I frowned. She was willing to admit that I wasn’t really dead, and she had figured out a way for me to work with them without working for them. IPCA was all about control. If they were going to relinquish it to have my special glamour-piercing vision back, they must really be changing.
“How? What did you tell them? Didn’t you get in trouble?” I asked.
“Stranger things have happened than paranormals coming back from the dead. Since we never had ‘proof’ that you were dead, my fellow Supervisors didn’t question it when I said I’d found you alive. I made it clear that you wouldn’t communicate with anyone other than me, and refused to contact you until it was unanimously agreed that you would be completely autonomous, no longer classified or regulated by IPCA.”
“You didn’t get in trouble?”
“After the severe mismanagement last April that resulted in so many deaths and disappearances, no one is left in a position to get me ‘in trouble.’”
“But they agreed to all that? Really?”
Raquel sighed, an I need a vacation one. “Honestly, we’re struggling. After Viv— After those unfortunate events, we’re severely understaffed. We haven’t been able to respond as quickly or efficiently to vampire or werewolf reports, our tracking measures seem to be failing us entirely for paranormals that usually stay in one specific area, and there are unconfirmed rumors that a troll colony has taken over a neighborhood in Sweden. Also”—she grimaced—“a poltergeist has targeted the Center and no one has been able to pinpoint its location for an extermination.”
“Basically you guys suck without me.” I couldn’t keep the smug grin from my face. It was kind of gratifying to know that, without my eyes, IPCA was falling apart.
Raquel looked at the ceiling and heaved another long-suffering sigh. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“This isn’t Evie’s problem,” David interjected. “If IPCA is tanking, I say good riddance.” My eyes narrowed involuntarily, defensiveness for my old employers flaring up. Sure, the vamps here were self-regulating, but I had nearly been killed by one as an eight-year-old. The rest of the world wasn’t a paranormal haven like this town. Things were scary. Things were deadly. And most people had absolutely no idea, which meant they had no way to protect themselves.
Raquel ignored him. “Your assignments would be simple and safe. And, as I said, entirely voluntary.”
“How is that going to work? I’m in school.” As boring as it was, I needed to do well. I had to get into Georgetown like Lend.
“We’ll work around your schedule.”
“That’s sounding suspiciously Faerie Paths dependent.”
Lend slammed the front door, his face clouded with worry. “She wouldn’t come.”
David shook his head. “She doesn’t always. Don’t take it personally.” That was interesting—did Lend not know that Cresseda wouldn’t show up for David anymore? Raquel looked sharply at Lend and then David; it was clear the wheels in her head were turning, but I had no idea why.
Lend rubbed a hand over his face, then looked at Raquel. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I’m here to ask for Evie’s help with some projects. Yours, too, if you’re willing.”
David stood up straight and Lend’s jaw clenched; even his glamour rippled with barely contained anger. “We’re not.”
Was he answering for me? As much as I loved him, that wasn’t his call. “Lend, can I talk to you?”
He raised his eyebrows and followed me into the kitchen. The cheerful yellow walls didn’t do much for me today. He grabbed my hand, pulling me in close, his frown deepening. “You’re not seriously considering this, are you? I might have been the one they locked up, but you were just as much a prisoner there. After everything you’ve seen, how can you even think about it? And don’t you find it a little suspicious that we haven’t had any problems until Raquel showed up?”
Anger flared sharply in my chest. Sure, I had briefly thought the same thing, but she was Raquel. My Raquel. “She wouldn’t do that. She was as worried as you. Besides, what am I even doing here? Going to class, working in the diner, counting down the days until the weekend? At least with IPCA I was helping people!”
“Yes, helping people! But how many paranormals were you hurting?”
Tears stung my eyes. He didn’t understand. He never could see anything but evil in IPCA. But they’d taken me in, had taken care of me. I didn’t even want to think where I would have been without them.
“How many paranormals am I helping right now, huh? Things have changed at IPCA. I can help paranormals, too, like werewolves who don’t know what’s going on, or this troll colony—I can find them and convince them to relocate before they get in trouble!”
Lend shook his head. “We can do that with my dad.”
“We can’t! We don’t have the resources!”
“Like faeries?”
I hated that he was using my past against me. I hadn’t been sure I wanted to work for Raquel before, but for some reason his insistence that I shouldn’t was pushing me right toward it. It was all well and good for him, off at college, doing big important things for his future. A future that would last forever, even if he didn’t know it. But I was stuck here, bored and lonely, slowly burning out with nothing to show for it.
I was struggling for a comeback when the brilliant outline of a faerie door wrote itself onto the wall.
Lend, however, wasn’t frozen. Darting to the other side of the kitchen, he grabbed one of the cast-iron pans his dad always left out. A figure stepped out of the darkness, turning his head just in time to see Lend swing with all his might.
The faerie dove, executing a roll and jumping up several feet away. Lend turned around to close in again.
“Hey-oh, what’s this?” the faerie said with a laugh.
There was something wrong, something off about the whole thing. I narrowed my eyes at the faerie. My height, with sandy blond hair, brilliant blue eyes, dimples, and—
“Lend, stop!” Reacting to my shout, he pulled his arm up short from the swing, lost his balance, and stumbled into the granite counter. He looked at me, confused. I shook my head, feeling the same way. I had no idea how it was possible, but there was no denying what I saw underneath the boy’s skin.
Nothing.
“He’s not a faerie,” I said. I looked back at the door, but it was already gone. I had watched the whole time; he was the only thing to come out. No faerie at all.
This was impossible.
“Are you sure?” Lend still held the pan at the ready, not taking his eyes off the boy. Or guy, really. He looked about our age, maybe a year or two younger.
The non-faerie smiled at me and winked, jumping up to sit on the counter. “Not quite the reception I was expecting, but I’ll give your boy this—he’s exciting.”
Raquel rushed into the room, then fixed a scowl on Blondie. “You’re late.”
He shrugged and helped himself to an apple from the fruit bowl next to him. “I got lost.” He took a big bite, crunching loudly before he blanched and spit into the sink. With a regretful sigh, he tossed the apple to Lend, who