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“Then maybe you shouldn’t be.”
    “Are you serious?” I gasped. “You know I should be. You know what’s going on with those fan pods.”
    He shook his head. “Not really. We don’t know what’s going on with them, only that they’ve been increasing rapidly in size and number recently. My father is… was concerned about them, but there’s no proof there’s any harm in them.”
    His nonchalant demeanor was ticking me off. Were the Light Elves really so above-it-all? And did my former “rebel” boyfriend suddenly think exactly like the rest of them? My blood pressure was rising along with the volume of my voice.
    “No harm? They’re going to glamour her brains out! Emmy will do and say whatever Vallon Foster tells her to, and she’ll think she’s happy about it. She won’t be Emmy anymore. And what about what happened to that girl Allison Douglas? They did an autopsy, you know, and couldn’t find any reason she died. She was nineteen years old, Lad. And my mom said the body looked totally normal when it arrived at the funeral home. Nineteen-year-old girls don’t drop dead for no reason. They did something to her. Her family said the police out there aren’t even investigating—I’m sure the detectives were glamoured, too.”
    He held up a hand to stop my rant, the expression on his face torn between regret and annoyance. “I’m sorry about your friend, Ryann—I am—but I can’t do anything to help you.”
    “What?” I was having a hard time believing what I’d just heard. Did he not care at all? What happened to my sweet, open-minded, open-hearted boyfriend?
    “I can’t help you,” he repeated, confirming that the Lad I’d known and loved had apparently died right along with his father.
    “You mean you won’t,” my voice was choked with the threat of angry tears.
    “I’m sorry. I can’t leave Altum. I can’t afford to give any of my time to this. Even if I could, I’m not sure how much help I could be to you. I had a very limited relationship with the Dark Elves before. And now since my father’s—after he called off the wedding and what happened afterward—our relations with the Dark Elves are even more strained.”
    “Wait…” A new suspicion hit me like a poison-tipped arrow. “Do you blame me for what happened to your father? Do you think his murder was related to the cancelled wedding?”
    He hesitated before answering, giving a long, slow blink. “I’m not sure what to think right now, Ryann. That’s one reason I’m so busy—I’m trying to discover who’s responsible for his death. But no, I don’t blame you. I didn’t want the marriage. I was only too happy to walk away from it when Father told me I could.” He paused. “I have only myself to blame for that.”
    But if his father had been killed because of reneging on the marriage contract, at least some of the blame had to fall on me. I was the reason for it. If Lad had never met me, he probably would have been happy to marry a beautiful Elven girl of royal blood, even if she was the daughter of the Dark Elves’ leader. The union had made political sense to all of them, and in the brief moments I saw her, she certainly seemed to be in favor of it.
    “Have you spoken to Vancia since then?” I asked in a small voice.
    Lad’s entire body went still. His eyes softened for a moment as he fixed them on mine. And then they turned back to glistening green stone and held something that looked a lot like pity.
    He stood, obviously preparing to leave. “I have to go back, Ryann. I don’t have time to deal with your… insecurities and jealousy. I know your concern about your friend seems like a very big thing to you right now, but I’m sure she’ll be fine.” His lips rolled in to form a tight line. “Don’t send me any more messages. It’s hard on both of us to meet like this, and… I won’t come next time. So please, just—don’t.”
    He disappeared over the edge of the nest, leaving me standing