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people, and I intend to see you fulfill it.”
    “How could I possibly have had any important obligations at thirteen? Let me guess … I’m royalty.”
    Lelani laughed. “Your mother was a tavern wench.”
    “… Okay, you’re a time traveler. We have to save the future!”
    Her cool manner and the earnestness of her gaze were unsettling. This was either the most amazing prank ever or the woman was deeply disturbed.
    “You’re mocking me again,” she said. “You do have a healthy imagination, though. Good thing, because you’ll need it.”
    “Now you’re mocking me,” he said, throwing her vernacular back at her.
    “Things are seldom what they seem. There are thirteen years of your life which you cannot account for. Open your mind. Your origins will challenge everything you hold to be true—about your role, your world, even your universe.”
    Seth burst out laughing. She was a sideshow drama queen; part carnie hack, part Rod Serling. “You’re so full of shit, sister…”
    They heard shuffling in the bedroom, the clatter of blinds. Earl reappeared a moment later. He threw a ziplock bag full of herb on the table. “You owe me a hundred.”
    “Put it on my tab.”
    “Dude, you already owe me for last week. I’m not running a charity.”
    “ Dude, I’m tapped out right now. I’m good for it.”
    Lelani picked up the bag and examined the contents. She arched an eyebrow at Seth. “Supplies?” The wave of contempt he imagined earlier had returned.
    “Look, we have nothing to talk about,” he said, grabbing the bag from her. “You’re a space cadet.”
    Lelani pulled out a photograph from her satchel and put it before him on the table—a man and a woman embracing cheek-to-cheek and smiling.
    “Who are they?” Earl asked, craning his neck.
    Seth was silent. He stared at the photo in disbelief, picked it up with both hands as though to disprove its existence, and fondled the glossy image with his thumb as one would a fine piece of velvet. A match had been lit in the dark recesses of his mind.
    “Where the hell did you get this?”
    “We have something to talk about after all.”
    3
    Alphabet City was a freshly shaken snow globe—four inches already on the ground, with no end in sight. Lelani’s hair billowed against the white backdrop of Tompkins Square Park like a flame. Its only competition came from the lights on a fire engine that blared past them on Tenth Street. Lelani refused Seth’s suggestion that they take a taxi back to his apartment.
    “I’ll pay,” he insisted.
    “I wouldn’t fit.”
    “Do you mean physically?”
    “Yes.”
    “Are you kidding?”
    “Quite serious.”
    The knowledge she held boosted Seth’s tolerance for her eccentric nature.
    “So dish,” he said.
    “Dish?”
    “How’d you come by a picture of my parents?”
    “Parham and Lita Raincrest were not your biological parents.”
    Seth’s heart sank into his gut. “I’ve been an orphan my entire life?”
    “No. It was a cover. You were part of a group that emigrated here years ago to raise an infant. The environment at home was not safe. We lost contact with the group shortly after your arrival.”
    “Where’s the kid now? Where’s the rest of the group?”
    “I wish I knew,” she said. “You are the first one I’ve tracked. Luckily, you retained your name.”
    A name that belonged to people who allegedly weren’t even his parents, Seth realized. “Who were my parents, then?”
    “Your mother is Jessica Granger, a tavern wench at the Grog and Grubb Inn. Your father … unknown. A merchant who visited the pub. Once.”
    “What city? Toronto?”
    “You are not Canadian.”
    From orphan to bastard in less than five minutes, Seth thought. “You said Jessica is my mother.”
    “To the best of my knowledge she still works at the Grog.”
    The flood of questions came too fast for Seth to absorb: What was his mother like? Was coming to the U.S. his own choice? A fear grew within. To his surprise,