if it’s all the same? Don’t call me again, Cillian.” There was some gentle humor in Andre’s voice, but beneath itwas a layer of steel. He pressed the spent Buddha charm into my unresisting hand. “Because I won’t answer.”

Aaandbridge officially burned. “Got it,” I said, and if my voice was a little subdued, well, this was the price of doing business. I was a bad deal in a lot of ways. “Take care of yourself, then.”

“You too, man.” We shook hands and he left. Finally, I roused myself to go and look for Sören.

He was alone at the far end of his land, where the grove was situated. He sat in front of the broken tree, his hands on its ruined stump, purple eyes trained on the water before him. To his right, the base of the larger tree still glistened with my blood.

I looked away from the gore and sat down next to him. “Hey.”

“Sören is very distressed.” There was more than a hint of blame in the landvættir’s voice. “You caused him much pain.”

“I’m very sorry for that.”

“As you should be. He is not sure he can trust you anymore. He doesn’t want to speak to you.”

The pang those words sent through my heart was so sharp I was surprised my chest didn’t simply start bleeding. “Okay.” I’d have to be patient. I could do that.

“Personally, I applaud you. That was a bold plan, Cillian.” His cloudy eyes turned my way. “You knew Sören would choose you if at all possible. You used his love for you to manipulate both of us into doing your will.”

“Things fell out all right for me in the end.”

“But you don’t believe in chance.”

“Maybe not,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m some sort of strategic mastermind either, or completely careless with my own life. I didn’t want to hurt Sören, and I’ll spend forever making it up to him, but…” I shrugged. “We’re still all here.”

“Indeed we are.” Sören looked back at the lake. “And so is he.”

I knew who he meant. “Ólafur.”

“His blood shall nourish my roots, and my grove will grow strong again.”

“Oookay.”

“But I need to be settled in my new home.” The undertone there wasfast, faster, RIGHT NOW. I got up again.

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