“I was going to say the otherworld,” Geordie said. “But they certainly spend time in between the two.”

Con shook his head yet again, but before he could speak, Lizzie cut him off.

“Nobody mentioned anything about courts,” she said to Geordie and me. “But Walker talked about clans or something. He said he was a cerva, and Grey belonged to the corbae.”

“Those aren’t clan names,” I said. “They’re like . . . species. Or tribes. I’ve never known any cerva—who are the deer people, I guess, from what you said about Walker. But we know a number of corbae.” At Geordie’s puzzled glance, I added, “Lucius and the crow girls, for starters.”

“Oh, right,” he said. “I always forget.”

“So they’re different from fairies?” Andy asked.

“Well, I didn’t think so,” I told him. “I thought they were all just spirit people. You know, kind of the embodiment of places and animals and things. I didn’t even know there was an enmity between them. . . .” I looked at Geordie. “Except weren’t you saying something about that earlier?”

He nodded. “Hazel giving the finger to a bunch of cousins on the drive into the city.”

“That’s the word Grey and Walker kept using,” Lizzie said. “ ‘Cousins.’ I guess it doesn’t mean they’re related, does it?”

“Not in the same way we use the word,” I told her. “It’s what they call each other in general, like we’d say people.”

“So these cousins you know . . . ,” Con began, then he just shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation.”

“It takes getting used to,” Geordie said. “What did you want to know about them?”

“Well, where’d they come from? I get that fairies come from fairy tales, but I never heard stories about—what did you call them? Corb-heys?”

“Corbae,” I said. “And I’m sure you have, but you didn’t realize it. Their stories just aren’t as easily accessible to the general populace because Disney hasn’t made a movie about them, or any of the cousins, really. I don’t think things like The Jungle Book or The Lion King really count because that’s just anthropomorphized animals. They’re not . . .” I had to think of the right word and settled for, “mythic. But you’ve heard of Coyote, and how Raven created the world—those kinds of things?”

“Yeah. I just don’t think of them as real.” He gave me a curious look. “So, are you trying to tell me that they’re all real? Zeus and Krishna and Thor and everybody?”