I knocked on Kat’s door. Using a glamour after those two spells this morning and opening two passages was taking its toll. I’d slept a good portion of the afternoon to help me recover. I should be okay as long as I didn’t need to do any other casting. “What exactly are you telling Jonan?” I asked. “I want to tell him everything, but I don’t think he’d like to hear I was a killer.” “That might be a bit much,” I agreed. It wasn’t something most humans accepted. I wasn’t crazy about it myself, but that was because she’d killed so many of my people, some I’d served with. But I had to admit, I’d killed Unseelie too. Some might be considered assassinations. “But what do I tell him if he asks what I did?” “You were part of the army. That would make you a soldier. If he wants to know your rank, tell him things weren’t the same and say assassin in elvish. Or use whatever rank you used before becoming an assassin. That’s what I did when Gillman asked me. Nishtal is the last rank I held before I was named champion.” Kat smirked. “You’re only a nishtal?” “Only? You talk like it’s a low rank. Once I became champion, ranks no longer applied to me so I was never promoted.” “I don’t know why you hide being a champion.” “I don’t want to be a celebrity.” “You already are one.” “Yeah, and how would these humans react if they knew I was a warrior of that caliber?” “Probably decide you were too dangerous to be free.” I shuddered at the thought. I’d developed claustrophobia the last time they’d held me captive. I was still in counseling for it. I decided to change the subject before Kat started teasing me about it again. “If you’re telling Johan, why are we using glamours?” She, like I did, looked human. Rather than her natural charcoal skin, white hair, and gold eyes, she had freckled skin, brown hair, and brown eyes. I left my hair black but darkened my skin a little and made my pink and purple eyes blue. We both hid our pointed ears and slitted pupils. “I don’t want to overwhelm him.” “You really like him, don’t you? You want this to work.” She frowned. “You talk like we’re incapable of that.” “The only time I’ve seen anything like affection is when I’d take Puck to see your dad,” I explained. “Watching Unseelie brutally kill your fellow soldiers doesn’t lend to any consideration of care. But even beyond that, I know I’ve had lovers that I wasn’t that close to, that if it didn’t work out, it wasn’t a big deal.” Kat raised an eyebrow, but the doorbell rang before she could say anything. She let Jonan in. He kissed Kat in greeting and turned to me. “Hey, Sean.” “Sean? That’s not my name.” “But you go by it don’t you?” “Jonan, please, come sit down,” Kat requested. She led us to the living room and we all sat. “Kat asked me to come because you two wanted to talk with me,” Jonan said before Kat could start. “After what was said in the art lounge, I took a guess what she wanted to talk about. I already figured out who you two were.” “And who are we?” I asked. “Like Specter said, you’re Sean Reilly, the elf. And Kat’s an elf too.” “Me? Why me?” Kat asked. “Last fall, when Kat and I first started getting closer in chat, I was talking to Cobra. I was stupid enough to trust him.” “We all were,” I pointed out. Cobra had been a member of the chat room. He’d abducted Kat. “I told him I wanted to meet Kat in person. He suggested I wait a bit and get to know her better. Shortly after that, Kat disappeared. I was still talking with Cobra and told him my concern. He implied she wasn’t what she seemed. I didn’t pay much attention to him. “When I saw the pictures on the news of the people that he’d abducted, there was a drow that looked like Kat. But there were others in costume and he was such a fantasy nut that I still didn’t think much of it and assumed he’d dressed you up to in a much better costume. “It wasn’t until we met for lunch the first time and Sean was there that I really started to wonder. He looked human, but he looked enough like the pictures online that I noticed him. And I saw his broken leg was healed way too fast. It was then I started to wonder. “Since then, different things you two have said led me to believe my suspicions were right. Specter confirmed them the other night. I hadn’t said anything before this because I was giving Kat a chance to trust me. I know she’s cautious because of what Cobra did and probably what the army did to Sean.” Kat dropped her glamour. “You’re not mad?” “At first I was, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized why you’d hide that from me. Like I said in the chat the other night, I don’t care. And I’ll support you if it ever comes out in chat and people have problems.” Kat smiled. “Thanks.” “Sean already said that wasn’t his real name. Is Kat yours?” “It’s Katrine.” “That’s human, isn’t it?” Kat nodded. “It’s Dutch. My mom was fascinated with humans. She picked out my name and convinced my dad to name me that.” She grinned. “Sean’s lucky he doesn’t have a human name too. His mom was an ambassador to the humans and spent a lot of time in the human world.” I shook my head. “My dad wouldn’t agree to it. They’d said it all for my brothers. Which is lucky since I was born in Denmark.” “You really were?” Jonan asked. “Yeah. She wasn’t supposed to leave Underhill because of how far along she was but there was some emergency that my mom had to go help deal with and I was early so she was still there when I was born. My dad was pissed.” “He didn’t like humans much, did he?” Kat asked. “He had no problem with them. He just wanted to stay on his vineyard and take care of his grapes.” “How did he end up with someone like your mom?” “They met on an equinox.” “You two talk like you just met, but Sean said it was a while ago,” Jonan said. I grinned. “A while is a very non-specific amount of time. We’d heard about each other long ago but we met in chat and then face to face after Kat had been taken to the police station.” “Unseelie and Seelie had been at war for millennia before they disappeared. If we first met face to face, we wouldn’t have gotten along,” Kat admitted. “It was by chance my dad and Sean’s Aunt met and fell in love.” I looked at the clock. It was getting late. Kara would interrupt my worship at midnight no matter when I started. “I need to go. I have someone waiting for me. It was nice meeting you, Jonan.” I shook his hand. “Likewise, Sean.” He paused. “What is your real name?” “Yesanith.” He did a double-take. “I’ll stick with Sean if you don’t mind.” I shrugged. “It’s fine.” I drove back to my place. I put my thong on and pulled my shirt and pants on over it. I didn’t bother with socks or shoes. Then I headed up to the roof to worship. The cold air hit me and I shivered. It was a small price to pay for all the blessings I had received over the years.