Chapter 7

N oise wakes me. Slowly, at first, a white noise without distinct form or meaning. Then, as I come out of the trance-like fog of sleep, the noise resolves itself into a cacophony of voices beyond the door.

I blink my eyes open—Caspian lounges on the bed beside me, staring at the noise with a pissed-off expression. "What is it?"

"Reporters. A fucking lot of them."

"How did they find us?" I ask.

He shrugs. "Who the hell knows? That mortal girl's parents, maybe? Or one of the rubbernecking local yokels outside the diner yesterday. Doesn't matter. They're here now."

"How many are there?"

He shrugs again. But then his gaze goes vacant and his nostrils flare, scenting. "Twenty-seven."

I rub my eyes. "Sorry, not awake yet. I could have done that."

He just chuckles. "You still sleep like a mortal. Not sure what to make of that."

I laugh, too. "Seems like I do, doesn't it? As a vaer, I shouldn't need sleep at all. Maybe I just like it?" I look around. "Caleb is running?"

He nods. "Slipped out a couple hours ago, not long before those jackals out there showed up."

"Mortals like a story," I say. "And we're a good one."

"No way to get out of this room without facing them, though. So you'll have to make some kind of a statement."

I nod, mind racing. "A statement, yes." A slow smile blossoms on my face. "This might actually end up working in our favor."

Caspian frowns at me. "How so?"

"Well, much of the enmity we're coming up against is ignorance-based fear. What's the best way to combat that?"

"Educate people," Cas answers.

"Exactly." I gesture in the direction of the noise. "And they'll be doing us a favor in helping us get the truth out there, helping us educate the public as to who we really are."

Acting on impulse, I slip out of bed and head for the door, my speech already forming in my mind.

A strong warm arm hauls me away from the door before I can open it. "Maybe some clothes first? American mortals are weird about public nudity."

I glance down, realizing only as he points it out that I am, in fact, stark naked—I'm so used to it at this point that I forgot. "Oh, right—clothes." I lean back into him. "Thanks, love."

He kisses my temple, one arm slung low around my waist, the other across my chest midway between breasts and chin. "The shower has surprisingly good water pressure."

"Mmmmmm. Sounds good. Be right out."

Twenty minutes later, I'm showered, dressed, and my damp hair is braided, the tip dangling past my shoulder blades—it seems to grow faster after the incident in The Dreaming that turned it white than it ever did as a mortal. Another oddity without explanation.

I can make them leave, Caleb says, mind-to-mind. I'm watching them from the tree line.

It's okay , I answer. I see this as an opportunity to expose mortals to the truth about us that isn't getting enough publicity.

His answer is a wordless rush of warmth, pride, and approval.

Have a good run? I ask him.

We did. Made a kill. Felt good after days of not shifting.

Did Nico go with you?

A rush of amusement hits me. Bears and wolves hunt very differently. He shifted when we did but went his own way.

I brush his mind with a quick, loving caress, a wordless end to the brief conversation.

I head for the door, but some vague, indefinable instinct has me going back for a towel from the bathroom. Caspian quirks an eyebrow at the towel slung over my shoulder but says nothing as I pause at the door, hand on the knob.

"Ready?" I ask.

He nods once. "Ready."

I suck in a deep breath, hold it a moment, and let it out slowly, and then open the door and step out into the bright morning sunlight.

Immediately, the cacophony of voices erupts into a mad, deafening barrage of shouted questions and blinding flashes and cell phones and digital recorders being shoved at me.

I'm stunned at first and then claustrophobic as the crowd of reporters closes in around me, shouting and shoving.

Caspian snarls, stepping in front of me protectively, and I feel Caleb's protective anger boiling.

I lash out with a wave of prana infused with my will, and shout a single word: " SILENCE !"

Immediately, all noise halts—not just the voices, but everything . Birds, bugs, wind, traffic.

"Now. Everyone take three steps backward."

Because they have no choice, they do.

I see fear in their eyes, written on their faces—their mouths move frantically, but no sound emerges.

I hold up a hand, fist closed. "Now. Your attention, if you please." I keep my voice at a conversational level. "I will release your voices in a moment, but we must have order and calm. Behave like rational adults. Speak one at a time. I will answer questions after I've explained a few things." I scan the faces. "No shouting, and no interrupting—me or each other." I open my fist, splaying my fingers wide, and let the silence glamour fade.

There are a few coughs and some muttering as the reporters try out their voices, just to be sure.

"Now. As I'm sure you're all aware, I am Maeve Sparrow. The immortal community has given me titles: The WorldBreaker, and the Once-Mortal Queen." I hold up my hand to forestall the inevitable questions. "As I said, I'll take questions at the end. I am not royalty of any kind. I am not seeking to become 'queen of America,'" I use air quotes around the phrase, "or anything like that. Those immortals who follow me do so of their own will. As for WorldBreaker—while I didn't set out to break anything, I cannot deny that the events in Manhattan involving me, my mate, and my coven certainly did seem to set things in motion."

"Miss Sparrow," a young male mortal in the front says, "there are reports that you have more than one mate. Can you speak to that?"

I nod. "I can. It's true." I wrap my arm around Caspian's waist and lean into him. "This is one of them—his name is Caspian Taylor, and he is a vampire. Another mate, Caleb, is around here somewhere and might join us at some point—he's a shifter. The word you'll be tempted to use is 'werewolf,' but I'd advise you—and any mortals watching or listening—to never, ever refer to a shifter as a were-anything. It's a derogatory term—a slur, and a bad one." I glance at Caspian, smiling, and then at the crowd of reporters. "I have three other mates—all vampires, but they're elsewhere at this time."

I glance at the young man who asked the question. "One follow-up question, and then I'll move on."

"Polygamy is illegal in the United States, Miss Sparrow. Does that concern you?"

I shrug. "Not really. We aren't married in the legal, civil meaning of the word. And a mate is…" I trail off, thinking. "It's not marriage as you'd understand it. It's far more. More complex, and much deeper in every way—mentally, physically, and emotionally. But, if the letter of the law is your concern, then no, I'm not worried about it because we aren't married and I have no intention of worrying about such things. That's a mortal concern and has nothing to do with us."

"So mortal laws don't apply to you?" Someone near the back shouts.

I arch my eyebrow as more questions are shouted in overlapping chaos—at my quirked eyebrow, they all fall silent once more.

"Do not twist my words, mortal." I put some hardness into my voice. "Marriage is a mortal concern—that's what I said and it's what I meant, and you know it…" I send out a tendril of prana and find the one who shouted the question, tasting her mind and soul. "Britney Rogers, of St. Louis, Missouri, daughter to Ken and Eileen, girlfriend of Michael Krasinski."

I find her eyes. She pales.

"I…I'm sorry, M-miss…"

"Then don't ask stupid questions and don't twist my meaning."

No one speaks. I nod.

"The information available to mortals regarding who and what we are," I gesture at Caspian and then the other rooms, inside of which I feel the others listening and watching, "is scant and is either misleading, grossly inaccurate, or simply false. For example, vampires, such as my beloved mate, Caspian. I grew up, like you, thinking vampires, shapeshifters, all that was just…fairy tales. Stories. Tall tales. And much, if not all, of what you think you know about vampires from books or movies or comics, is laughably wrong. Caspian, clearly, is not a mindless, bloodthirsty monster. He has no interest in your blood, for the most part. And if, by some chance, he did decide to feed from you, you would not turn into a vampire. You wouldn't even remember it happening. It would not hurt you. It would not leave a mark or a scar. Crosses, silver, garlic, stakes through the heart, none of that is real."

A hand raises on my left and near the back. I point. "Yes."

"So…what is true, then?"

"Vampires do drink blood—human, fae, shifter, or animal. There are circumstances where a vampire in desperate need of blood can experience what's called bloodlust. But even then, the vampire is very, very, very unlikely to drink so much blood that the host is harmed because that is how you create what is called a nosferatu, which is a mindless, bloodthirsty killing machine. But such an act is expressly forbidden, and any vampire who does so will be hunted down and executed."

I exhale, gather my words, and continue. "Here's the delicate truth. Blood drinking, for vampires, is a sexual thing. They—we—release certain pheromones which cause sexual arousal in the host. This arousal erases fear and creates desire. Before piercing a vein the vampire will lick the host's skin. Our saliva contains a very powerful natural analgesic, which also creates intense physical pleasure, so even the piercing of flesh with fangs becomes a pleasurable experience. I can testify to this firsthand, as I was with him before I became what I am now." I hold up my hand once more. "Yes, there are questions of consent, which historically speaking was…not something most males ever really considered, mortal or immortal. This is the truth. You may have been fed upon by a vampire and wouldn't know it. If you remember anything, it would it be a vague memory of fooling around with someone. The important thing to remember is that while the feeding experience is sexual, the sexual component always ends at what you would consider foreplay. Immortals consider true, penetrative intercourse to be sacred, reserved exclusively for private, intimate moments between mates."

"There have been a few posts on various social media platforms claiming that if an immortal reproduces with a mortal, the mortal dies," an older man near the front on my right says. "Is there any truth to that?"

"There is. And that's why we are in the situation we're in. For most of human history, mortals and immortals lived together, aware of each other, in a tenuous sort of peace. There have been conflicts, of course, but for the most part, we have always lived among you, whether openly, in disguise, or merely quiet about our true nature. But then, around the time of the French Revolution, there was a movement among certain factions of immortals to be more open, to live among mortals freely, without hiding our natures or abilities. This movement spawned a small group of radicals who thought that because they were immortal and possessed abilities mortals did not, that immortals should be rulers or something. It's idiocy, and the vast majority of immortals did not believe that and condemned the breakaway faction. But the harm was done. The extremist faction took mortals against their will, openly. Wives, sisters, and daughters were taken and subjected to horrible things, which, understandably, caused fear and anger among mortals. It grew and spread here, in what was then the colonies. This conflict became mixed up in the larger political situation—the American Revolution. It became a war, a very messy, complicated one that mortals only remember part of. When the immortals began to lose the war, they signed a treaty. You see, despite our long lives, greater strength and senses, and magical abilities, we are very few and reproduction is difficult, which I will explain shortly. Mortals, with their greater numbers and technology, were able to sway the war against the immortals. In order to prevent any more lives from being lost, the elders of the time—elder immortals, I mean, those in positions of power and authority—signed what is only known as The Treaty. It was an agreement between mortals and immortals ending the war, with several conditions—chiefly, that immortals cannot under any circumstances reproduce with mortals. The other part of The Treaty was that a great spell would be cast—a glamour, as we fae call our works of magic. The glamour would erase all knowledge of immortals from mortal minds and memories, past, present, and future." I pause. "The Treaty was a death warrant for immortals. Why? Because we cannot create children with our own kind. A vampire cannot create a baby with a vampire. A shifter cannot create a child with a shifter. A fae cannot create a child with a fae."

"So when a mortal has a child with an immortal, the mortal dies?" This is from the elder male who posed the last question.

I nod. "Yes. But not as you might think. A male vampire, for example." I gesture at Caspian. "When we first began seeing each other, he resisted being with me for fear of impregnating me and thus causing my death. Because I was, then, seemingly mortal. Had I been a mortal, and had we mated resulting in pregnancy, I would have carried that child to term, given birth, and been a mother to that child. But being mortal, my body would not have been able to supply everything the baby needs. Even in utero, the baby would be siphoning away nutrients from my body, weakening me. A mortal body cannot survive the creation of an immortal. The host mother always, always dies, usually somewhere around breastfeeding or weaning. Immortals researched for centuries to find a way around this—because immortals are still people. They would fall in love with a mortal, and then that mortal would die. Loss of a loved one is devastating, no matter who you are."

"So…" the elder male speaks up again. "You can't procreate with mortals according to The Treaty, because it kills the mother. And you can't procreate with your own kind…" I see him putting two and two together. "You'll die out as a people, or species, or…I'm not sure how to put it."

"Exactly." I smile at him. "We are every bit as human as you. We're just…different. And I'm not sure how to put it either. But you're right. That's the problem. We can't reproduce. We live a very, very long time, but without children, eventually, there will be no more immortals."

"But there are three kinds of immortal, aren't there?" A woman asks.

"And what about an immortal woman with a mortal male?" Another man asks.

"Good questions," I say. "I'll answer the second first because the first question requires a more in-depth answer. A mortal male can impregnate an immortal woman, but the majority of the time, the process results in the immortal female going into a kind of blind lust called a mating frenzy, and the male is killed. She has no real control over this, and from what I've heard, it is devastating for the immortal female to come out of the mating frenzy and discover she's killed her lover. Now, unlike with mortal females, this is not uniformly fatal. The female can resist the frenzy. More usually, however, she must be restrained by her friends or family until the frenzy fades. But it is still very, very risky for the male."

"Seems like a good way to go, if you ask me," a young male in the front mutters.

I can't help a laugh. "Until she rips your head off, yes, it would be." A few scattered laughs greet this. "Now. The first question: there are three kinds of immortal—well, until recently this was true, but it is not any longer. That's next. For now, focus on the three I've mentioned: shifter, vampire, and fae. A quick explanation of the other two, since I covered vampires."

I feel Caleb approaching and pause. At first, my unexpected and extended silence confuses the reporters, and then there are shouts of fear and surprise. The crowd parts like a stage curtain. Caleb pads on silent paws toward me, a massive wolf the size of a male lion and approximately the same color.

He ignores the crowd entirely, stopping in front of me. I drop and wrap my arms around his neck, inhaling his warm, familiar scent and burying my fingers in the thick, soft lushness of his fur. He growls in his chest, a low rumble of approval.

I sense the shift coming, and then amber light blazes bright, and I open the towel to accord him some element of privacy—more so for the mortals than for him. When the blinding amber light dulls and fades, Caleb stands facing the crowd, nude and mammoth and carved from marble.

I don't miss the gasps of awe—mostly from the women.

"Show off," Caspian mutters under his breath so only the three of us can hear him.

Caleb chuckles as he wraps the towel around his waist.

In pure Caleb fashion, he curls me against his body, wraps my braid around his fist, and kisses me thoroughly and deliciously, and then he lets me go and assumes a casual stance beside me.

Once I've gotten myself under control, I clear my throat. "This, ladies and gentlemen, is a shifter. As I said before, he is not a werewolf." Caleb's snarl at the word is vicious, and those in the front take an involuntary step backward. "As with vampires, forget what you think you know. None of that applies. He won't bite you, and if he did, it wouldn't turn you into a shifter or a werewolf." I glance at him. "Stop the growling, my love. They have to understand." To the reporters, then. "Again, silver bullets won't work. Most of the time, you have nothing a shifter will be interested in. They don't drink blood, and they don't eat humans. What makes them a shifter is not some disease or mutation. Like vampires, they are born , not made . A shifter is a being who is fully animal and fully human." I gesture at Caleb. "He is always his wolf, and he is always his man. They coexist within him at all times. He always has a wolf's senses—smell, hearing, everything. He cannot speak in wolf form, but to his pack and me, his mate, he can communicate in other ways."

"Do they prey on humans like vampires?" A voice from the back calls.

"No," I answer. "Not as you would understand it. Shifters primarily value the same things their animals do: space to roam and to hunt, mates, and friends. You wouldn't know a shifter if you met one. Vampires, you might, if they're unblooded—a vampire in need of blood appears different. Hard, stone-like skin and eyes that are black from edge to edge."

"Not as we would understand it? What does that mean?"

I shake my head. "It means there are elements I do not have time to explain, and that is one of them. The short answer is that they feed on dream energy. You won't know, feel, remember, or care if a shifter was to consume some of your dream energy."

Caleb speaks then. "If you have ever felt a dream that sort of…changes…somewhat randomly, that's a shifter consuming your mana, your dream energy. You produce mana in huge quantities naturally but even when dreaming only use a fraction of it. We feed on the excess, in a place known as The Dreaming. As Maeve said, the shift in a dream is the only effect you'd notice. It cannot harm you."

A dozen questions are shouted, but once again I silence them with a look. "Fae," I say loudly, moving on. I glance to my left. "Philemon? Can you come out, please?"

A moment later, a door opens a few doors down from mine, and Philemon emerges. He's dressed like an accountant, again—creased-front khakis and a neat, pressed, baby blue button down, tucked in, with a slim leather belt and sensible low-profile sneakers. He has a glamour on, which works for my purposes. He moves through the crowd to stand with me—Caspian and Caleb step back to make room for him.

"This is my friend Philemon. He's a fae." I rest my hand on his shoulder.

He waves. "Hi."

"He looks…" a woman near the front starts, trails off. "Well…normal."

I meet his eyes. Nod. "Go ahead."

With a quick, sharp gesture, Philemon removes the mask, and his fae features emerge— sharp, aquiline, a little too perfect, somehow. His eyes glow with fresh prana, and his hair a little, too.

There are a handful of gasps and murmurs.

"Any fae who lives among mortals assumes what we call a mask—a glamour that makes him or her look mortal. It's a simple bit of magic, sort of like putting on makeup, I suppose. I've never used one, though."

Philemon nods. "Essentially, yes, although it's a bit more complex than makeup." He frowns and tilts his head to one side. "That may not be true, as I'm a man and do not wear makeup, which does seem like a very complicated process itself."

"Do you feel it?" someone asks.

Philemon shakes his head. "There's a brief tingle when I first apply the mask, but after that, no, I don't feel it. I do feel the drain on my prana, however."

"Prana is our word for magic, or rather, the energy which we use to create magic," I explain. "A fae is not a fairy. Nor are fae elves. Fae are fae—and the word is both plural and singular, by the way—one fae, many fae. Fae require prana, not just for magic, but to live, similar to how vampires require blood and shifters require mana—dream energy. Prana is…life-force. The energy that provides sentience. Mana is the energy of creativity and dreaming. Prana is life, metaphysically speaking, and blood is…well, blood, the force that animates the physical body. Gleaning prana is not always inherently sexual the way blood drinking is, but it can be. It is very intimate and very personal. In moderate quantities, it does not harm the host any more than drinking blood does—one thing I forgot to mention is that the pheromones and venom created by vampires also cause the body to overproduce blood, so you are not left weakened by blood loss, as long as the amount is moderate."

"Intimate but not sexual? What does that mean?" This sounds like the same person who asked Philemon if he feels the mask, but I'm not sure.

I glance at Caleb first and then Cas—they both nod, feeling my intention across the link.

"If you care to volunteer, I can show you. It will not hurt or cause harm; you have my word." I hold out my hand.

A moment of silence, and then a mortal male in his late thirties shuffles through the crowd and stops in front of me, eying my hand warily. He's fit and good-looking, wearing faded jeans, vintage Nike high tops, and a Ramones T-shirt.

"What…what do I do?" he asks.

I smile reassuringly. "Nothing. Just take my hand." He reaches for my hand, but his shakes. I can't help but laugh a little. "No tricks, I promise. You will come to no harm."

My laugh, or perhaps something in my eyes, convinces him, and he slips his hand over mine. I wrap my fingers around his palm and hold his gaze. I flex that muscle in my mind or spirit or wherever it is, and pull prana from him—just a trickle, a hint, enough to get a taste of the man.

An old house, dirty and cluttered, worn carpeting, stinking of cat pee, and musty decades of neglect. A postage stamp backyard with a rickety, splintery swing set-slide combo—the slide is warped and faded yellow plastic. Two young boys romp in the yard, playing war with sticks and rocks. A tired, overweight woman with hair the color of old dishwater watches them, listless and lifeless, from a white plastic outdoor chair; a cigarette smolders between her index and middle finger, dangerously close to singeing her fingers.

One of the boys—the one whose memory I'm in—falls and scrapes his knee and runs to his mother, crying. At his tears, she transforms. She stubs the butt out in an overflowing ashtray sitting on an upturned milk carton next to her chair, on which is a warm, half-finished 20oz Mt. Dew. She lights up from the inside, life entering her features. She gathers him onto her lap and hugs him and kisses him and reassures him with whispers and gentle thumbs upon his cheeks. She brushes the dirt from his skinned knee, kisses her fingers, and touches them to his war wound, and then sends him back to play, pretending to be a stern general, with a snappy salute and a last-minute tickle.

My eyes sting as I withdraw from the memory, releasing his prana.

His eyes are hazed with tears.

"Your mother took wonderful care of you and your brother. She loved you with everything she had." I pat the back of his hand.

He nods, clearing his throat gruffly. "She…yeah. She was amazing. Worked three jobs to take care of us. Never had time for herself. We didn't have much, but it didn't matter. Mom was…" he blinks hard. "She died six months ago. Heart attack." He frowns. "That…that was it?"

I nod. "That was it. When we draw your prana, we feel your memories. It's…in my experience, it's random, what I see. Just hints, glimpses. A sort of taste of the person. That's why it's intimate but not sexual."

Philemon clears his throat. "It's actually not random, you know. It's usually the memory or memories that are top of mind for that person."

I blink at him. "Oh! Really?"

He nods. "Yes. It's taught in more formal fae educational settings, but obviously, you didn't receive that."

"No, I didn't. Thank you, Philemon, I appreciate it."

The mortal male looks at his hand, then at me. "So…you took…what did you call it? Prada?"

"Prana," I correct. "It's a Sanskrit word. Much of the terminology used by immortals comes from Sanskrit. And yes, I did—just a very small amount, for demonstration purposes. I prefer to get mine from my mates." I gesture at Caleb and Caspian.

"And we, mortals, I mean, don't use prana? Or mana?" he asks.

I shake my head. "As far as I'm aware, no. Or, so little as to be negligible." I glance at Philemon. "Anything to add?"

He tilts his head to one side. "I'm hardly an expert, mind you. But you're correct, Maeve. Mortals do use each of the Three Sisters, but only in very small amounts. Prana drives sentience, mana drives creativity, and blood drives physicality. Of maya, mortals have next to none, or simply cannot manipulate it—the difference is academic at best."

"Thank you, Philemon," I say. "Now. Questions. One at a time, please." I point at a hand near the back. "Yes, you, near the back."

"You're immortal, so you can't die?"

"We're immortal, so we cannot die of natural causes . We don't get sick, not physically. We do not age, or just very, very slowly. But we can die by violence. It just takes a lot more damage than a mortal." I point at another hand. "Yes?"

"You're different than them? You're not fae, shifter, or vampire?"

"Correct. I'm what's called a vaer—V-A-E-R, half-vampire, half-fae. And I'm the answer to the questions about there being three kinds of immortal, in reference to reproduction. You see, historically, fae, shifters, and vampires do not get along. It's an age-old enmity going back literally thousands of years, ingrained in our natures. It's more than…well, racism, I suppose you could call it. More like how cats and dogs just naturally don't get along, but when taught to and raised together, they can. It was simply not an acceptable notion throughout history for the three races to mate with each other. You just didn't do it. It was not an option."

"If it's that or die out…" the asker prompts.

"Exactly my position," I say. "It's what I'm trying to accomplish. I want to bring mortals and immortals into society together as equals, and I want immortals to let go of the enmity for the good of immortal-kind. I do not want war. I do not condone violence—although the situation in Manhattan may require it, unfortunately." I scan. "Anyone else?" A hand goes up. "Yes?"

"Is there a way to undo the spell that makes us forget about immortals?"

I blink. "Wow. Um. I don't know. I'm not sure how it was done, but it's worth looking into. An excellent question, and unfortunately, I just do not have an answer." Pause. "Next? Yes?"

"How old are you?"

I laugh. "Don't you know better than to ask a woman that? I'm nineteen."

"You seem older."

"I've been through a lot and have had to learn how to lead." Among other things. I think Mother's Spirit has aged me. "Plus, the white hair."

"How did your hair turn white?"

I smile and shrug. "That's a story for another time. But it did turn white. It's not dyed and it's not natural, as in I wasn't born with it. The Spark's Notes version is that I went into The Dreaming with my physical body, which many, if not all, immortal researchers and academics believed to be impossible. The trip turned my hair white for reasons I can't explain."

"Are you the only vaer?"

I nod. "So far as I know. There are two others similar to me, however: a fomori, which is a shifter-vampire, and an aeshir, which is a shifter-fae. And again, so far as I know, we are the only ones like us. But, hopefully, not for long. I believe we are the future of immortal-kind. We face an uphill battle getting mortals to accept us and not fear us, and to not attack us out of that fear, but even more challenging than that, I believe, is convincing immortals to let go of their own internal bigotry and learn to accept each other."

There are a few more questions shouted at me, but I hold up my hands. "We have to get back on the road now. Thank you for your time and attention." I scan the crowd of reporters. "One last thing, though. Please, do not misrepresent what I've said to you or quote me out of context. Our world has enough to deal with without media manufacturing drama. Believe me, there's already more than enough. Thanks again. Goodbye." I stare at them, then, waiting.

No one moves.

"This is where you leave," I stage whisper. "Now."

Another moment, and then one by one the reporters drift away with backward glances and more than a few last-minute photographs.

Once I'm sure they're all going to actually leave, I slip back into my room, put my back against the door and let myself hyperventilate.

I just held a press conference. Holy shit.