Ricky grabbed his jeans. “I’m going to go chat with him.” Before I could protest, he cut me off with a lifted hand. “No, not to give him shit for that text. He’s freaking out about the Gwynn shit, and he’s pissed that you didn’t tell him, and I’m part of both those things. I just want to talk about that.” A half smile. “I promise not to hit him, however tempted I might be.”

“Maybe I should try first and . . .” And if I did and Gabriel failed to reply and then Ricky showed up, it really would look like he was taking a message from me. “Okay, go on. After breakfast.”

—

Ricky returned an hour after leaving, barely time for him to have made it to Gabriel’s office and back.

“He won’t see you?” I said.

“Oh, he did. For five minutes, during which he said exactly seven words, though admittedly he did repeat them a few times.”

“What’d he say?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“So he’s playing it like that?”

“Yep.” Ricky headed for the bathroom. “Try texting him later. See if anything changes.”

I texted Gabriel three times that day. On the third, I said, Can you answer please? So I know you’re getting these? He replied with I am. I stopped texting.

I spent the day investigating my parents’—my father’s—victims. Ricky helped.

I heard from Tristan twice. The first time, he left a message hinting that he was onto something. I ignored him. The guy had left a girl’s head in my bed. He’d lured me to an abandoned psych hospital in the middle of the night, pretending to have kidnapped the young woman who ultimately tried to kill us. He’d turned James from a sweet former fiancé into a crazed stalker ex. Call me a grudge-holder, but I was having some trouble getting past all that.

And yet . . . Well, as I’d been told—and shown—many times in the last few months, the fae didn’t think like us and couldn’t be expected to act like us. To them, the psych hospital and the James manipulation and even the surprise body parts were cattle prods, guiding this reluctant human in the direction they wanted her to go. We were cattle to them. Useful. Perhaps even necessary for survival. But not terribly clever.

Tristan texted later that afternoon.

Solid lead. Need GW 2 chk P Larsen visitor logs. OK?

I showed the message to Ricky.

“I find fairies with cell phones disconcerting enough. Do they really need to use text talk?” He shook his head. “You going to answer?”