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so startled, she jerked in her seat. She also felt as though she was spying on him. Yes, I’m here. How did you know?
    Not sure, just a feeling. His brow puckered, a familiar sight.
    Gus brought me here , she explained. Should I leave? Please say no.
    Stay if you like. You’ll learn another reason why I want you to leave.
    There was more than one reason?
    He turned back into the room but stepped off to the side in a very casual manner so that she had a better view of what was going on. The room was full of notables. She recognized them from having read the various Merhaine newspapers.
    But in the middle, beneath a very large round wood chandelier, a fae and an elf, both male, stood almost touching chests. Did she hear growls?
    “Humans are vermin,” the elf said.
    “That’s absurd. There are good humans and bad humans. The baker is quite acceptable. I think she smiles too much, but beyond that her intelligence is sufficient and her cupcakes are quite good, excellent in fact.”
    “Here, here,” moved about the room.
    But others grumbled.
    Abigail wasn’t hearing anything new, perhaps not as vehement as usual, but humans weren’t universally accepted.
    The elf continued. “You allowed this. You made a push to pass through all the permits for her bakery and I’ll bet you a bushel of fall apples that she’s the one that brought the Invictus tonight.”
    Abigail couldn’t have been more surprised. How on earth did her presence at a fae wedding bring on an attack of the Invictus?
    Gus elbowed her. “Don’t listen to that. There’s always some dimwit in the crowd that will cast another as a scapegoat for any bad occurrence. A few thousand years ago, he’d be the sort to throw his own child into a volcano in hopes of getting the gods to stop the neighboring tribe from marauding.”
    “What a lovely image.”
    Gus laughed. “But true, no?”
    It was at this point, however, that the entire assembly of civic leaders started shouting, making their points with flying hands. Several trolls were dancing on their feet, leaping side to side, faces red.
    Abigail glanced at Gerrod, ready to offer a telepathic joke, but she was stopped by the fierce look on his face and the way his hands had balled up.
    “Enough,” he shouted.
    The room fell silent.
    “We almost lost a child tonight, but thanks to Mistress Abigail’s courage, the boy lives.
    “We need to stay on point that this recent incursion won’t be the last. We have more critical things to resolve than the presence of a bakery in our midst. Please return to your homes and we’ll begin the process of developing strategies and organizing our civic volunteer Guard. I’ve brought out all the Guard to patrol through the night, but with forty dead, the Invictus won’t hurry back, that much I can promise you.”
    Abigail knew that the Invictus were more of a deadly gang than a marauding army. She also understood, however, that what happened tonight had never happened before.
    The crowd muttered but began to ease toward the large castle door in the southeastern corner of the room, as though the plug to a drain had been pulled.
    She glanced back at Gerrod and saw that his left hand twitched. He shook it slightly and even rubbed his hands together. When he released his hand, and the strange shaking continued, he shoved his hand into the deep pocket of his leathers.
    “What’s wrong with his hand?” Abigail asked.
    “Did you see something?”
    “A twitch. A tremor maybe.”
    Gus sighed, a deep rush of air. “This isn’t good. I need to contact one of his doneuses .”
    Abigail felt light-headed suddenly. She knew what a doneuse was, a polite French expression that meant blood donor in Realm terms. She wanted to protest. She felt strangely protective of Gerrod suddenly. He’d kissed her. She didn’t want another woman, no matter the specie, offering up her wrist or her neck or any other vein of her body, to the Mastyr of Merhaine.
    That was her job.
    That was her