Free Cold Iron by D. L. McDermott Page B

sat down gracefully on the bench outside the iron gate. “You,” he said, “are the most exasperating woman I have ever encountered.” But he didn’t sound exasperated. He sounded . . . amused. Almost pleased.
    “You live under a hill. I doubt you get out much.”
    “And yet I have watched mountains rise and fall, empires wax and wane. In the vernacular of this age, I get out plenty. I just do it on a slightly different time scale.”
    “How old are you?”
    “Eons,” he said, then smiled, sly as he had been in Clonmel. “But I do like a good sleep. You have a thirst for knowledge, Beth. Come out of your cage and I’ll tell you everything you ever wanted to know.”
    “Tomorrow,” she said. “If you take the sword away tonight, I’ll lose everything here. I’ll look like a drug addict or a lunatic or Frank’s jealous ex-wife. Probably all three. My job and my reputation will be destroyed.”
    “Are those the only things that are important to you, Beth? Your role and reputation?”
    “They’re all I have,” she said. It was the truth. And it had been enough, until she met Conn, damn him. He made her want more.
    “What of friends, family, lovers?” Conn asked. He appeared to be genuinely curious.
    “My lover betrayed me, my friends, except for Helene, deserted me in favor of him. And I made choices—to take my own path in life—that cut me off from my family. I don’t regret them, but if I allow my career to be destroyed, I’ll have nothing.”
    Conn appeared to consider, then stood abruptly and shrugged out of his green velvet coat. He held it out to her, though he kept well away from the bars. “Here. You’re cold. Take it.”
    She hesitated. How close could he come to the iron bars?
    He read the question in her eyes. “You’re safe. I can’t cross the iron. It sets my teeth on edge even to be near this much of it.”
    She reached through the grille and snatched the coat.
    “Let no one touch the blade,” he warned. “And do not touch it yourself.”
    She clutched the velvet, warm and soft, to her breast, still reluctant to put it on. “What do you want in return?” she asked.
    “Foolish woman,” he chided. “Never make bargains with the Fae.”
    She looked down at the coat in her hands, then back up again, to find him gone. She waited a few minutes but heard nothing in the darkness, so she slid first one arm, then the other into the luxury of the silk lining. Light as air. Warm as down. She fastened the silver buttons, which felt like living metal, warm to the touch and chased with a pattern of curling leaves. It was like slipping into him.
    They had made no bargain about the sword, but he had warned her not to trust him. She was desperate for the warmth and security of her apartment, or at the very least her office, but she knew she would be a fool to set foot outside the iron bars tonight.
    There was a bench, a hideous scratchy upholstered thing, bolted to the floor in the middle of the room, graceless and institutional, and she felt like a pagan sacrifice lying on top of it. But it was that or the cold stone floor, so she curled up on the bench in his coat, and breathed deep the pine and rosemary scent of him captive in the cloth.
    She wanted him. There was no hiding from it. Wanted to feel him wrapped around her like the coat, in a warm and protective embrace. But she was afraid of him, too. And afraid of herself, because the voice she had used to throw him across the room in Clonmel, her strange ability to find ancient sites on maps, her reaction to the sword, were unnatural. There was something wrong with her. Something that had drawn Frank to her, because he could use it, and something that had made him treat her cruelly, because she was a freak.
    She dozed fitfully, her mind full of Conn and at the same time anxious about what would happen in the morning. Tomorrow was going to be the fight of her life. Even the gold and the sword might not be enough to bring Frank down. He