Richelle Mead - THORN QUEEN

“What?” asked Kiyo. He’d been watching a hummingbird dance around a red-flowered bush that flanked the house.

“I was thinking I need Art to come do landscaping in the Thorn Land.”

“I think that might blow your cover.”

“Likely. I don’t even know if he crosses over very much.”

“If he does, it’s probably only a matter of time before he finds out and tells Roland. Actually, it’s only a matter of time before anyone does that.”

I made a face. Roland knew a lot of shamans, all around the country. “Yeah, I know.”

Art stepped out through the back patio, gloves gone and a new shirt on. He set down a small cooler, carefully sliding the glass and its screen shut again. The drapes hanging on the other side of the patio were blue and purple watercolors laced with silvery threads that I envied after my own had been ripped up by a storm I’d inadvertently caused. Between his excellent décor and yard, I was feeling like a lame homeowner.

He opened the cooler. “I didn’t know what you wanted, so I brought some options.”

The cooler revealed an assortment of pop and beer. Kiyo opted for the latter; I took the former. The hot summer afternoon had cooled down to a pleasant temperature, and the shadows cast by the trees helped too. The memory of the hot journey to Dorian’s was still with me, though, and I drank my Coke gratefully.

“This is a great yard,” I said. “Wish I had the patience. Mine’s kind of a rock garden.”

Art grinned, crinkling up the lines around his eyes. They were an azure blue that stood out against his sun-weathered skin. “But that’s fashionable up there, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, kind of. But there’s a fine line between a fashionable arrangement of sand and rocks, and, well…just a pile of sand and rocks.”

He laughed again. “Well, I’m sure you have better things to do. Roland tells me you’re keeping busy now that he’s retired.”

“‘Retired’ is a dubious term. It’s hard for him to sit still, knowing I’m out there doing business by myself.”

“And I hear you’ve got some business questions to ask me?”

Right to the point. I liked that. “You’ve got a big crossroads here.”

“I do,” he agreed. “Keeps me busy.”

“You get a lot of gentry crossing over?”

He took a long sip of his beer and considered. “Well, there are always gentry crossing over.”

“Has there been an unusual amount lately? Girls in particular?”

His eyebrows rose in surprise. “Not that I’ve noticed. Why do you ask?”

“Following up on a job,” I said vaguely.

“Women cross over all the time, of course,” he mused. “But men outnumber them. Seeing a surge would be noticeable. Most of my time lately has been spent on exorcisms.”

I nodded. Until gentry and Otherworldly creatures had decided they wanted to father my child, spirits had made up the bulk of my business too. That was a normal shaman workload.

“Sorry I can’t be of more help,” added Art kindly. I must have looked disappointed. “You should check with Abigail, though.”

“She’s the other one here, right?”

“Yup. We work together sometimes. Maybe she’s noticed something I haven’t.”

I thanked Art for the info, and we spent the next hour or so chatting about assorted things. Art asked questions about Kiyo’s background. Roland could sense Kiyo’s Otherworldly nature, but Art’s blandly polite style made me suspect it wasn’t a talent he possessed. Art also wanted to know about my jobs, no doubt curious about my interest in gentry girls. I kept my answers vague, in no way coming close to the fact that I was protecting my subjects.

After making our good-byes, we headed off to the second address Roland had given me. Abigail lived in an apartment in downtown Yellow River, very different from Art’s homey location. The downtown area was actually more thriving than I would have expected. Yellow River was a small town at the end of the day, but it still had an assortment of interesting shops and restaurants. Abigail’s apartment was above an antiques store, and we climbed two flights of rickety stairs to get to her. The mysterious, dusty nature of it all was much more in line with stereotypical shaman images.

Indeed, when she answered the door, I suspected she would have met most people’s visions of a shaman. She was an older woman, gray hair styled into a long braid down her back. Her loose peasant blouse was patterned in mauve and yellow flowers, and crystal beads hung around her neck. She broke into a beatific smile when she saw us.

“Eugenie! So nice to finally meet you.”

She ushered us inside, and I introduced Kiyo. The apartment was beautifully constructed and nicer than its outside suggested-but cluttered with candles and assorted statuary. It made me feel better after Art’s immaculate home. The apartment was also filled with cats. I counted at least seven, and all of them looked up at Kiyo’s entrance. Four of them got up and rubbed against his legs.

“You’ve certainly got a way with animals,” noted Abigail.

“I’m a vet,” he explained, giving her a winning smile that tended to make women weak in the knees.

Like Art, Abigail sat us down and forced beverages on us, this time in the form of herbal tea. We started with the usual small talk. Abigail was a big fan of Roland and couldn’t say enough nice things about the work he did. I couldn’t help feeling a little bit of stepdaughterly pride. When we finally got to the issue of gentry girls, though, Abigail didn’t have much more to offer than Art had.

“Most of my work is actually along the lines of healing and spirit retrievals,” she explained. Spirit retrieval was itself a form of healing, often done when some entity was plaguing a human in a possession sort of way. I’d done it a few times but was no expert. “I don’t do much in the way of casting out. That’s Art’s specialty, but that crossroads is so big that he sometimes gets more than he can handle. So, I help out every once in a while.”

“But you haven’t noticed a surge of gentry girls?”

Abigail shook her head, making the crystal beads click together. “No, but like I said, I’m not out in the field enough to say for sure. And gentry usually aren’t so difficult to cast out…. Art tends to handle those on his own and call me in for the entities that are harder for him to get rid of.” She gave me a rueful grin. “Neither of us is as strong as you or Roland.”

I played with my tea bag, wondering how to parse this new information. Was my theory about gentry girls sneaking over here a total bust? Or were they being crafty enough to avoid detection? I usually ended up casting out gentry because they did something troubling that put them on my radar. Gentry girls slipping in among humans wouldn’t necessarily attract a lot of attention.

We thanked Abigail when we finished our tea and left for our hotel. I’d booked one that sat just on the edge of town. As we walked toward where we’d parked my car on the street, Kiyo declared that he wanted to take it over to a gas station on the corner for both gas and air for the tires. I told him I would walk down there and meet him. I wanted to browse a few of the shops before we called it a night.

Poking my head in the little stores gave me a chance to get my mind off the gentry girls and today’s disappointing intel. Most of the shops were what you’d expect for a small town. Antiques. Vintage clothing. Crafts. One, however, was a sex-toy shop, and I couldn’t help but raise my eyebrows at that. It was surprising in this town. Equally surprising was that I went in and bought something.

I met Kiyo at the gas station shortly thereafter. “Not much in the way of information,” he said as we drove out to the hotel.