Winter Lost

Interlude

Zane

“Did you hear that?” Ezra said. “They’ve canceled the flight to Missoula—winter storm.”

A cold chill went up Zane’s spine. They had to make it to the wedding.

“You might not make it to your own wedding, buddy.” Leon’s big grin split his face. “Don’t look like that. Have you even met Tammy? She’s not going to hold the biggest storm in a hundred years against you. You should wait until the weather dies down and go to Hawaii—which is where all December weddings should be held.”

Ezra shook his head. “Nah, this is where generational wealth does its work. Go to it, Zane.” He waved a hand at him, as if inviting him to work real magic.

“I don’t have a wand,” Zane told him, imitating the Harry Potter gesture Ezra had given him.

“Nah,” Ezra said with a grin. “You have real magic. Get your phone out and work your spell.”

With a reluctant smile, Zane pulled out his phone, quickly discovering their flight to Missoula wasn’t the only one canceled. He couldn’t get a flight into Kalispell, Helena, Butte, or Bozeman. Billings was a possibility. When he checked it, Billings was more than five hundred miles from Libby—the nearest town to Looking Glass Hot Springs.

Wealth or not, it was Ezra with his military connections who found a pilot willing to fly into Spokane as long as they didn’t close the airport.

Two hours later they were climbing into a twenty-year-old Cessna 172, having shed most of their luggage.

The pilot gave the three of them an odd look—saying something in Spanish to Ezra, who laughed.

Zane knew they seemed an odd lot. Ezra was a forty-something retired MP and looked it, the son of migrant parents who had grown up working hard and continued to do so. Leon was twenty-seven, and he’d grown up harder than Ezra—whose family was still tight.

Leon was an inner-city kid and wore gang tattoos on his shoulders, though that part didn’t show—much. He’d gotten himself out on scholarships, had a newly minted medical degree, and was working on his internship—the reason that they hadn’t gone to Montana days ago. Medical interns were at the mercy of their programs. Finally, there was Zane himself, who was an advertisement for a life of privilege.

The avenger and the caretaker and the scion. Part of the carefully balanced magical equation that was his destiny. Two years ago, he’d known neither of them—now they were his best friends.

They shouldn’t have been friends at all. But, his inner selves told him, fate was a funny thing. He knew they’d continue to be friends throughout his lifetime. They always did.

Leon caught his elbow. “You okay, Zane?”

“Fine,” he said, planting himself firmly in the here and now. “Let’s get going.”