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had enough stress as it was, without Lex’s baby sister around.
    “Drunk teen alchemists. They wanted to brew butterbeer, and it got out of hand. I blame Harry Potter.” Marie smiled, and it reminded me of Lex. There wasn’t much of a physical resemblance between the two—apparently he took after their dad and the girls all looked like their mother. Except for Marie, who looked like an anime character. Or a rock star. Even their accents were a little different. Lex’s drawl was smooth and smoky, and Marie’s was sassy.
    “Kids today,” I tsk ed. “Any new apartment leads?”
    “Yeah, there’s a condo in Oak Park that I’m lookin’ at. Would really cut down on the commute,” she replied. “But there’s somethin’ else I should mention.”
    “Great. Now what happened? You’re not sleeping with that chronicler you’re always talking about, are you?” I asked bluntly. Marie was a free spirit, and I often wondered if her late nights were due to more than just guardian business.
    “Didn’t Lex tell you I date girls?”
    “Yeah, but you could be bi.”
    Marie blinked at me, her blue eyes wide. She swallowed her mouthful of sandwich and leaned back in her chair. “You know, you’re the first person to have thought of that. I dated boys back home in high school, and my family assumed I was straight. I switched to girls in college, and they thought I was a lesbian. No one ever considered I just might like both.”
    I shrugged. “Not a lot of people do. Consider it, I mean. You’re either gay or straight in the movies or on TV.”
    “True enough. But no, I’m not sleeping with Brian. I might. I’ve considered it. Don’t tell Lex— he’ll have an aneurysm.”
    “No kidding.”
    I hadn’t met Brian Dannaher, but I knew he was the third chronicler living in the area. I liked Michael Black well enough, and Simon was…well, I didn’t hate his guts. If Marie liked Dannaher, he must be okay. Though her taste was questionable—she had pink hair, after all.
    Marie set her sandwich down. “That wasn’t what I wanted to tell you. After I dealt with the alchemist kids, I had a call forwarded to me from an old summoner couple. Grandparents. They hadn’t heard from their son and his family for a few days and wanted me to check up on them.”
    “Doesn’t sound like guardian business.”
    “It’s not. Not usually, anyway. Their council wasn’t answering their calls and…” she trailed off, wincing.
    “And?” I prompted.
    “They didn’t want to call you. Family’s faerie-blooded.”
    I frowned down into my bowl of cereal, listening to its soothing crackling as the milk tried to drown it. “They say why not?”
    “Yeah,” she replied, but didn’t elaborate. Marie didn’t have to.
    I’d heard it often enough, ever since my first day on the job. Most magicians didn’t want to work with me. For one, I was a kinslayer. Killing your own didn’t bother magicians as much as it used to, but the sad fact was we were still outnumbered by the straights, and historically magicians got twitchy about killing each other (with the exception of sorcerers, vamps, and shifters, who are special cases). Even though my dad deserved a death sentence, the kinder, gentler opinion was that I should have spared him. Shown some sort of mercy that would prove to the world that I was a good person.
    I dropped the spoon and then rubbed my face with my hands. “What happened?”
    “I looked the son’s place over. No sign of him, his wife, or his two kids. Looks like they were snatched during breakfast. Food still on the table and everything.”
    “Kids. Fucking hell. How can they justify torturing kids?” Disgusted, I pushed my bowl away.
    “Same way everyone else does. They don’t think of us as people, or of those kids as kids. We’re just things to dissect, like worms or frogs.” Marie shrugged, picked up her sandwich, and took another bite. “No sign of who took them, or where they were taken. As