Oh.
"Be calm, Lady," I said, and dared to go near the bear. "Be calm. You hurt the child."
"Not my child!"
"And should someone feel that way about your daughter? Not her child, so what does it matter?"
That had been a dangerous thing to say, but I knew I had to work fast to get her to draw back her powers. I could hear people screaming and running. Many would fall, and this would be a dangerous place to have an accident.
Lady Snow grew angrier at my words. I had expected it might go that way. I en-spelled the air between us when I saw that glare, and even with the shield in place, I felt the blast of killing cold.
If Sylph hadn't arrived, I think I would have been dead in the next few seconds. Sylph drew Lady Snow's attention, and the blast came to a quick halt. By then, almost everyone was out of the area, and those left were trying to scramble away as well. I didn't know what the locals were going to do to explain this one. Luckily for all three of us that the last of the humans fled, and I didn't think he could see much in the last of the snow and ice.
Sylph had gotten the beer in hand. She gave me a worried look, though, and I couldn't decide if that was because of the trouble with Lady Snow or because of the missing bear-child.
I had other trouble to consider, though. The snowstorm out of nowhere was going to draw too many questions. I looked around quickly and even dared use a little to find a sight crack in the rock wall not far away. I built a slight wedge into the rock and filled it with enough frost to make it look like it had given way and then subsided again. Someone would be checking it out, but it wouldn't be any real trouble.
"Do we know anything about this problem?" I asked when I joined the two at the edge of the walkway. It was a purposely open-ended question. I knew that many fae responded to specifics.
"No more than you and I have figured out," Sylph said with an almost glare at our companion. I wasn't sure what that meant -- except maybe Sylph didn't appreciate the cold any more than I did. "We know that someone -- more likely something -- is trying to gather power. I do not know who or why."
I looked at Lady Snow. She frowned as she looked around, almost startled. "Not just my beloved daughter?"
"No other children that we know of yet," I said. "We do not belittle your loss -- but crowns are gone, too. Several of them. We have felt something else involved -- something of nature more than fae, and it has not been friendly."
Sylph looked bothered by that admission, but I didn't want Lady Snow to simply trust anything magical that happened along. We were in a dangerous situation, and she could make it far worse without any guidance.
"I had a guest in my cave home," Lady Snow said. She sounded more assured and focused now. "One who moved like shadows and whispered on the wind. I had such in the past. This one whispered of danger, and then took my child."
I blinked and looked at Sylph. I wasn't sure that she'd caught the implications. When I turned back to Lady Snow, she looked contrite this time. I thought she might have gotten better control of her emotions. I feared that she looked at me with hope, though. And I didn't have a clue except, maybe, the part of one that she'd just passed on to me.
"This being that warned you -- did it warn, and then something took your child? Or did it warn and then took your child itself."
"It took the child, and I followed to here."
"Here," I said with a nod. Sylph frowned. "That might have been what we sensed before we escaped, Sylph."
"Yes, that might be so," she agreed. Then she tilted her head. "We ran thinking it the enemy -- and maybe, we drew the enemy straight to us instead. We may have done good, no matter how unwittingly. You and I are powerful beacons of magic, friend fae."
"I felt no malice in the being we knew was near. I couldn't see around it, though."
"And I never looked. What attacked us when we came back to the surface ... it might not have followed us from the subway."
"I felt --" Sylph began. Then she stopped and shook her head. "The attack surprised us both. What are we dealing with? How many? Who are our friends, and what is our enemy?"
"And did the creature take Lady Snow's child to get her daughter out of danger?" I added.
They both looked at me with a frown, but I could tell that Lady Snow considered the words and might not be as confident of the problem now.
"There are still too many pieces we don't understand," I admitted. "Let's see if we can find the pixies and the gremlins."
Neither argued with me. We moved away from the area where humans would see us and into the site where the others had been. I felt out the magic, but I sensed nothing dangerous there. I even tested out the smaller crevice through which they had escaped, but I sensed nothing nearby. I realized the gap opened wider only a few feet beyond the tiny opening. I could probably make it larger, but would then just put the gremlins and pixies in more danger?
They weren't nearby. I could sense nothing nearby, in fact.
I should have tried harder.
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