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“I’m not going out tonight, not with that Fae hanging around.”
    “Psh, we don’t need a babysitter, Vincenzo.”
    “I know, I just don’t feel right leaving you guys tonight. Plus I have to think about these visions.”
    Noni smiled and patted my arm as she took the empty fruit plate to the sink. I helped clean, and polished off the rest of the wine, before heading back to my room.
    The wine had gone to my head, and I’d eaten more than I should have, so the first thing I wanted to do when I got to my room was take off my pants. It took a few minutes of digging before I found a nice soft pair of boxer briefs with a closed fly. Not that anyone in this house would care, but I preferred not to walk around with my junk hanging out.
    So it was a few minutes before I realized the journal wasn’t on my bed where I’d left it.
    I checked the dresser, just in case the wine had dulled my memory. Then the bookcase, then the nightstand on the other side of the bed where I knew I would never have left it because I would have had to walk around the whole bed to put it there…no journal. Shit . I lowered my head, trying to think. Had I taken the journal into the kitchen with me? Then I saw it—faint footprints on the floor, the water soaking into the old wood even as I watched. Shit .
    “Mom!”
    We were Italian, but we’d never been a yelling family. She came immediately at my shout.
    “What’s the matter?”
    “He was here.” I met her eyes. “He took Nunu’s journal.”
    She stared at me until I almost cried at the fear and confusion in her expression. No one should be able to enter our home without our knowledge. Ever. Especially not while we were there, eating and laughing in the next room.
    “You’re sure?” But she believed me, there was no hope in her question.
    I just nodded. “He left footprints.” I pointed to the floor idiotically.
    Noni shuffled in, wearing a long nightgown and crocheted slippers even though it was like eighty degrees in the house. “Let me see.”
    I sat on the bed and drew my feet up under me so she could fit in the narrow strip of floor between the bed and the wall. The prints were almost gone now, but I didn’t think she was looking with only her physical sight. She stood and stared down at it for a moment, her eyes wide behind her thick glasses. Then she spread both hands out, palms down in front of her, and closed her eyes. My mother kicked off her shoes and walked the perimeter of the room, brushing her fingertips over the walls, sometimes stopping to sniff at the air.
    I knew the philosophy of what they were doing, and the basic spells behind it. If an impression was very strong and intentionally left I’d be able to sense it, too, but I didn’t have half the skill they did. So I sat and watched, and thought about the Fae bastard who’d snuck into my room and stole my shit.
    The worst part was, underneath my feelings of violation and anger, I was a little excited that he’d been in my room. And, if I was honest, a little disappointed I hadn’t seen him. I frowned and bowed my head, trying to acknowledge these feelings, to accept them. The first step to interpreting visions and premonitions is to identify all your impressions of the vision, all the feelings it wakes in you. Those reactions give clues to meaning.
    So as embarrassing as it was, I admitted my attraction to the Fae, if only to myself. I closed my eyes and let it wash through me, the acceptance of these feelings. I thought about all the visions I’d had, what I’d been shown. He’s not dangerous. He means me no harm. My eyes snapped open. “Then why am I afraid of him?”
    “Hmm?” My mom looked up from where she was crouched near the door.
    “Nothing. Just thinking out loud.”
    She nodded and rose from the floor. “You’ve had a few too many drinks to read anything correctly, Vinny.”
    I groaned. She was right, I shouldn’t have had so much wine. My buzz was gone but my perception would still be