A knock interrupted breakfast. I frowned as I reached for my crutches. “Who would be here at this hour?” “Sit. I’ll get it,” Lorraine insisted. “I’m not an invalid.” “I know.” She kissed my cheek and went to the door. “Roy, hi. Come in. Sean’s in the kitchen.” Roy at this hour? That couldn’t be good. “Thanks, Lorraine. He still can’t handle the crutches?” “I handle them fine,” I insisted as they entered the kitchen. “Good. Hurry up and eat, elf-boy. We need you at the station.” “Me? Why?” “There’s a case.” He frowned at my wine glass. “Is it a full moon? Have you been drinking?” I shook my head. “It’s grape juice. I can’t have wine until my leg is better. My ‘nurse’ won’t even let me have human wine.” Roy rolled his eyes. “All you need is to get drunk and fall again.” “I’m an elf. I can’t get drunk from human wine.” “It also doesn’t mix with your pain meds,” Lorraine reminded me. “Which I stopped taking last week. But I’m still not drinking.” “You have your food bag?” Roy asked. I nodded. “An eight pack of Powerade and a bag of Almond Joys.” “A bag?” “Lorraine grabbed leftover Halloween candy.” Lorraine brought over the bag I needed. “I can do things myself,” I insisted. “Of course you can, babe.” She kissed the top of my head. I sighed and Roy chuckled. I was entertainment for him these days. I’d broken my leg in several places trying to catch a serial killer. Lorraine had come to stay with me for a few days. That had turned into a few weeks when I fell down the stairs and re-broke one of the healed breaks. I didn’t mind. She was a good friend if a little overprotective. I finished eating, kissed Lorraine, and followed Roy out the door. Roy headed for the elevator. “Stairs,” I said. “We don’t have time. You take too long.” “I can’t.” My heart was already pounding at the thought of being confined. “What’s the rush? What case is it?” “Get in the elevator, and I’ll tell you.” I shook my head. “I can’t.” “Just step in the elevator. I’ll hold the door open. It’s a first step to you getting over this.” I glared at him and entered the elevator. I could feel the panic rising in me. My heart was pounding. I couldn’t breathe. Roy was speaking, but I didn’t hear what he said. Or at least not most of it. One word filtered through. I latched onto it. “What?” “I said another kid has gone missing. The FBI has come to help us find them.” Roy put a hand on my arm. “You can handle working with them, can’t you?” As I nodded, I realized the door had closed. I reach for the button to open it again, but we were already moving. “Let me out,” I insisted. Roy stood his ground. “We need your help.” “Let me out.” I tried to reach for the button. I towered over Roy, but he didn’t budge. “Yessie, we need your help.” He never called me that. He rarely called me by my real name, Yesanith. He was more likely to call me Sean or elf-boy. “Yessie, we need to find Robin.” “Robin?” That word again. My cousin went by Robin sometimes. “Yes. He’s missing.” “I know but…” I realized he wasn’t talking about my cousin. The elevator stopped. “If you ever do that to me again…” I started. “Yeah, yeah. I’m sure you’ll do something nasty. It was an emergency.” He waved off my threat and led the way to the car. “Now that I’m not in a panic, what’s going on?” I asked as I tried to calm my pounding heart. “A kid, Robin, has gone missing. This is the second one.” “Why didn’t you get me for the first?” “It wasn’t our case. It was in Pinedale. The first was a girl, Julie. She’s ten. The boy is six.” I groaned. “Roy, this going to be hard for me. You know Puck was sometimes called Robin, and he often looked like a child because it made him feel safer.” “How could a vulnerable kid feel safe?” “That was how old he was when he lost his mom. It’s like he was trying to revert to the time before she died. “He usually looked around ten or eleven, but when he was scared or feeling vulnerable, he’d become a six-year-old. Dealing with a missing child named Robin might get to be a little much.” “We’ll talk to the chief. But you need to watch yourself with the feds here. Which is why we need to hurry. If we take too long, they’ll decide you aren’t worth it. They’re in charge and they don’t trust you.” “The feeling is mutual. Why do they think the cases are related?” “There were signs of a scuffle at the places where the children disappeared. Both had cell phones that were left behind. Robin never left his out of sight. He had some app he was always watching.” “So, an abduction, not a runaway or lost.” “We think so. What we need you to do is try a recreation of each production.” “How long ago were the children taken?” “Robert was last night. Julie was a few days ago.” “I can do one for Robin. Julie, I don’t know. If I can get an exact time to start, I may be able to get something, but it will look like someone smeared grease on your glasses.” “We’ll see what happens.” “Do you want me to wear my glamour?” “No. I’d love it if you let your accent shine, and show up in your armor or native clothes.” I wondered if they’d given Roy a hard time about being Chinese or just didn’t want to work with outsiders. “I can do the accent, but my armor still needs to be repaired, and I don’t have any of my clothes handy. Besides, I think the cast and crutches might ruin the effect.” Roy sighed. “I suppose.” At the station, the feds were obvious, looking a lot like the Hollywood stereo type with black suits and all. One was older, looking like he thought working with locals was beneath him. Roy introduced him as Agent Harris. Agent Brandt was younger. He looked around observing everything. “This is Yesanith Wysanorin, the consultant Chief Thompson mentioned,” Roy introduced me. I hadn’t realized he knew my real last name. I wondered if he looked it up. “Call me Sean,” I told them. “You’re that Sean Reilly guide that supposed to be an elf,” Agent Brandt said. “Do I look like an elf?” I removed my stocking cap and glasses to reveal my pointed ears in my pink, blue, and purple cat eyes. Add that to my pale skin, and I clearly wasn’t human. Agent Brandt did a double-take. Agent Harris was unimpressed. “Let’s go.” He started towards a compact rental car. “Seriously?” I asked. I was over six and a half feet. Given that I couldn’t bend my leg, there was no way I could ride in that. “Am I being strapped to the roof?” “You can stay here for all I care. This is a waste of time,” Agent Harris said. “A bunch of mumbo-jumbo and you lead us on a wild goose chase.” I did my best to look puzzled. “There are no geese around here this time of year.” “We’ll drive separately,” Roy offered. He gave me a look to remind me that I was supposed to behave. “If you don’t want our help, say so.” “Your help is fine. I don’t want him wasting our time.” “He’s my partner and he’s supposed to be a medical leave. But Chief Thompson asked him to help. What does that tell you?” “That you small-town folk will believe anything.” “It was you government folk who believed I was an alien,” I pointed out. “You’re the ones wasting time. Sean is coming,” Roy insisted and turned to his car. I followed. At the park where Robin’s phone was found, I cast the re-creation spell. The spell showed a replay of what happened in an area, only it showed in reverse, like rewinding a movie. We saw the forensics team look around. It was clear they were already thinking of calling me since they didn’t move much, unlike the feds. Harris and Brandt were all over the place, both at that time and earlier when they first examined the scene. “What is this?” Harris demanded. “What happened here last night,” Roy explained. “That’s you.” “It’s blurry.” “The iron in the playground equipment is causing some of it. Your and Brandt’s movement is causing more. You keep entering and leaving the area. Julie is going to be worse.” I kept the spell going until we saw the image of the cell phone rise off the ground and into a little boy’s hand. A knot inside me relaxed some when I saw the boy. He looked nothing like Puck. And while Puck could change shape shift, he couldn’t control it. When he was scared enough to be six, he would always revert to a specific look. The only thing that varied was if he looked Elven or human. The man had grabbed the boy’s wrist and yanked him off the ground to be carried away after Robin showed him his cell phone. Before that, the man had been only talking. It was a scene that would likely only draw a parent’s attention. After seeing the direction from which the man came, I ended the spell. I felt a slight lightheadedness, so I pulled out a Power Aid to help replenish my electrolytes. I don’t know why magic depletes them so quickly. Roy and I waited for the agents’ responses. Brandt was gaping, impressed. Harris only frowned. “How do we know he wasn’t involved?” He gestured at me. “He has an alibi for last night, and for the evening of Julie’s abduction,” Roy said. “If you trust him so much, why did you check for alibis already?” “I’m his alibi for last night, along with a neighbor. He’s only been mobile for two weeks and he already fell and rebroke his leg. His friends are staying with him to keep an eye on him until he’s off his crutches. Besides, he can’t drive with that cast. Is he going to take a bus to kidnap a kid?” “And you’re sure this is accurate?” Harris pressed. Roy nodded. “It’s never been wrong before.” “It’s a replay of what happened in the area. I can’t control what you see only how fast it runs,” I explained. “There is a long, complicated explanation about molecules, and light waves, and sound waves, but I barely understood it. If you really need an explanation, I can give you the name of the scientist to figure it all out. If he’s still alive, he’ll be happy to explain it all at length.” “Still alive?” Brandt raised an eyebrow. “This was thirty years ago he was sixty-five at the time. You humans are mortal, after all.” “Did he explain why we couldn’t record it?” Roy asked. “Probably. I can’t say I listened to the whole explanation. I got distracted.” I refrain from saying it was by his secretary who I’d been sleeping with at the time. “Let’s get to the next crime scene,” Roy suggested. Julie’s abduction was somewhat similar to Robin’s with the man talking to the girl a few minutes before she reached out her hand as if to show him something and he grabbed her. I couldn’t tell what she was holding. “Was that the phone?” I asked when I ended the spell. Brandt nodded. “Yeah.” “And were the kids using the same app?” “Nope. There’s no connection between the two. They aren’t related, have nothing similar on their phones, besides the basics that come with all phones. They don’t even have the same phones. They don’t go to the same school, and their paths don’t cross. They have nothing in common.” “Except red hair,” I pointed out. “Except that,” Brandt agreed. “But that doesn’t tell us much. There are other redheads. Why did he pick these two?” Harris asked. “Sorry. The spell can’t tell me that. The spells that could show us would be a violation of his rights. I rather not go that route yet.” “It won’t come to that,” Roy assured me. Back at the station, Harris didn’t want me joining them for the discussion of the case. Because Roy was my way home, once I made it up the stairs, I waited in the break room, praying and worshiping my Goddess, Shandalar. Roy took me home at lunch, so I could observe the prayer day properly.