A LOT STRANGE

Carlee was with Lend, who was entertaining the kids by changing into their favorite characters from television shows. It was more than a little creepy for me to watch the boy I enjoyed making out with become some perky girl known for singing the alphabet, so I avoided that part of the meadow. Now, if he were to start acting out Easton Heights by being various characters, well, then I might tune in.

Carlee, as with everything else, had taken to Lend's rather unusual ability with remarkable grace.

"Are you okay?" I'd asked her when he first shifted into someone else.

She'd shrugged, eyes wide with wonder. "Not any weirder than the rest of this, right? I always knew there was, like, something a little strange about you two."

"More than a little."

She'd laughed and picked up a small girl who was hiccupping with tears, whispering in her ear until the girl stopped, a smile spreading over her face.

I made my way past the group of IPCA employees, who were all glowering and talking in low tones about what they would do when they got back to Earth. Most of the people were recent acquisitions of the Dark Court, but all of them were forever tied to the Faerie Realms because of the food. That sucked. I went over to where Jack was with some guy who, had he been in a suit instead of a soft, flowing peasant shirt and trousers, would have been the archetypal uptight businessman.

"This is unacceptable! Do you have any idea how many people depend on me? How much money I'm losing every minute I'm here?"

Jack's eyes had glazed over, vague and unfocused as he nodded slowly. "Mmm hmmm," he kept repeating, almost like he was humming.

"Hey," I said. "Everything okay?" Jack gave me a desperate look.

"No, everything is not okay!" Uptight Businessman shouted at me.

"Great! I need to borrow Jack, then." I grabbed Jack's arm and pulled him away.

"Thanks. Have I mentioned lately how glad I am you didn't die?"

"Yes. But feel free to keep it up. I need to get out of here, see if David and Raquel are back." It had only been what felt like a few hours here, but time slipped funny when you were in the Faerie Realms for a while, and it could have been anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of days back home. Lend and I'd agreed that I'd go check up on what was going on there while he held down the fort here.

I needed to open that gate. This had to end. Soon.

"Sounds great to me." Jack glanced warily over his shoulder to where Uptight Businessman had started yelling at one of the pregnant girls. They'd been getting increasingly edgy, some mad and some crying uncontrollably, each desperate for their faerie love to come back. Unfortunately he picked the tiny blonde to yell at, and she turned on him, screaming obscenities before reaching up and pulling her own hair out by the roots.

"Reth!" He gave me a weary look from where he was leaning against a tree on the edge of the meadow, talking to the green Seelie faerie who had shown up a while ago as a representative of the Light Queen. A few people milled around several feet away from them, their faces shifting from anger to longing and back again. "Do something about"-I waved my hand in the general direction of, well, everyone-"that, okay? And try to get some rest. You look terrible."

His lips pursed in annoyance but before he could respond, I grabbed Jack's hand and walked with him through the door he'd just made. The empty, silent darkness of the Faerie Paths had never been so welcome.

"All those people, are they going to be okay?"

Jack shrugged. "I think so. I've got some ideas. It's not going to be easy for any of them, but we'll work something out. And anything is better than what would have happened to them."

I squeezed his hand. "You're right. And thank you." We were quiet for a bit. "Jack?"

"You know, they say when someone keeps making excuses to say your name it means they like you."

"They say that, huh?"

"They do indeed. But I want to make it very clear that, while you're acceptably pretty and moderately entertaining, it's not me. It's you."

"Color me relieved. But seriously, Jack-"

"Again with the name-dropping."

"Shut up. I'm trying to say that I'm proud of you. These people will owe you for what you've done for them, but they'll also depend on you for the rest of their lives. You've really stepped up. I just...yeah. I'm proud of you."

He raised his shoulders a couple of times, like he was physically trying to shrug off what I'd said. Then he shook his head and sighed. "This is more awkward than that time you threw yourself at me and made me kiss you."

"I seem to recall you kissing me, followed by me hitting you. Repeatedly."

He reached over with his free hand to pat mine. "Whatever you need to tell yourself to be happy with frying pan boy. And here we are!"

We walked out of the wall into Lend's family room. It looked like we'd hit some sort of bizarre house party, with bodies packing the room and sitting on every imaginable surface. An abundance of yellow wolf eyes and shriveled corpse faces greeted me, with a few others-some trolls and a couple of dryads-mixed in.

They looked at us, surprised but not shocked, and I waved. "Hi. Anybody know where I can find Raquel or David?"

Most of them pointed, all in opposite directions. Great.

"I'll be upstairs if you need me, okay?" Jack looked exhausted, so I nodded and waved him away, picking which room to look in next at random. The kitchen was closest, so I dodged around the minglers and pushed my way in, relieved to see Raquel standing at the counter, talking with a couple of werewolves.

"You're back!" I said, squeezing in to stand next to her.

"Evie! We'll finish discussing this later," she said, nodding at the werewolves, then taking my hand to lead me through the crowds and into the empty office, where she shut the door behind us. I sank down onto the old, worn leather couch. I half expected her to sit behind the desk in our usual arrangement for debriefing, but she sat next to me instead.

"How did it go?" I asked.

"Remarkably well. IPCA was expecting a faerie assault, so for a huge group of us to walk in and calmly ask for the release of all the paranormals was something of a shock. The workers at the Normal facility didn't want to fight us or hurt humans and werewolves, so in the end we simply had to agree to let them come with us and protect them from any IPCA repercussions and they let everyone walk out."

I laughed, putting my head back against the couch and closing my eyes. "Of course, the job I don't end up doing myself would be the easy one."

"How did everything work out in the Faerie Realms?"

I told her about my last few hours, after checking to make sure we hadn't lost more time than that.

Raquel made a thoughtful noise when I finished, then brushed the hair away from my face. "How are you doing?"

"I honestly don't know. The girls, the ones pregnant with Empty Ones? They're never...they're never going to be okay. And Reth said-Well, I can't help but wonder how much of this mess, all of it, is my fault."

"None of it is your fault, honey."

I shrugged, too tired to argue or to even open my eyes. "It is, it isn't. Where can you trace the line and say here, here is where I messed up, or here, here is where the connection between myself and this event stops mattering? You can't. But I'm doing my best."

"I know you are." She sighed, an I wish I could help you more with this sigh, and it made me smile. "If it helps, I'm very proud of you. I know it has nothing to do with me, but watching you become the strong, smart woman I always knew you'd be is one of the greatest joys of my life."

"You're trying to make me cry on purpose, aren't you? That's just mean, Raquel."

She laughed. "But you know, no matter what, everything will be different from now on. For all of us."

"You're unemployed, for one. I think we can find you a spot at the diner, if you want. Your French fries can't possibly be worse than Grnlllll's were."

"I think I might surprise you there."

I leaned over to rest my head on her shoulder. "Are things going to get easier?"

"Sometimes it takes a little chaos for things to work themselves out. When we make it through the chaos, we can use it to shape the world around us into something better than it was before."

"I'm good at the chaos part, at least."

"And you'll be just as good at making things better on the other side. Trust me."

I sniffled and sat up. "Thanks, Raquel. Speaking of chaos, I better go see if everything is set on Cresseda's end of things. Jack's upstairs, if you and David want to go talk with him about what to do with the Faerie Realms refugees. He's going to need some help."

We parted with a hug, her scent both familiar and comforting, reminding me that family comes in a lot of different versions. I'd figure out how to take care of those pregnant girls if at all possible, and no matter what, I'd make sure their babies wouldn't slip through the cracks like Vivian and I had.

I missed Vivian. I was so incredibly tired; the desire to sleep was an ache I could feel in my entire body. I couldn't believe I hadn't dropped yet. But if I could sleep, maybe I could find Vivian and make sure she was okay.

I cringed against the cold when I walked outside, but it didn't bother me as much as it used to. Almost like I knew it was there against my skin, but it felt so temporary it didn't matter.

I really needed to dump these extra souls. The breeze played around me and I could feel the water ahead calling out. It gave me the creeps, thinking I was carrying around parts of all these creatures who had tried to hurt me. At least I could use their energy for good, something I doubt any of them had ever bothered trying to do.

At the pond my senses were assaulted by the sheer numbers of paranormals there, each of them with their own pretty, glowing soul light. I couldn't see Cresseda anywhere.

The atmosphere was even more partylike than back at the house, all the paranormals chatting and chittering and cackling, flitting from group to group, eyes wide with excitement and anticipation. Well, at least the ones that had eyes. But even the flames dancing above the salamander pit seemed to be happy.

One creature wasn't moving, though. Arianna sat on a rock to the side, watching. I picked my way along the bank over to her, careful not to draw attention to myself. I wanted to get out of here, fast, and getting into conversations with less-humanlike paranormals wasn't on my list of things to do. They weren't exactly good at brevity. Or making sense.

"Ar? Whatcha doing out here?"

"Just watching."

"You wouldn't happen to know if everything is set on this end of things, would you? Do they have everyone who wants to come?"

She nodded slowly, her eyes trained on the movements in the pond. "Yeah, they do. Cresseda declared that 'The gathering is complete, and what was altered will be set right.' Or something like that. Sounds like full speed ahead to me."

I swallowed hard, fighting nerves. "Okay. Guess I'll head back to faerie land and get everything squared away there."

"Good idea. And you might want to hurry. I was talking to the banshees and, near as I could decipher from their mad rhyming skills, you only have until dawn tomorrow before the two worlds shift too far apart and the gate is lost forever."

"I-Wait, what?"

Arianna shrugged. "Apparently there's a bit more of a time crunch than we knew about."

"Well, that's just brilliant. Maybe they could have told me this? Didn't the faeries know? The Dark Queen is making new Empty Ones like she has years."

"I guess the earthbound paranormals can feel it better because they've always been here. The faeries knew time was running out, but they didn't know how soon."

I took a deep breath. "Whatever. Doesn't matter, I need to get Reth through before he dies anyway." Saying it like that made my throat stop up. He wouldn't die. I'd make this work.

"Anything I can do to help?"

"Convince the entire Dark Court to abandon their queen's plan and join Team Leave Now?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of recording tonight's Easton Heights rerun so that hour was freed up for you." She held up her hands at my outraged look of horror. "Kidding. Kidding. I've been helping David and Raquel set up emergency places for all the faerie land transplants and IPCA refugees who aren't leaving. We'll get everything ready here. You focus on the faerie stuff."

"Can't I be in charge of the DVR, instead?" I stood and turned around. Arianna swatted my butt as I walked away. I wanted to laugh, but it was all I could do not to hyperventilate. Everything was finally happening.

I hadn't made it very far back up the path when Reth stepped out of the woods, scaring me half to death. "Way to make an entrance," I said, my hand over my rapidly beating heart.

"You need to come with me."

"Did you know I have to open the gate tonight? Never mind. Don't answer. If you did know, I'll want to kick you in the nuts for not telling me, and I don't have time to do it. Good news is I'm going to save your life. We'll just get Jack from the house and then we can go."

"This isn't a matter for Jack." He took my hand and threw open a door in the middle of the air. He walked through it; I had to practically run to keep up with him, though he was breathing hard. He opened a door in the blackness and we walked through into his room. Someone was sitting on the couch with her back to us.

"Who is-"

"Hey, stupid!" Vivian squealed, jumping up and running to hug me.