Page 110 of Winter Lost

But I reminded myself who I was talking to. None of this was his fault. Most of it wasn’t his fault. He’d been facing uphill on skis without realizing it, too.

“No. But there’s nothing to be done about that.” I felt like I was in a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, where there were no happily-ever-after endings.

Now, what had we been talking about?

“Hrímnir.” I thought about Hrímnir. “Very old powers are complicated,” I said. “They compartmentalize in order to function.”

Their minds might be like mine was now, all the time. I shuddered at the thought. Even if they only had their own memories, not those of everyone around them, that was thousands of years of memories. No wonder Zee played the part of a grumpy old mechanic so intently. If he existed like this—

I dragged my straying thoughts back. It was getting harder.

“The part that you see—” I thought of the various Hrímnirs I’d seen. The gryphon. The frost giant in the wolfskin cloak. The quiet man taking care of the draft horses because he’d taken away their caretaker. The one who had engineered Garmr’s attack so that I would become what I was right now. So I could assume my role in Hrímnir’s play.

“The part you see is real and true,” I said. “But it’s not the whole truth.”

Hrímnir had sacrificed for this spell, too. I had a visceral understanding of how Great Spells worked and I didn’t know where I’d picked that up. There had to be sacrifices—and Hrímnir paid that cost willingly. Instead of a Power who could change the world, make it a better place—because that was the kind of Power Hrímnir was—he lived alone except for his good dog and an artifact, the embodiment of his Great Spell.

“He has to forget to protect the spell,” I said, understanding why that was. It was the same reason I couldn’t pay too much attention to ghosts without making them more real. Hrímnir’s knowledge of the Great Spell might make everyone remember. He held that kind of power.

“Victoria and Able,” said Hugo deliberately. He didn’t want to talk about Hrímnir. Their relationship was complicated and painful. “You were going to explain what their role was.”

“You know what role they played,” I told him involuntarily. “But this story is mostly for me, anyway.”

“I am not sure of that,” he said. “I…I don’t always remember, either. ‘Compartmentalize,’ you said.” He laughed then; it sounded awfully close to a sob. “Compartmentalize. So talk. For both of us. Explain it to me.”

“Right,” I said. “As the shortest day of the year approaches, the stronger the call.” I’d gotten that from Liam, I thought, but I wasn’t sure anymore. “People who are needed for the marriage remember, then they come. Or they come and remember. But the Great Spell is not sentient. Not quite. It runs more like an if-then conditional on a computer program. If you know about the spell—and the artifact, the harp, is the embodiment of the spell—then you are called here. You are invited to the wedding.

“Victoria and Able didn’t know about the wedding or the Great Spell or anything like that,” I said. “But they were sent to steal the artifact. They knew about it. When they abandoned their unsuccessful mission, they were called like everyone else.”

“Yes,” agreed my guest. “Yes.”

“Ymir hired them to steal the artifact and bring it to him, so that Ragnarok”—I was having trouble enough with English sounds, I couldn’t be bothered to pronounce “Ragnarok” the way Zee would have wanted me to—“so that Ragnarok would begin and he could break free and bathe in the blood of his enemies. You know what I don’t understand?”

“What?”

“How did Ymir know about the Great Spell?”

“I told him about it,” my visitor said. “I called him on the telephone a couple of months ago, when I understood what was going to happen. I called him and told him how to bring about the end of the world.”

Timor mortis conturbat me.

“Okay,” I said. “That explains Ymir.”

I’d never have figured out that one without help.

“Anyway, Able and Victoria were called to Looking Glass,” I said. “So they weren’t truly refugees of the storm.”

I clutched my pillow to my face and dried the pain-driven tears leaking out of my eyes. Hrímnir was right when he said there wasn’t much time.

“The goblins were guests,” my visitor said, sounding a little impatient. “But not refugees.”

I nodded my head into my pillow. “Victoria and Able, right.” I wondered how long I’d been sitting without speaking.

“This place is a refuge,” I said. “And people who come here in need, people like you, are protected.”

Instead of agreeing with me, Hugo said, “You aren’t a refugee, either.”

I took a breath.