“I didn’t know there was more than one of me, though that would be handy. You know, for when I didn’t want to do something, but had to show up anyway. I could just send my double.”

“No, I mean, you know all about fairies, what with your paintings and everything.”

“I don’t paint so much anymore.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. . . .”

“It’s okay. So what’s with the fairy charms?”

She glanced at the table, before looking back at me.

“Can we talk about it later?” she asked. “Not everyone’s in the loop. The guys’d think we were nuts if they knew what we’ve seen—Siobhan and I, that is. Well, I saw it, but Siobhan’s the one who got hurt. . . .”

I gave her a steady look. “Siobhan was hurt by fairies?”

She nodded.

“And you have everybody wearing charms so that they won’t get hurt as well?”

“I know. It sounds so stupid.”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t sound stupid, it sounds unfair. If your other band members are in danger, don’t you think they have the right to know about it?”

“I don’t think they’re really in danger.”

“Hence the charms,” I said.

“They’ll think I’m crazy.”

“I’ve been there,” I told her. “But it’s better than the alternative, which is somebody else getting hurt because they don’t know what’s going on.”

“I suppose . . .”

I left her to think about it and continued on to the table, settling happily in a chair when I got there. I was still stiff from the drive, and all the excitement in the foyer had tired me out. Lizzie took the other empty chair across the table from me.

“So, what were you guys talking about?” Andy asked.

I glanced at Lizzie and saw that she just couldn’t do it. So I turned back to Andy.

“Fairies,” I said.

Lizzie sighed and stared down at the table. Siobhan’s head jerked up. Geordie looked from Lizzie to me with interest, while the other two men smiled.

“Fairies,” Andy repeated. “Like the little fluttery things that you see on T-shirts at the Ren Faires?”

I nodded. “Although the real ones come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes.”

“You’re being serious, aren’t you?”

Beside him, Con was grinning. He turned to look at Lizzie.

“I never thought you were into that kind of thing,” he said.

“I wasn’t,” she said. “I’m not. But I haven’t been given much choice about it.”

She shot me a look that gave her words a double meaning. She didn’t seem so much angry with me as a little relieved that I’d brought it up. But also embarrassed.