"So, which one of your relatives is obsessed with cats?" Dane asks.

It's the following day, and he and Julian have met us for breakfast at a little café close to Mattie Macleod's house, which is our next stop. Dane has just finished examining the postcard and listening as Ambrose explains—in thankfully vague terms—why he thinks I may be in danger.

"No clue," Ambrose answers. "I think my mother had a cat, but I don't recall that she was particularly obsessed with it."

Dane leans back in his chair—a precarious move, as it looks hardly strong enough to hold his weight—and turns the card over in his hands.

"Alright, so let me see if I have this straight," he says. "Rowan Oakfield and Aengus Thorne were bros back in the day. Rowan married Mattie Macleod, and Aengus married Mattie's sister, Rosie. Rosie and Aengus had a son—Jack. Then Rosie died, and Aengus married Rowan's daughter, Lillian, who'd be Jack's, what... cousin? But Aengus was Jack's father, and—at least as far as the wider world is concerned—he's your father too, which makes you Jack's brother."

His brows are scrunched so close they almost meet by the time he finishes, fingers kneading the sides of his head.

"That's about the way of it." Ambrose nods, reaching across the table to steal a piece of my toast, having already finished his own.

Dane notes the motion, a frown on his lips.

"So, what happened to Rosie, anyway?" he asks. "How'd she die?"

"That's Mattie's tale to tell," Ambrose answers, "hence our double date."

He winks across the table at Julian, who looks much closer to his normal self, thanks to the Fae tea. He's still attracting stares, but is no longer obviously inhuman, at least.

"You seem to be feeling better, fair Fae," Ambrose comments with a slight smirk. "Has your...trouble...resolved itself, then?"

Julian casts a sharp glance at me, but Dane cuts in before he can speak, reaching over to rub the back of Julian's neck.

"Yeah," he says. "Must be one of those 'Fae things' that comes an' goes—hopefully not very often," he adds with a frown.

"Must be," I agree, not meeting his eyes.

Ambrose raises a brow, but says nothing, instead reaching over to steal the last strawberry from my fruit salad—which I happen to have been saving, because it looked especially delicious.

Whatever protest I might have made is cut off as the waitress comes by to refill our coffees, and Julian promptly dumps half the pitcher of cream into his.

"Jesus, Julian," Dane mutters. "Why bother with the coffee at all? Just order a mug of cream next time."

"That would be weird," Julian replies, sipping his extremely creamy coffee.

"Yeah, and drinking coffee that's more cream than coffee is totally normal," Dane returns.

"The Fae are known for their fondness of fresh cream," Ambrose says. "You ought to ask those girls with the little farm to invest in a milk-cow. Could come in handy," he adds with a wink, "down the road, you know."

Julian narrows his eyes at me, and I very slightly shake my head. As usual, Ambrose sounds like he knows more than he should, but I hope Julian trusts me at least enough to know that it's not my fault if he does.

"Well, let's get this over with," Dane says, signaling for the check and seemingly oblivious to the little drama playing out between the rest of us. "Ms. Macleod's agreed to give us half an hour of her time—not graciously, I might add—and I got the impression we shouldn't keep her waiting."

When the waitress brings the check, she sets it in the center of the table, and Dane and Ambrose reach for and take hold of it at the same time.

"May I?" Ambrose asks.

Dane shakes his head. "This is work. I'll get it."

I expect Ambrose to insist, or make some high-handed move, but he doesn't, instead releasing the little book with a gracious nod of thanks.

He, Julian, and I excuse ourselves to wait outside, and as we pass beyond the range of Dane's hearing, Ambrose leans close and whispers in my ear.

"Those alpha types," he mutters, "you've got to give 'em a win every now and then, or they get tetchy on you."

I snort to hide a laugh, and wonder exactly what 'type' Ambrose thinks he is.

~ ☾ ~

Mathilda 'Mattie' Macleod lives in a highly modern home. Its front is a wide, sweeping curve of gray stone, which blends with the rocky landscape in which it's set.

She greets us at the door, wearing a floor-length sleeveless gown and looking like a Roman noblewoman with her hair done up in a complex heap of coils on her head. She's thin, tall, and looks to be in her early forties. She's beautiful in a way that suggests an obsession with beauty, but when she spots Ambrose at my side, her elegantly defined features transform with a sour scowl.

"Ambrose," she grimaces. "I didn't know you were a part of this."

"Grandmother." His tone drips derision, and if there was any doubt about his story of mutual animosity between himself and his extended family, it is quickly laid to rest.

"Well, I suppose you may as well come in," Mattie says, standing aside. "The sooner we finish this unpleasantness, the better."

We enter, and she promptly shuts and re-arms the security system on her door. I don't know if she really thinks it will keep the thief out, but I see Dane's eyes narrow. Following his gaze, I detect a slight tremble in her hands. However cool, collected, and careless she might appear, something is getting to her.

"So, what is it that you want to know, Mr. Hunter, that Ambrose can't tell you and that I haven't told you already?" she asks as she leads us through an open, sparsely furnished space towards the back of the house, which is walled with glass, and looks out on a gray, flagstone patio and a long, pristinely blue pool.

"Why don't we sit down first," Dane answers.

"That upsetting, is it? Now I am concerned." She sounded anything but, and I wondered how much of her attitude was genuine, and how much was only a cover for her fear. "Very well. This way."

She takes us outside to a set of sleek, modern-looking patio furniture beside the pool, and settles into one of the low, cube-like chairs, leaning back with her legs crossed and her arms resting on either side. She looks regal and relaxed, like a classic Hollywood movie star—a Joan Crawford or Betty Davis, maybe—and watches with a sphinx-like expression as Dane and the rest of us take the remaining seats. I end up next to Ambrose on a larger settee, and note how closely he seems to watch his grandmother's every move.

"Get on with it then," she says, waving a hand.

Dane scowls. With his background in law-enforcement, he's used to people—especially those who find themselves on the other side of an interview—treating him with hostility and even disrespect, and I consider that it's fortunate he's a relatively even-tempered Wolf, for an alpha.

"We'd like to ask you about your sister, Ms. Macleod," Dane begins. "About Rosie."

Mattie frowns. "Rosie's been dead over a century. What possible relevance could that have now?"

"Indulge us, if you will."

She remains still a moment, and it seems like there's a fifty-fifty chance that she'll agree or refuse. Then she leans back and frowns.

"Fine. I'll tell it, if that's what you want. Though I don't see the good it'll do, dredging that up after all these years."

She sighs and closes her eyes, perhaps to better recall her memories, or perhaps so as not to see our faces.

"Rowan Oakfield was a magician," she began. "A real magician, you understand. Some might say he lacked a conscience; others that he served a higher power. The truth is, he was simply obsessed—with knowledge. He wanted to know everything, and for that, he needed time. More time than is allotted a mortal life. He needed immortality—or something close, at least.

"Finding the dragonspell was the answer to his prayers: a ritual to summon and trap a dragon, and then to bargain for its favor. He was only twenty when he discovered it, but it would be eight years before he made an attempt, and failed; then seventeen more before he succeeded at it.

"The ritual wasn't something he could do alone, you see. He needed at least eight other willing participants to make up his Circle of Nine, and then, of course, a Medium.

"Aengus and I were the first he recruited. Our three families—the Oakfields, Thornes, and Macleods—all moved in similar circles, and shared similar interests. It was natural for us to unite. Best of all, from Rowan's perspective, the Macleod's carried a Gift for mediumship, at least along the female line.

"I married Rowan—not because I loved him, but because it was the only respectable way for a lady to spend so much time in 'male company' in those days, and because I preferred him to Aengus. Over the next few years, we had two children—Brutus and Penelope—and he gathered the rest of his Nine.

"By the time we had the proper number though, Rowan had discovered two additional facts: first, that I had not inherited the Macleod Gift, but that my sister Rosie had; and second that the ritual would require the sacrifice... of a child." 

She paused, lips pinched.

"We drew straws to determine whose responsibility it would be to provide the babe, and the lot fell to Aengus. He didn't mind, except that he had no wife, and no existing bairns. Rosie solved both problems nicely, though she was only then fifteen."

Mattie sniffed, though more with disdain than any other feeling, and waved a hand.

"She was simple-minded and easily persuaded, and was even convinced that marrying Aengus was her own idea, and that he loved her. A little less than a year later, she bore him a son—Jacobus, better known as Jack."

I glance at Ambrose, but his face might as well be made of stone, for all the expression on it.

"Then we all had a surprise, for it turned out Aengus had something like a heart, after all. He loved that boy, from the moment he first drew breath, and begged us to wait until he could... 'provide,' an alternative.

"This he did, barely a nine-month later, and this child—being a girl—he had no use for. She might as well have been a sack of potatoes, for all he cared."

For the first time, anger and bitterness touch her voice, and her hands clench in white-knuckled fists.

"We didn't really understand, you see—myself and the rest of those first Nine. Only Aengus and Rowan really knew what the ritual required. And Rosie adored that little girl," she goes on, in a softer, almost wistful tone. "It made me almost envious, watching her..."

She pauses, lost in memory for such a long time that Dane grows restless, probably wondering if he ought to prompt her or wait her out. Wisely, he waits, and eventually she blinks, shrugs, and continues with her tale.

"So, at last, everything was in place. We had the Circle of Nine, a willing and talented Medium—in Rosie—and a young child, as the ritual prescribed. We gathered in Oakfield Manor, and then Rowan began the Summoning.

Her curved brows raise and her eyes fix on some indistinguishable point as she reviews the memory, chin lifted high with defiant pride.

"It worked," she says, "A great serpent—a water-dragon king—answered Rowan's call, and at first it seemed that we would get everything our hearts desired. The dragon possessed Rosie, and spoke through her, and seemed more curious than angry to find himself so Summoned.

"It was then that Rowan made his mistake. He'd misinterpreted the texts, you see. He thought the ritual required that the dragon take the life of a child, when in fact it required that it make one.

"Rosie—still as one with the dragon—watched as her husband presented the babe. She was as bemused as the rest of us, if not more so, and then..."

She stopped and pressed her fingers to her lips.

"Speak it, Mathilda," Ambrose demands, his harsh and sudden tone making me jump. "Tell them."

She glares at him, but then regains her icy cool, folding her hands in her lap. "He killed it, right before Rosie's eyes," she says. "And Rosie—dragon still occupying her mind—went utterly insane. She burned herself, Oakfield Manor, and as many of our number as she could to ashes. Only Rowan, Aengus, and myself managed to escape."

"And more's the pity," Ambrose says.

Mathilda returns his glare, undaunted.

"Do you think I was not as angry and appalled as anyone could be?" she asks him. "That little girl, and Rosie—my own..." She stops again and her chest heaves with restrained breath.

"Save it for the judges of the afterlife, if by the gods' graces you ever manage to get there," Ambrose snarls. "Finish it. Tell them what you did. Because you didn't break off with Rowan, did you? Or denounce him, or reveal Aengus' crime to the world, did you?" He shakes his head. "No. You stuck to it—to the lure of 'eternal youth,' and whatever other twisted promises Rowan gave."

She looks at him with such sudden and unfiltered hate that it's a wonder he doesn't burst into flames.

"Yes," she sneers. "I stayed with him. You weren't there—you didn't see the remorse he felt for his mistake. In his mind, a 'required ingredient' was one thing. A baby slain for no need, and seven of his friends and relatives burned to ash—Rosie included—was quite another. I'm not saying it was right. Only... well, that's how things were, in Rowan's mind.

"Anyway," she shrugged. "The three of us vowed to try again—once Rowan figured out what had gone wrong, of course. No babe need die—one only need be made—and surely that was no such bad thing." She shot a glance at Ambrose. "My little Penelope was like me—Giftless—but Lillian, three years old at the time of that first attempt, was a strong Medium. We waited as long as we could, and when she was seventeen, she wed Aengus Thorne, who had drawn the fateful straw so long ago, and who was twenty-three years her senior, by that time."

She swallowed, casting her eyes at the ground.

"Lillian couldn't conceive, it seemed, or else Aengus couldn't... But it hardly mattered, and three years later, we were ready to try again."

"The second 'Nine' were composed of only our closest counterparts—our most trusted blood-relatives: my own Brutus and Penelope, by then in their twenties; my sister Aileen and her son, Thaddeus; Aengus' brother, Augustus; and lastly... Jack, then seventeen—eager and ignorant of his own mother's fate. Lillian was our Medium, and thus—by virtue of our efforts, Ambrose—she bore a dragon's child, and our wishes were fulfilled."

Her tale at an end, she sits back, arms folded across her chest and her legs crossed. While she's so far maintained the appearance of aloof disinterest, now she looks vulnerable and defensive, expecting judgment.

The rest of us remain quiet. It seems like Dane has no more questions, and Julian looks ill. Ambrose's face is almost colorless and my own is probably ashy and shock-eyed.

"Well, that explains why Rosie would hate the Oakfields and Thornes, alright," Dane says at last. "Though if she's been dead this long, I don't see what good it does us to know of it."

He stands, pushing himself to his full height and extending a hand to help Mattie to her feet. She accepts the gesture, though she does so with the air of royalty forced to interact with the plebeian horde.

"Thank you for your time, Ms. Macleod," he says, as the rest of us rise as well. "You'll be hearing from us if we have any further questions."

He says this with the stiff formality of a cop who's seen too much shit to be phased by much of anything, but I get the sense that his opinion of Ambrose's' family has not improved.

"Of course," she allows, though it sounds like she'd rather chew glass than talk to any of us ever again.

She leads us back through the sterile house to the front door and sees us out. As we file through, Julian stops and turns, a curious look on his face.

"The baby," he asks in a quiet undertone. "What was her name?"

Mattie's face twists with some unknown expression before settling into its usual haughty arrogance. "Oh, I don't know. I hardly remember now," she says, flicking her hand at him. "Something common, I think. 'Katherine' maybe. Yes, that was it. Rosie always called her 'Kitty,' though."

The four of us share a look, and then we make our escape.