Ángel and Chandler saw eye to eye on almost nothing, but there was one thing he knew about her: she hated lies. She was furious now; not, probably, because she cared about Ángel and Oberon’s relationship. But she’d worked for the DOR for years, given years of her life for them, risked her own life for the envoy’s out of loyalty to them. She was fundamentally honest, and they were liars.

“Why isn’t Mendel helping him?” he demanded. “He told me another fae would prevent this from happening!”

“I don’t know,” said Chandler.

He rubbed his mouth with a trembling hand. “What do I do?”

“What do you want to do, Ángel?” Chandler asked. “Do you want to be free of all this? Or do you want to go to him?”

“I have to go to him. Chandler, I have to.”

She nodded sharply. “Then maybe you need to start by kicking Neil Jeremy’s ass.”

Ángel told Marissa and the others to stay at the hotel, and walked to the DOR headquarters alone.

It was about six blocks, and he needed the time to clear his mind and ready himself for the confrontation. Just as he needed to spend a little time alone before a live performance.

Besides, while they were supportive, they didn’t really understand why he needed to do this.

At first, lost in mentally rehearsing what he was going to say, he didn’t notice all the people on the streets. They were streaming from all directions toward the Olympic Park. He was headed that way too—the DOR headquarters was across from the park on Marietta Street—so he saw that the park was full of people, and more were arriving.

The trees and grass were winter-brown, but the sun was bright, and at first Ángel thought there must be some festival or party happening. Food trucks were doing brisk business. Someone seemed to have set up art or craft projects: they were passing out big sheets of cardboard, drawing on them with markers.

They were making signs. Ángel saw two women, talking and laughing, comparing signs: MONSTERS GO HOME read one. NO MORE ELFS said the other.

They were getting ready to march, he realized. They’d heard the NPR interview too, and they were going to protest. Across the park, he could hear a guy with a megaphone talking about how they were going to assemble in front of the DOR headquarters.

Ángel walked faster.

It was utterly disorienting. He remembered the riot in front of the Tiepolo Ballroom, the flying glass and fire and screams, all because Oberon had been accepting an award for donating money to schools. How much more enraged was Atlanta, to discover that there were now two fae among them? What kind of murderous violence were they capable of?

But they didn’t seem angry at all. They seemed like people waiting for a concert, excited and smiling.