are sending,” Zee said again. “But I do know that they will not send out anyone who is not familiar with working with the human government. With humans in general.” He turned on the steam cleaner—and then shut it off again. “Among the more powerful of us, we have a lot who are trained in human law. Like your government, we have an overabundance of lawyers.”
* * *
• • •
I had been going to meet Ms. Gillman at the Ice Harbor Brewing Company, a local pub, but changed my mind at the last minute and texted her directions for a different place.
She beat me there and was waiting for me in a white Camry that shouted “rental car.” When I pulled in next to her, she unlocked her doors and got out.
“I was just about to text you to make sure I’d gotten the right place,” she said. “I hope that this is like good Chinese restaurants. You know—where the more run-down the exterior is, the better the food.”
She was right that it wasn’t pretty. The exterior was boxy and an unlovely blend of textures and shades of white.
The wall nearest the entrance had been newly repaired. I’d been here when a snow elf had taken the whole wall out. He’d been chasing me at the time.
Getting chased by a snow elf might not sound impressive. But when a frost giant says he’s a snow elf, there aren’t many, even among the fae, who would argue with him about it.
The repair work, though not beautiful, had been competently done. Like the rest of the building, it had been painted white. It might have looked better if the rest of the building, also whitish, had been painted sometime this century.
The only elegant thing in sight was a hitching post that looked like someone had lifted it from the movie set of Elrond Half-elven’s home in The Lord of the Rings. It was new because I’d have remembered if I’d seen something so out of place before.
I didn’t know what Uncle Mike’s needed with a hitching post. I breathed in and paid attention to the scents—there just might have been a hint of horse in the air.
“You found the right place,” I told Ruth Gillman, assistant to the most famously fae-hostile senator in Congress. “Welcome to Uncle Mike’s.”
The big Uncle Mike’s sign was down today, awaiting a newer, bigger sign. But there were cars in the lot and the Open sign on the door was lit.
She stiffened and gave me an unsmiling look. “Do you think that it is wise to discuss our meeting here?”
Uncle Mike’s had, once upon a time, been the local fae hangout—humans not allowed. It had sat empty for a while during the worst of the tensions between the fae and humans. But Uncle Mike had gone to work on it, right after the fae had signed their agreement with our pack. It had been up and running for a few weeks now. All the work, from the bussers to the brewmaster himself, was done by the fae. But this time, Uncle Mike had opened it to all customers.
He hadn’t made a big deal about its reopening, and I was sure there were still locals who didn’t realize it existed. But from Ruth’s face, the government knew all about Uncle Mike’s.
“I think that eating lunch here will teach you more than anything you can get out of me in a two-hour meal,” I told her. “Whatever else you need to know, you can ask.”
I hadn’t called ahead, but Uncle Mike himself met us at the door. He looked better than I’d seen him in a while and had his charming-innkeeper thing he did so well blazing away like a blast furnace.
“Mercy,” he said expansively. “Sure and it’s been too long since you’ve brightened our doorstep. Who are you bringing with you, darlin’?”
I made introductions and Ruth’s eyes widened when I gave her his name. Uncle Mike was one of the more accessible fae, and I was sure the government thought they knew quite a bit about him. I was equally sure they didn’t know anything he didn’t want them to know.
“Senator Campbell’s aide,” Uncle Mike said. “And you’re both here for lunch, no doubt. I have just the spot for you.”
He sat us at a card-table-sized table, just in front of the stage where a middle-aged man was tuning his guitar. I didn’t know him—I didn’t think.
The fae have glamour. They might tend to wear the same guise