“That makes sense. The DOR must be concerned about keeping you safe. We heard that Oberon was recently attacked. How is he doing?”

“He isn’t very well, Patrick.”

Patrick, clearly an experienced radio man, had a voice that was almost as expressive as a fae’s. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said sympathetically. “Will he be all right?”

“I don’t know.”

Ángel glanced at Chandler, who shook her head. She obviously didn’t know about this. This was news. Victor reached over and pulled Ángel’s finger away from his mouth—he’d been chewing a cuticle.

Mendel said, “My species—Oberon tells me that you are different from us, in this. If we suffer a very great emotional shock, a very great emotional pain, we can fall ill. On my world, when someone dies unexpectedly or violently, sometimes their family can comfort each other, but other times they cannot, and then they might die. The attack on Oberon, and the disappearance of Ángel Cruz, these have been a great shock to Oberon. He has grown ill.”

“We heard that Ángel Cruz was unharmed,” said Patrick.

“Yes. We heard that too. But we have not seen him or spoken to him.” Mendel’s soft voice had gone even softer. “I don’t know why. I suppose lovers sometimes quarrel.”

Patrick’s hesitation was palpable. This seemed like a pretty classy show, but Mendel was handing him a celebrity gossip scoop that he could hardly ignore. He asked delicately, “Oberon and Ángel Cruz are lovers?”

“Yes. Oh, was that not generally known?” asked Mendel. “Oh. Well. They were. But now they are parted, and Oberon . . . I cannot comfort him. I cannot help him. Oberon is dying.”

“That’s terrible. Is there anything anyone can do?”

“I don’t know,” said Mendel again, sounding helpless. “I cannot help him.”

Patrick wrapped up the interview by asking his listeners to send their thoughts and prayers to the bereft first envoy from the Otherworld, said farewell to Mendel, who was “calling in from somewhere here in Atlanta,” and then moved on to his next interview.

Ángel turned off the radio. They all sat in silence for a moment, but Ángel couldn’t keep still; he leaped to his feet and began to pace. He heard the others get out of the car and turned to face them: sympathetic Marissa, worried Victor. Chandler, whose blue eyes were blazing with anger. Her response was the closest to his own, so he spoke to her. “They lied to me.”

“Yes,” said Chandler.

“They lied to him.”

“It sounds like it.”