An hour after midnight’s chime Chester was gone and I was in front of my chamber pot, losing another argument with my body. Since I didn’t remember eating I could only conclude that it had resorted to scavenging unnecessary organs for material. My attempt at sardonic self-deprecation died abruptly when I noticed the blood, bright as a banner, amid the bile. I wasn’t supposed to be vomiting blood.

And then the nightmare began. First the seizures. And then the hypersensitivity. And the pain, starting with my dragon-chewed parts and flaring from there to encompass the rest of me. And when that episode released me, the circuit began again. In between episodes I dragged myself clear of walls and furniture, the better to save my flailing limbs from injury, or made feeble attempts to dump the chamber pot, or wished desperately and impotently for tea, alcohol, or for the damned poppy to work.

As my body and mind warred through the night, exhaustion blurred my thoughts into indistinct emotional gradients. Rage. Fear. Depression. At last a weary resignation without beginning or end. I was here. I would always be here, in this place without control, without hope.

Morning’s wan sunlight washed my sweat-stained face and pricked blood-sullen colors from beneath my closed eyelids. I stared dully across the floor at the hearth, feeling the twisted fabric of the rug beneath my ribs. I had no energy to rise. My entire body felt like a giant bruise mediated here and there by the sharp grasp of pulled muscles. The taste in my mouth was better left undescribed, though blood was the least of its flavors. I was parched—God, how I longed for water!—and weaker than a newborn foal.

Naturally, Cliffton chose that moment to arrive.

“Young Master Locke,” he said, standing very properly upright alongside my door. “Do you require assistance?”

I stared at him. Surely some dry witticism was required at this point. ‘Why no, dear fellow, it is my custom to take my leisure sprawled akimbo on the floor.’ Or perhaps, ‘Good gracious, man, whatever gave you such an idea?’

What I really needed, alas, was assistance. But I couldn’t bring myself to ask for it. I wanted autonomy so badly that relinquishing even the pretense of it was impossible. I wanted to be the Morgan Locke who needed no help, and could not except by the complicity of others. So I said, “Why yes, Cliffton. It would be a great help to me if you could prepare some tea.”

“Of course,” he said... and left me there.

It was the one thing that saved me from hating him. My father’s work as ambassador to Candor and Haven-on-High had guaranteed us prestige, and my parents had many servants. Most of them had known me since childhood and were incapable of concealing their pity or restraining themselves from helping me. Alone among them Cliffton left me alone if I so requested. If I looked like hell’s dogs had been chewing on me, still he would take me for my word if I told him all I needed was for him to fetch me tea and biscuits.

Knowing he was here gave me the strength to force myself to my hands and knees. I did not suspect him of indiscretion; I had no evidence that anything he observed during his weekly visits returned to my parents. But I had no doubt if he found me in dire enough circumstance he would report it. He bowed to my need for privacy, but my parents paid his salary.

“While the tea is brewing, shall I see to the laundry?” he asked. “Or perhaps, the cleaning.”

I winced. I’d made as good an effort as possible to wash up after myself but I hadn’t had much time between seizures to do it properly. But if I gave him no direction, he would stand in the kitchen for the hour my parents required of him, motionless and inscrutable and utterly conspicuous. “As you have time,” I said. “The laundry first.”

“Of course,” he said and walked with stately stride into my bedroom. How he managed such poise with such a stout body I had no idea. But with him out of sight I could finish the agonizing process of drawing myself to my feet, using the kitchen table as a crutch. By the time he reappeared to tend to the whistling tea kettle I was upright and able to accept the cup with somewhat steady hands. My skin felt tender and new.

“Scones, young master?” he asked.

The thought of food nauseated, but I had to eat. “That would be pleasant, thank you.”

So he served me scones with clotted cream, which I ignored, and lemon marmalade, of which I made sparing use. Bite by aching bite I chewed my way through breakfast while he cleaned, washed and tidied. Such an embarrassment, to be so thoroughly accommodated. I knew it was expected of us to have servants, but the need for them felt like an admission of weakness. I wanted nothing more than to be self-sufficient, to have the strength to clean my own flat with Cliffton’s casual ease.

I finished my meal as he unpacked the last of the foodstuffs he’d brought. “Does the young master require aught else?”

“No, thank you, Cliffton.”

He nodded and bowed, and without another word saw himself out. I stared glumly at the closed door. So efficient. Would that I were so.

When the flush ran up my arms I groaned and pushed my plate away. “Enough!” I said. “Enough with the feeling-so-much and the hearing of voices and the pain and the jerking like a broken puppet. Enough, already.”

Beneath my skin, the tingling shimmered. I felt illuminated, as if someone had traced me in outline with gold leaf. For a moment—oh, so brief a moment—I almost felt... as if... it belonged there. As if it presaged a peace, an encompassing of the world entire and my place in it—

—and then a clatter issued forth from the closet, followed by a yelp. Startled, I swung my buzzing head toward my bedroom. Did I imagine it? But no, with the clarity of my hypersensitive ears I heard scrabbling and then a hasty silence. Another hallucination, perhaps, but a curious one. Demons, angels, dragons... all very formidable, very impressive and fantastic. I couldn’t imagine why I’d hallucinate a burglar hiding in my bedroom closet. Not just any burglar, but an incredibly inept one. Despite knowing it had to be false, I staggered to my feet and made my way to the bedroom.

The quiet emanating from the closet had a distinctly nervous quality. I set my tingling fingers on the knob, caressing the smooth arc of the brass handle. When it began to chafe, I turned it and opened the door.

Two pairs of eyes stared up at me, lilac and ember-orange, attached to incredibly unlikely creatures. One covered its muzzle in alarm and the other glared at it in apparent irritation.

“Now look what you’ve done,” the larger one hissed in an angel’s alto.

“Sorry!” the smaller one said in her higher voice, ears flattening to her skull. “I didn’t mean to!”

I stared at them both. Those were the voices from my recent hallucination, but these creatures were not angels. Not unless the artists who’d rendered them in the Cathedral’s stained glass had failed magnificently in their charge.

“Well, you’ve found us,” said the first. “We were planning to wait until you were better, but... guess there isn’t much reason now to hide.” She poured herself out of the closet as if she hadn’t a bone in her body. The smaller one followed her more hesitantly. While the first paced my bedroom, this smaller one knelt and looked up at me. She was shaped like a person... a child-sized one, not even four feet tall. But she was covered in soft white fur dappled with golden spots, and her long tail had white and caramel stripes to match the ones on her pointed muzzle and the tips of her conical ears. She wore a pale leather collar with a metal tag, brushed at its rim by a short bob of white hair. Her companion, by contrast, was a foot taller, plain gray with a white and black tail, black ears and a shimmering fall of white hair that reached her thighs. Her collar was black and the insides of her ears had been tattooed with silver stars and crescent moons.

They were utterly improbable. But they smelled... ah, like musk and lilac, and their voices....

“Look at his expression,” the gray one said. “He doesn’t even know what we are. I know you tasted him, but are you sure?”

“He’s the one,” the smaller animal said.

I found my voice with difficulty. “Talking foxes. I had no idea I had such an imagination.”

“We’re not foxes,” the smaller one said. “We’re genets. And we’re real, just like you, Master.”

“And we can talk because we were created that way by elven magics,” the gray one said.

The smaller one shivered. I could watch the sun ripple across every strand of fur on her side, so acute had my eyesight grown. My head ached with the strain of holding so much vision. Even her soft voice was too much. “I wish you wouldn’t say that, Kelu.”

“Elf-made, elf-made, elf-made!” the larger one chanted.

“Enough!” I said. “The elves are dead and gone lo these many years, my dear figments. They don’t exist, and neither do you.”

“We do so exist,” the gray one said. “And so do the elves who sent us to find you, curse their names.”

“Kelu!”

“Oh Almond,” the larger one said, rolling her eyes heavenward. “They’re not here to hear us.”

“What about him?”

“Yes, look at him,” the gray one said. “He doesn’t even know who he is, much less what we are to him.”

“You are small sparks in my head,” I said, reaching backward until I could clutch at the closet door. “Or large ones. Caused by my not being capable of containing the seizures or mind-storms or whatever it is that’s killing me. I assure you, I know precisely what you are.”

“We aren’t hallucinations,” the white-and-gold genet said, ears drooping.

I laughed. “Prove it.”

“Gladly,” the larger one said, and lunged for me. Her teeth fastened on my wrist and ground into my flesh. Bright spears of pain shot up my arm and I fell. Her tongue lapping against the resulting wounds felt too hot, too delicate. I squirmed, bathed in a sudden sweat.

“KELU!” the smaller one cried, appalled.

“He asked.”

I smelled animal musk and champagne and honey. I was drowning in sensation.

“Move,” the little one said, and I felt the tongue leave my wrist. A warm body pressed along my ribs, the petite chain of a spine flush to my side. She drew my arm up around her body until I could rest my hand over her heart. If she had breasts, they were too small to be felt through the thick ruff of fur on her chest. So soft... I found myself caressing it absently, feeling the slow throb of her heart through her skin. I turned to fold myself around her, and she purred, a low vibration against my stomach and chest.

The sensitivity faded. The aches in my joints grew faint. The noise in my head receded. I sighed against the bob of her white hair.

“Well,” said the larger one, subdued, “he really is an elf.”

My eyes opened. It seemed a pity to speak, but I couldn’t let such a comment pass. “Pardon?”

“We came to find you to bring you home,” the larger one said. “Your brother’s dead, so it’s time for you to marry his fiancée.”

I laughed and cuddled the smaller one closer. She wriggled until she had slotted herself into all my hollow spaces, and the sense of well-being increased. I felt drowsy and warm, as if she was a puddle of sunlight. A huggable one. “If you want to convince me that you’re not illusory, you’re going to contrive a better story than that.”

“It’s not a story,” said the pale one. She twisted her head up to look at me with those lilac-petal eyes. “It’s true. The Lady Amoret sent us to find you. She was to marry the King, but he has vanished. You are the only other elf of royal blood.”

“Royal blood,” I said, laughing and rubbing my jaw against her shining hair. “Let me guess: I have an entire island to myself, and rafts of servants... a harem of beautiful women, perhaps. And a crown... I must be a king, yes? Some long-lost prince.”

“You can live wherever you please, Master,” the smaller one said. “And every elf is your servant.”

“No harem,” the gray one said. “Poor you.”

“But you are the king’s brother, and you have the royal blood, which makes you either a prince or the king, since the king is dead.”

My idle caress of her chest fluff stopped. I managed a weak laugh. “Of course. Naturally. Me, a prince.”

“An unexpected one,” the gray one said. “Your mother had to work very hard to have you, given the way things are with elves.”

“My mother,” I said firmly, “lives in a house not far from here, with my very married father when he is in town. Admittedly this is not often, but I assure you I would have noticed a brother. And both of them are assuredly human.”

“You are an elf,” the smaller one said.

“If elves look anything like they do in their portraits,” I said, unable to help a touch of bitterness, “not only am I not an elf, but you are both blind. The people in those paintings are as like to men as willows are to oaks. And I assure you, there is no word in the entire text about elves who are cripples.”

“Nevertheless, Master,” the small one said. She pressed back into me, driving all thoughts of anger and disappointment from my mind, replacing them with... sweet things. The smell of almonds and lilacs and a sense of peace and release.

“Well, if he’s the one, we should make arrangements,” the gray one said. She leaned backward, arching toward her tail with a grace that looked improbable. “We need to get him back before the sea goes rough with the summer storms.” She jerked at something on her tail. “Rrgh. Tangled. Stupid place to put it. Wish we could have taken bags.”

“Why couldn’t you have?” I asked, amused, though the situation made perfect sense to me: why would I hallucinate animals in clothing?

“Because slaves aren’t allowed to have things,” the gray one said, baring her teeth.

The little one in my arms flattened her ears, tickling my chin as they swept back.

“If you’re not allowed to have things,” I asked, “what are you fiddling with?”

“Something that belongs to you,” she said and pulled that something free. She thrust it at me. “Here, take it.”

I pulled it off her palm by the long steel chain: so elegantly crafted to be made of so prosaic a metal, but it was obviously not silver. At the end of this chain hung a pendant of sorts, a lozenge of steel stamped with three circles, each inscribed with peculiar marks, from which depended a crimson tassel. “Strange jewelry,” I said, chafing my thumb and forefinger over the thin metal. It felt alarmingly real, but then, so did the genets. Smooth and cool.

“It’s your name,” the smaller one said.

“Morgan,” I said. “Morgan Locke of Evertrue. Did I introduce myself? Come to that, did you?”

“Is that what they call you here?” the smaller one asked, looking up at me.

I laughed. “What else? The name I was born with, little mote of gold. Do I have some other elf name that you will now divulge? With much fanfare? A resplendent name, no doubt, longer than my arm.”

The gray one said, “Maybe you weren’t paying attention when we said you were a bastard born to a mother who fled out here to the middle of human lands? No one knows your name. No one even knew you existed until ten years back when this pendant showed up in the sorcerer’s hands.”

“If no one knows my name,” I said, grinning, “then how—” holding up the pendant, “—was this written?”

She shrugged. “What do I know about writing?” she asked, baring her fangs at me. “They don’t teach slaves to read.”

“We’re not slaves,” the smaller one said sadly.

“Yes we are,” the larger one said. “I wish you’d stop being so... so... so accepting.” She lifted her chin and said, “I’m Kelu. My name means ‘slave’ in the Gift, which is at least honest. Her name is Almond Fourteen, because she’s the fourteenth genet bred out of the line of the Almond dam, and all the numbered Almonds before her are dead. So you can just call her Almond, because no one is going to confuse her with her sisters, who’ll have been born after we left.”

“I see,” I said, blinking at her. I wondered what seed all these sordid stories had sprung from, what cruel subtext I’d read into my historical studies had prompted me to imagine animal slaves. But then, how was it any worse than the demons eating me alive? I shrugged. “So they don’t teach you to read. Who taught you to speak?”

“We all know languages, or else what good is it?” Kelu said, ears flattening. “If we can’t understand the commands given to us by our masters,” spit out with such venom that Almond flinched in my arms, “then we’re not very useful, are we?”

“Ah,” I said, “but you aren’t speaking... ah... Elven. You’re speaking Lit.”

She shrugged. “So do the humans who took us from the Archipelago.”

More and more curious. “So there are humans where you live? Humans who know elves?”

“They serve the elves,” Almond said softly. “As we do.”

How could prodigies of my over-taxed mind give me raised hairs on the back of my neck? My stomach tightened in unease. I looked at Kelu, waiting to see if she would have some acerbic comment, but she merely looked grim.

“I see,” I said. “So it’s better to be an elf than to be human, eh?”

“Of course,” Almond said.

That sense of unease grew more distinct. I opened my mouth to pursue it when the front door shook beneath Chester’s knock.

“Back into the closet,” Kelu said, grabbing Almond’s tail and tugging.

“But—”

“Her command, and for once it makes sense,” Kelu said. “Humans shouldn’t see us. Come on!”

Almond leaned up and licked the base of my jaw with a warm tongue. “Sorry, Master, sorry—” and then she let herself be pulled back among my clothes.

Kelu leaned toward me, hand on the knob, and said, “Don’t give us away. We don’t want to become curiosities in some human’s menagerie. At least the elves let us drink.”

“Of course,” I said, though I wondered what cruelty she’d undergone to imagine we would allow her to die of thirst. Alas for Chester driving away these oh-so-fascinating visions.

Kelu huffed and closed the door behind them.

Again the knock. I pulled myself to my feet and headed back to the front room...

...I could walk. Oh, there was still pain, but I no longer felt constrained by my own muscle tension. I was so astonished that I stood before the door without answering it, wrapped in my own reverie.

That third rap had a touch of desperation. I shook myself and opened the door before Chester could knock it down. He was standing with his hand raised, wearing a startled look.

“I thought something had happened,” he said.

“Just slow getting to the door,” I said, smiling, and stepped out of the way so he could enter. “I didn’t realize how late into the day it had gotten.”

“Almost supper,” Chester agreed, pulling off his coat. “Have you eaten?”

“Not since breakfast,” I said. “But I’m not hungry.”

Chester eyed me. “How can you eat so little?”

“Habit?” I said. I had never really wondered. Better not to overeat than to do so and end up wracked and losing the meal a few hours later. “I don’t know. Would you like tea?”

“Always,” he said, seating himself at the table. I went to the cupboard to take down the tin and found my fingers knotted up in the steel cord. A very persistent hallucination, that one. I glanced at it once more and moved to set it on the counter.

“What have you got there?” Chester asked.

“Tea?” I said, holding the tin.

“No, no,” he said. “The necklace. I didn’t know you were taken with jewelry.”

I set the tin down. The bottom took a long time to reach the counter. “You mean this?” I asked, letting it drop from my hand to the length of its chain. It swung, pendulum-heavy, glimmering.

“Yes,” he says. “Looks curious... is that a design on it?”

He could see it. By God, he could see it. I couldn’t believe. I walked toward him and offered it to him and he took it; I was so busy staring at his fingers touching its surface that I didn’t notice him sitting up until he exclaimed, “Morgan! Where did you get this? This is amazing!”

“What?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

“This pendant,” he said. “It’s a pedigree! A pedigree in the ancient glyphs!”

“You can read it?” I asked, staring at him.

“It’s not a thing to be read,” he said. “Not the way you mean. It’s not language. It’s... a system of marking a person’s place. Far easier than deciphering the language, I tell you. All the old stelai are signed with them. Here, look.” He lay the pendant down. “Three circles. This first tells you the birth order and the sex of the person... in this case, he’s a second son. The second circle tells you the two families that combined to produce the person... whether they did so in wedlock and the current status of the person—if he’s dead or alive. These marks above the two bloodline signs... they tell you the status of that bloodline when the person was born: was it prominent? Rich? Or falling down the ladder?”

I was trying very hard not to shake. My voice, I hoped, was nonchalant as I said, “And this particular person?”

“Mmm,” he said. “One family very well off, probably... I think this sign is nobility. This other is also, but without any markers for how well off they are... strange, that. Perhaps the jeweler didn’t know? The union that produced this second son wasn’t... ah... legitimate. The person’s still alive.” He tapped one of the signs. “This one—the father’s bloodline it is, you can tell by the sign next to it—I’ve seen before. Very important family. Here, wait.” He set the pendant aside and reached for the folio, flipping through it at speed but somehow still with care for its fragile pages. “Ah! Look!”

I looked over his shoulder to find myself confronted with the image of the honey-eyed king.

“See,” he said. “He wears it on his scarf.”

“Blood of kings,” I murmured.

“So the evidence suggests,” Chester said, enthused. “This final circle tells you the family of the person now and his status in it. Important, as sometimes people seem to mysteriously show up in third or fourth families... men and women both. Perhaps you can marry or be adopted into whatever bloodline is most advantageous? It’s hard to tell. But in this case, we have the royal bloodline again and... no sign above it. Curious. There should at least be something there. What a mystery this person is!”

My fingers had gone numb. He could really see it. Not only that, but he told a story similar to theirs. I turned and went to the closet, leaving a bewildered Chester behind me.

“Locke? Where’d you get this?”

I opened the door. They stared up at me.

“Close the door!” Kelu hissed.

“You’re real,” I said. “I’m not imagining you.”

“What in the name of angels are you talking about?” Chester asked, his voice closer. “You’re not having another fit, are you?”

Kelu reached for the door. I held it out of reach.

“What have you got th—God!” Chester stopped beside me. “You didn’t tell me you’d gotten pets.”

“We’re not pets!” Kelu hissed.

“Yes, we are,” Almond said.

“We’re slaves,” Kelu said to her, and then to me, “And you are an idiot.”

“Kelu!”

“They talk,” Chester said, eyes wide.

“They are the source of your pedigree pendant,” I said.

“Come on,” Kelu said, pulling at Almond. “We have to leave.”

“And go where?” Almond asked, ears drooping. “We found him, Kelu! We have to bring him home!”

“If we stay here,” Kelu said as Chester and I watched, transfixed by fascination, “they’re going to let it go that we’re here, and then the humans will trap us and we’ll never be able to go back.”

“If you’re slaves,” I said. “Why would you want to return to your masters?”

“Because we love them!” Almond exclaimed and threw herself at me. I stepped back once, not because of her slight weight, but because her enthusiasm gave her an unexpected momentum.

“Because if we don’t, we’ll never taste them again and then I’ll go mad,” Kelu said. “They broke me and now I need them.” She bared her needle fangs at me. “You taste right, but there’s something wrong with you. I prefer my blood healthy.”

“You drink blood?” Chester asked, horrified.

“We drink elven blood,” Kelu said with a predatory grin. “So you’re safe from us, human.”

I looked down at Almond. “You drink elven blood as well?”

“Only when I’ve been very good,” she said. “As a reward. Or when I’m injured, so that the blood ladders can help me heal.” She wiggled a little, long tail swaying. “But oh, Master, it’s so good. We all want it all the time, especially if it’s special.”

“All right,” Chester said. “Enough! Locke! An explanation, please?”

“I thought these two were hallucinations,” I said. “But I see now that they’re not, unless my condition is catching.” I grinned at him with little humor. “So you know almost as much as I do. They appear to be... elven pets? Sent here to drag me back to—”

“—claim his birthright,” Almond said. “He is a prince.”

“This prince?” Chester asked, holding up the pendant.

Almond nodded.

Chester glanced at me and grinned. “You, a bastard prince of the elves? What’s next, Ivy as fairy queen?”

“With a harem of men to do her bidding,” I said.

“We’d all sign up,” Chester said and laughed. “Here, you, creatures... what are you?”

“Genets,” Almond said. “We’re genets. I’m Almond and that’s Kelu.”

“Amazing,” Chester said. “Just amazing. They look like... furry children. How old are you two?”

“I’m two,” Almond said. “And Kelu is nine.”

“Positively senescent,” Chester said.

“It’s not a joke,” Kelu said. “I’m the oldest genet, and that’s only because they messed up and made the first generation too long-lived. New genets like Almond will only live to be six or seven.”

“Six or seven... elf years?” Chester guessed.

The look Kelu gave him was positively scathing. “We mark the same moon and sun you do. When I say seven years, I mean seven years.”

“You mean... seven years as I am only twenty-six,” Chester said. “So just about a sixth of my lifespan, and one of you would be dead.”

“Yes,” Kelu said.

“That makes no sense,” he muttered. “Why would anyone create a companion that you have to replace every six years?”

“You are idiots,” Kelu said. “We’re not companions. We’re slaves. We’re supposed to be replaced. To make more money for the blood-flag that breeds us, and so that when our masters grow tired of us they don’t have to kill us themselves, they can just wait for us to die and buy a shiny new genet in a different color.”

I looked down at Almond’s head. She was trembling, still clutching my waist. I set my hand on her hair. “You’re really going to expire in four years?” I asked her.

“Yes, Master,” she said. “While my body is strong and I am able to please you, I will live to serve you. The elves made it so I would never be a burden to you in my old age.”

Chester glanced at her, then met my eyes. “Are we talking about the same elves?” he asked me, hushed.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I honestly don’t know.”

They were tired, the genets, particularly after days of stalking me. Not long after our conversation, Kelu curled herself into a ball in front of the fire and fell asleep and Almond insisted on doing the same at my feet. Chester poured our tea, handed me my cup and said, “What... the... hell.”

“Don’t ask me,” I said. “I didn’t know they were coming. I didn’t even know they existed.”

“What are you going to do with them?” he asked.

“I haven’t the first idea,” I said. I arched a brow at him. “Do you have any suggestions?”

“None,” he said. “Not even a hint of one.” He shook his head. “My God, Morgan.”

“I know,” I said. He was disturbed, Chester, to be calling me by my first name. “I don’t suppose you came across any mention of miniature animal slaves in any of your reading.”

“Nothing. Not a thing. The closest I’ve seen has been the occasional image of a drake here and there.”

I laughed. “God! Don’t tell me I should expect dragons next.”

“I should hope not,” Chester said. “Where would we put them?” He drummed tan fingers on the table. “Locke—how do you feel?”

“At a loss, as I’m not exactly the pet-keeping sort,” I said.

“No.” He shook his head. “I mean, how do you feel? You look... you look right.”

I glanced at him. With Almond warming my toes and the cup warming my hands, I felt caught between two perfect poles... and my body between them was languid and strong and tranquil. Not a pain in it, not an aching joint, not a twinge.

I set my cup aside, unnerved. It was the feeling I’d had while holding Almond, but persisting somehow. Persisting and faded out of the forefront... as, I supposed, everyone’s health did.

When they were healthy.

“Do you see a difference?” I asked him.

He nodded. “You look alive.” A lopsided grin. “No offense.”

He could see it. I could feel it. I looked down at the coil of caramel and white at my feet, at the way the fur separated and bristled as her ribs lifted with every torpid breath. “Now that makes absolutely no sense,” I said. “Perhaps I am having a good day.”

“Have you ever had a day this good?” Chester asked.

“No,” I admitted. “Not that I can recall.”

“So... best day you’ve ever had, arrival of elven constructs,” Chester said, putting out first one hand, than the other, palm up. “Hmm. Could it be... a correlation?”

“Which does not imply causation. One incident might be coincidence.”

“And if it’s not?” Chester asked.

I laughed. “Then I suppose I’ll keep them.”

He said, “So, no intention of going back with them, eh?”

“Back with them... where, to elf-land? Where someone has mixed up my identity with some bastard prince’s?” I shook my head. “Be reasonable, Chester. It’s a fantasy. And even if it’s not, monarchies are not particularly known for their honest self-portrayals. It’s probably some horrendously despotic country, and to travel there is to ask for deportment, enslavement, or something worse. You heard the genets. Humans aren’t well-regarded there.”

“But... elves!” Chester said. “Think of the research!”

I laughed. “Keep dreaming, friend.”

He sighed and opened his ink bottle, drew out a fresh page of notes. “Can’t blame a man for wishing. Mind if I copy out your pendant there?”

“Not at all.”

The pendant changed hands. Chester turned it in his fingers. “Would be an amazing thing if you actually were this second son.”

“I can’t argue that,” I said, and with Almond sleeping on my toes returned to my own studies.