by D. R. Perry
I gazed into it at my own face. I wondered how anyone could see it as the face of a friend, let alone more than that. My wife and I had met and married years before either of us had any idea how little mettle I possessed. Once Yeva found out, she’d grown dissatisfied and shrewish. I’d made it worse by proving her right when I failed to confront her about it. Was my inaction truly this PTSD illness Neil had mentioned, or had it started with the wife I’d failed to protect?
I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out, but I wasn’t sure I had a choice.
I felt the pull of Jeannie’s attention less than an hour later. My earlier indecision had me rethinking the whole thing. Maybe I could endure eternity in the lamp better than facing my past and trying to convince a stranger to take a potentially life-ruining turn in here. But that wasn’t what I actually feared at all. The worst would be to find none of them were left at all, that there were no descendants, that Yeva had died to protect children who wouldn’t survive to have their own someday. A close second would be to find them and discover they hated me.
“I wish I didn’t have to do this research paper.” Jeannie’s statement made it impossible not to appear. I sighed, changing my clothing’s appearance to the modern-looking t-shirt and jeans. The lamp’s magic Vanished me into a scarred wooden chair beside a long table covered with papers and books. I turned my head to see her with one hand clapped over her mouth.
“That sounds like the least genuine wish I’ve ever heard.” I almost covered my own lips after that utterance. My time talking with Neil had left my guard down. I placed my hand on the table, not wanting to reveal more than she’d already seen with that one slip.
“Good. I don’t want you to actually grant it.” Jeannie shuffled a few of the papers, some marked with a red pen. “This is the second draft. Third time’s the charm, and at the rate I’m going, it’ll be done early. It’s easy enough, just mildly annoying busywork.”
“You ought to be careful, though, with these fake wishes.” I shook my head. “Even though I’ll agree not to grant them, coincidence has a way of hearing.”
“Silly Djinn, coincidence isn’t sentient.” Jeannie’s giggle was soft enough not to anger the librarian, but still, it caught his attention.
“That may not be true.” The librarian sauntered to the end of the Reference desk closest to us. “Since you’re not in a major course of study which includes magical theory, I don’t expect you to know that. But I thought you might benefit from some enlightenment on the subject under your specific circumstances.”
“Thanks, Mr. Waban.” I raised an eyebrow, startlingly intrigued by Jeannie’s reaction to public correction.
“You can thank me by keeping that in mind later.” As the librarian turned away, I noticed his eyes had slitted pupils, dragonish, confirming my guess about his identity. He'd been on the Frontier, too.
“So, Jeannie, if you didn’t want me to complete your research paper, why did you call?”
“Fred Redford wants to talk to us. He’s meeting us here after his class gets out. But first—” She turned her head, looking up at the cold gust of wind from the opening library door. “Well, they’re here. I don’t have to tell you.”
“Hello again, old man.” Blaine Harcourt sat down across from us, followed by a woman who definitely wasn’t Kimiko Ichiro. This girl looked the same age as the other, but that’s where the resemblance ended. She was slightly shorter, had a more generous figure, and tawny hair framed her smirking face. “I brought some extra help.”
“Hi, I’m Lynn, A.K.A. Darth Sarcasm, A.K.A. the Tinfoil Brainiac.” She grinned at me and winked at Jeannie. “You didn’t tell me your Djinn looks more like Aladdin than a big blue guy. Nice. High five!” Lynn raised one hand, holding it up halfway across the table. Jeannie blinked, then reached out and slapped it.
“It’s good to meet you, Lynn.” I nodded, hoping I wouldn’t have to slap the high five. She spared me the exercise. I looked at Blaine. “Jeannie told me you and your mate were doing some research. What did you find?”
“Not much yet, although there’s a new lead.” Blaine took a deep breath, then let it out with three smoke rings. He glanced warily over my shoulder at Mr. Waban. “We found out that your son went to Poland and your daughter to Italy. We lost track of him, but it seems she got married to a man from America. The problem is, Ellis Island naturalization did some funky things with people’s names. I’ll let Lynn take it from here.”
“Yeah, okay, so…” She pulled her long hair over one shoulder, then pulled out her phone and put it on the table in front of her. “We didn’t find any records of Armenians coming over from Italy, just Italians. But there were a bunch of women who came over with brand new husbands, married in Italy instead of stateside. A ton of them had no maiden names, just the names of the towns in Italy where they got married. And half of them were called ‘Monalisa’ which just means ‘milady’ in Italian.”
“We’ll have to go through all those records in more detail.” Blaine leaned over, peering at Lynn’s phone. “There are loads like that. We have to cross-reference some magical records, too, but we need to ask you a couple of questions. This might come down to genetics instead of records.”
“Very well.” I crossed my arms over my chest, instantly regretting the unconscious gesture when Lynn raised an eyebrow and nudged Blaine in the ribs.
“Okay. We know you’re Faerie, born a Changeling. How far back is your family line as far as Faerie blood goes?”
“As far back as anyone can remember. Djinn mostly, but my grandmother’s side was Sidhe all the way back.”
“Okay, good. We’ll look through the magical records for an immigrant with that kind of lineage. If your daughter was trying to find a match so she could come to America, she might have said that up-front and center. Magi families back then looked for that kind of thing. Might be hard if she married a human though.” Lynn jotted something in a small notepad. “So, how about your wife’s family?”
“Shifters, though she wasn’t one.” I closed my eyes. “Leopards. Kimiko told me they’re almost endangered now.”
“Wow, I’d love to look at a sample of your blood sometime.” Lynn’s eyes were wide. “Oh, sorry. It’s just that we’re working on Extrahuman genetics this semester. I’m an Alternative Therapies major.”
“Our Lynn here is going to be a doctor.” Blaine grinned.
“So’s Jeannie, technically, if she goes to Grad School.” Lynn winked. Jeannie didn’t. She was looking past Lynn at the door again. “What’s wrong?”
Jeannie didn’t say anything. But when Blaine glanced over his shoulder, I knew there’d be some kind of trouble for sure.
Chapter Nine
Jeannie
A sudden pang of guilt got replaced with annoyance as Blaine Harcourt got up and left when Tony Gitano walked into the library with Fred Redford. The whole business over Spring Break had changed Blaine’s attitude about lots of people, places, and things, but not as far as Tony the cat shifter was concerned. That was a shame in my book. I wasn’t alone. I caught Taki Waban, the new librarian, shaking his head with a soft clucking sound.
“Fracking dragon shifters and their paranoid tempers,” Lynn muttered as she shuffled the papers into a loose pile and dumped them on top of the books in her backpack. She looked over her shoulder as she headed for the door Blaine was tapping his foot next to. I saw her mouth a word that could only be sorry in Tony’s general direction. She couldn’t know the crazy local rumors about Tony’s family or the fact that he was here on a full scholarship. Blaine might, but probably didn’t care. He could be a snooty little jerk sometimes.
“Hey, Jeannie.” Fred smiled and waved as he greeted me in library-appropriate tones. His mouth tilted sympathetically. “Eww, research paper. This is why I went with Engineering. All my research is math.”
Ismail chuckled at that. I glanced over at him, wondering whether he’d gone to college back in Armenia and what he’d studied if he had. I’d have to ask
him sometime.
“So’s half of mine.” I lifted one sheet after another of notes I’d been taking, flipping one over with each word. “Lies. Damn lies. Statistics.”
“Oooh.” Tony leaned over, peering at the numbers and their labeled columns upside-down. “This is the opposite viewpoint paper? Not looking forward to that one next year.”
“Yeah.” I shrugged. “It’s a descriptive paper, mostly, with just a short survey this time. But it’s a distraction, so I want to get it done quick. I’d rather be doing more of my clinical work.” I raised an eyebrow at Tony. “You’re taking Extrahuman Psych Research next year?”
“It’s part of what they decided should go into my crazy major.” He shrugged, not really looking at Fred or me. Tony got dodgy every time something unique about him came up, and I just happened to know he was pioneering a brand new major here at Providence Paranormal. The Headmistress herself had mapped it out for him.
“Okay.” I didn’t want to piss him off or freak him out. “You guys need help? I could use a break from this.”
“Actually, that’d be awesome.” Fred grinned. “We need a few books that aren’t in the Nocturnal Lounge. It’s for an Extrahuman History paper.”
“Yeah, and after we get them, we’re going back there.” Tony looked down at his shoes. “To the Lounge, I mean. Because you never know when it will get knocked over, blown up, or set on fire again. Same goes for this library.”
“If any of that happens, we’ll fix it.” Fred waved a hand absently as though Tony’s remark was a gnat.
“I’ll stay here and keep an eye on your things, Jeannie.” Ismail gestured at the heavy bag I’d just zipped my draft and graphs into.
“Thanks, Ismail.” I smiled. Fred nodded at the Djinn, almost like he’d expected to see him there. Before I could wonder what was up with that, Tony took a step back, looking for all the world like someone had dropped him headfirst into a room full of rocking chairs. “What’s wrong, Tony?”
“Are you a Seelie Djinn or an Unseelie Djinn? And don’t try pulling anything lame, like trying to tell me you’re Dorothy Gale from Kansas.” Tony wrinkled his nose.
“Unseelie. Not that it’s any of your business.” Ismail narrowed his eyes, looking scary for the first time since I’d met him. “And if you’d like me to hold my tongue about what you are, you’ll stop asking me personal questions.”
It was only then that I realized Ismail was at least as dodgy about giving answers as Tony, possibly more. One of these sides of him must be something rarely revealed. The cat shifter backed down, not exactly seeming to relax, still on guard. Ismail gave him a look that reminded me just how much magic power Djinn tended to pack, more than most professors here on campus. Taki Waban’s presence probably did more to deter Tony than Ismail’s, then again maybe not. If it were me on that end of this confrontation, I’d be more comfortable with the dragon I knew than the Djinn I didn’t.
Fred cleared his throat, then handed me a slip of paper with some titles on them. I headed into the stacks without consulting the computer or the library ghosts. Fred probably asked me for help because he knew I had some firsthand information about his subject from more than a few of my clients. I stopped at a shelf near one of the back windows and stood on my toes. There they were, barely touched dust-jackets gleaming. I pulled two books down.
“There’s one more on the top shelf, but you’ll have to get it.” I shrugged. “I can’t reach that one.” Ironic how I turned into a half-ton bear but stood just under average height in my human form.
“Thanks, Jeannie.” Fred ran his finger along the spines until he got to the book he wanted. He slid it off the shelf but lost his grip. I started to raise my hands, but it’d be too late. That book was going to hit me right in the face. I’d be lucky not to have a broken nose.
And that’s when Ismail decided to make another smoke-filled appearance. Tony coughed. Fred gasped. I waved the smoke away from my eyes to find out what had happened. The Djinn stood there, wearing the clothes I’d last seen him in two weeks ago. The blue jacket made his gold sash and vest stand out, the red scarf around his neck creating an even sharper contrast. I’d forgotten how striking he was, and the guilt from earlier came back with a vengeance. He glanced down at the cover of the book he’d plucked from the air over my head.
“The Boston Extrahuman Internment,” he read aloud. “Are you sure this is the right book?” Ismail handed the book to Fred. And then Ismail was glaring at one of the most easygoing Redcaps I’d ever heard of.
“Of course, he is.” A flash of embarrassment raced through me, making my face burn with a flush. I didn’t keep it a secret, the fact that I’d been there. I didn’t advertise it either. “He wants to talk to me for a History project. It’s nothing I haven’t done before.”
“So, how about it, Jeannie?” Fred didn’t exactly look at me. I knew he was about to do something awkward. Then, he surprised me by looking me in the eye when he asked. “Do you have time for an interview?”
“Time, yeah.” I nodded, suddenly so weary I could have gone back to the dorm and slept for sixteen hours. In my Freshman year, I’d talked to what felt like hundreds of other students, answering their questions about what it was like on the barges and whether we knew the human government would go that far before it happened. But then, those students published their papers. Instead of interviewing me directly, they started citing those older interviews to the point where I hadn’t done one all year. Fred might be the last undergrad at PPC to interview someone who’d actually been there. It was completely unnecessary. There had to be some kind of ulterior motive.
“So how about it? Will you come down to the Nocturnal Lounge and answer a few questions? I can promise you the pizza’s good.” Fred sighed. “I hate to ask, but…” His shrug was shallow and half-hearted, but at least he didn’t look away. The Redfords were stand-up people, even if they had been a little muddled with Gitano Gang business in the past. That was what decided me.
“Sure. Just let me grab my bag.” I headed back through the stacks faster than I’d intended, leaving Fred and Tony behind. I tripped over my own feet, but Ismail caught me by the arm. He’d managed to keep up, shooting a final dirty look at Tony as he went.
“You talk about this freely with your classmates?” Ismail put his hands on the table, leaning down to try to look at my face as he spoke. I wondered whether that was a Djinn thing or just him.
“Not all of it, but yeah, I answer their questions for their papers and projects. Been doing it the whole time I’ve been at this school.” I held the shoulder strap of my bag longer than I should have, staring at it for a moment. “Why would I stop now?”
“Because most people don’t speak of times like that unless they have to.” His brow furrowed.
“Well, I do.” I sighed. “Have to, that is. If people like me who were there don’t talk about it, people might forget how it happened.” I turned away from him as I snagged my sleeve in the zipper on my backpack. I sighed and fixed it. His expression had been flat, mask-like. I glanced at his un-glamoured clothing again. I wondered exactly how long had he been in that lamp. What had he been through to make him like being locked in a vault?
“You’re a brave woman, Jeannie La Montagne.”
“Thanks, but I hope you don’t mind if I disagree. It’s just talking. Come along and listen, considering you already know the worst part of that particular story. I promise an Unseelie Djinn like you will fit right in at the Nocturnal Lounge.”
“Oh, wow.” Fred interrupted. I almost chewed him out for it. “Yeah, he totally will. Henry’s going to love this guy. Did you know that he saves people from falling objects, too? And hey, I didn’t catch your name. I’m Fred Redford.” He stuck out his hand.
“I know. I am Ismail.” The Djinn bowed instead of accepting the handshake, then raised an eyebrow as though he expected some other reaction from the Redcap.
“Cool.” Fred scratched his head as though he was trying to think
of something. Then, he bowed back. “We’d better hurry or we’ll lose Tony.”
He was right, too. I caught a glimpse of the cat shifter’s trench coat as he headed out the door. We hurried after him and, of course, I tripped over my feet a few times in the process. Ismail caught me every time. It was only a few blocks away, but the entrance to the Nocturnal Lounge was partway down a creepy old trolley tunnel. I didn’t mind walking down there with three other people but watched for Ismail’s reaction. He seemed nervous at first though his eyes twinkled merrily when Fred did the secret knock to get the door to open.
I’d been in there before, but it had been almost two years since the last time. And I wasn’t sure what to expect after the renovations over Winter Intersession, but they managed to make it almost the same again. I’d almost forgotten how many books were crammed into the mezzanine and how just about everything edible floated through the air in the hands of the ghostly Skeleton Crew. True to Fred’s word, there was heavenly smelling pizza downstairs in the area upperclassmen had nicknamed The Pit. Fred shooed me over to a table already occupied by a dark-skinned Goth girl I thought I should recognize and Nox Phillips, a Kelpie one year behind me. Nox was mated to Josh, an Alpha wolf shifter who led the most diverse pack on campus. I sat at the far end of the table from them, not expecting much in the way of conversation.
“Hi, Jeannie.” Nox picked up her coffee and moved to a seat next to mine. “So, Fred convinced you to show up?”
“Yeah, I don’t like saying no to interviews about Boston unless I really have no time.”
“Good, because after he asks his questions, we have a few things to talk to you about as well.” The Goth girl had moved over, too. I peered at her, trying to place the name that went with the face.
“I’m Maddie, Lynn Frampton’s roommate up in 566.” She touched her chest and mumbled a few words in what sounded like Latin. “It’s okay that you don’t remember me. I’m an Umbral magus.”
