—

There was little question of whom I needed to speak to in Cainsville. The person I was most angry with . . . who also happened to be the one most likely to give me a straight answer.

Gabriel fetched Patrick from the diner so I wouldn’t have to face the elders.

I met Gabriel at the corner of Rowan and Main, and he told me Patrick would speak to us at his place.

“Do you know where he lives?” I asked.

“He provided the address.” Gabriel waved for us to cross the road.

“But you didn’t know before that?”

His brows rose above his shades. “Why would I?”

Why indeed.

As I expected, Patrick’s house was neither large nor ostentatious. While he had a flair for the dramatic, it wasn’t in his best interests to call attention to himself. The other elders affected the personae of senior citizens to take advantage of ageism—we pay less attention to the elderly and lose the ability to judge their true age. In choosing to stay young, Patrick lost that advantage. So he wasn’t going to own the biggest house on the block.

It was Gothic Revival. Larger than Rose’s Victorian dollhouse, but not by much. One and a half stories done in a classic design—a rectangular structure, steep roof with cross gables and gingerbread, a porch that stretched along the full front of the house, and an arched window under the front gable. No garden. No porch furniture. No car in the drive, either. I’d seen the Clarks in Chicago, so obviously the fae could leave town, but I got the feeling they preferred not to. Cainsville was both their sanctuary and their source of power.

Patrick had the door open before we reached the porch. He didn’t say a word, just stepped back to let us in. Once we got past the front hall, that quiet simplicity of the house’s exterior vanished. Obviously, Patrick had money, and this was where he spent it.

The style was designer contemporary, with no attempt to preserve the look or feel of the house’s original era. I caught a glimpse of a kitchen with granite counters, gleaming copper pots, and stainless steel appliances. Patrick took us into the living room, where he’d obviously had a wall removed to make one big high-tech bachelor pad plus library. He took us to the library side. The couch was white leather with dark wood trim. I resisted the urge to brush off my rear before I sat.

When Patrick offered tea or coffee, Gabriel’s refusal came without hesitation. When Patrick asked me, Gabriel said no again, so fast and so sharp that Patrick chuckled.

“No food and no drink,” I said. “I don’t know if the old stories are true, but we aren’t taking that chance.”

Patrick settled in at the other end of the sofa. “As with everything else, what humans believe is adjacent to the truth. What’s the lore? Accept food or drink, and you’ll be trapped in a fairy party forever?” He leaned forward, voice lowering conspiratorially. “There’s no party. Or, if there is, I’ve never been invited. Instead, it allows me to trigger a mental state of hallucinations. Permanent hallucinations, if I wish. In short, it drives humans mad. But neither of you is human, so it wouldn’t work.”

“Like the charms and compulsions don’t work on us?” I said, giving him a withering look.

“They do, but only to a degree. Otherwise, you’d never have asked questions, would you? Once you understood what was happening, your fae blood overruled the compulsions, to the deep and abiding regret of the elders right now. But other fae powers will work not at all. Like the trigger of the food and drink. So if you’d like a coffee or an iced tea . . . ?”

“Shockingly, I’m not going to take your word for it.”

He only smiled and settled in. “You’re right to be cautious. Now, what secret business brings you here?”

“Spina bifida.”

As soon as I saw the look on his face, I knew I’d come to the wrong place. He stared at me, as if replaying my words, wondering what else I might have said instead, because those ones made no sense in any context he knew.

Gabriel prodded with, “What do you know about spina bifida?”

Patrick tried to hide his confusion. “It’s a medical condition, affecting the spine, I believe, and—”

“Thank you for your time,” I said, getting to my feet.

Gabriel rose. When Patrick did, too, Gabriel sidestepped closer to me, his hand going to my back. As I headed to the door, Patrick intercepted me. Gabriel tensed, his fingers wrapping around my upper arm.

“I’m no threat to her, Gabriel. None of us are.” Patrick’s voice was low, odd, and unfamiliar without that jaunty, devil-may-care note.

“Perhaps not a physical threat,” Gabriel said. “But not all threats are physical.”

“Agreed, but I’m not any sort of threat to her.” He met Gabriel’s gaze. “I never will be.”

Gabriel shifted behind me, his hand still on my arm. “If you can’t help, then we’re going to leave.”

“I’d like to lie and say I know exactly why you’re asking, but I’ve lost my chance at that. Whatever is making you ask the question, though, clearly you believe the answer is connected to Cainsville. Tell me what’s going on. I can help.”

He was still speaking in that other voice, the soothing and serious one, but he wasn’t offering out of some sudden surge of altruism. He hated to be left in the dark as much as his son, and he always expected something in return. Quid pro quo. And I was all right with it. A fair exchange of services. That’s how a bòcan operates.