Maybe the office didn’t bat an eye at my “siblings” because I simply had too many other weird habits. Like, for example, I always paid for each visit in cash. When you tacked on things like ultrasounds, blood work, and other medical testing, the final price tag was pretty high. I always felt like I was one step away from pulling out a Mafia-style suitcase filled with hundred-dollar bills. There was no alternative, however. I couldn’t do anything that would allow my enemies to track me. Medical insurance claims would create a paper trail, as would even paying with a check or credit card. For the majority of gentry, none of that was a concern. Most were like Pagiel and could barely grasp the idea of banks or the postal system, let alone using them to track me. Unfortunately, my enemies in the Otherworld had very good connections here among humans, those who knew our systems inside and out. It was because of them I was in Ohio in the first place. Tucson had been compromised.

Another woman, far more pregnant than me, was just entering the office as the receptionist printed my receipt. A gust of wind swept in behind her, and she had to fight to catch the door and make it close. Pagiel, though inept at technology, had been trained in the gentry ways of chivalry and jumped up to help her.

“Thanks,” she told him. She flashed the rest of us a cheery smile. “I can’t believe how fast the weather turned on us. A cold front came out of nowhere.”

The receptionist nodded sagely. “That’s how it is this time of year. We’ll have storms tonight for sure.”

As if I needed another reason to dislike the Midwest. God, how I missed Tucson’s unchanging climate. As I walked out with Jasmine and Pagiel, I knew I had an unfair attitude. I was simply feeling the woes of my self-imposed exile. I didn’t really hate Ohio so much as I missed Arizona. Once we were back in the Otherworld, I could visit the kingdom I ruled and practically be in a mirror of Tucson. I’d designed it that way. And yet ... it wasn’t the same. I kept blaming everything on the weather, but a place was defined by more than just that. There was a culture and a vibe, driven by its people, that was unique to every location. The Thorn Land was great, but it would never replace my hometown.

“Damn,” said Jasmine, trying to pry her hair off of her face. A fierce wind had whipped it right at her as soon as she stepped outside. “That lady wasn’t kidding.”

I pulled myself from my self-pity enough to note that she was right. The temperature had dropped, and that thick, suffocating air from earlier was now in motion as fronts collided. The cute ornamental trees swayed back and forth, like synchronized dancers. Dark clouds, tinged with a sickly green, gathered above. A chill that had nothing to do with the cool-down ran over my skin. My asshole gentry father, aside from getting me stuck with a prophecy that said his eldest grandson would conquer humanity, had also passed on his prowess with weather magic. I was tuned in to all the elements that made up a storm: the moisture, the air, even the charged particles that heralded lightning. My senses were open to them, and the intensity of all those factors hitting me at once now was a bit overwhelming.