His voice was wistful, and I realized no matter how unstable he might be in some ways, he did truly love and miss his sister.

“Was she this reclusive before your parents died?” asked Kiyo gently.

“Yeah. She was always kind of this way.”

After a bit more investigating around the room, we finally left. Wil pushed me hard on what I was going to do about Jasmine, but I had no answers to give him.

“Well,” Kiyo said after a few quiet minutes on the road, “that was depressing.”

I didn’t answer right away as I stared off at the road ahead of us.

“Eugenie? You all right?”

“No. Not really.” I sighed. “That poor girl.”

“Starts to make more sense, though, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah. Isolated from the real world, she starts living in a fantasy one. Then suddenly Aeson gives her the chance to actually live in that one.”

He nodded his agreement. “Of course, abduction and rape probably weren’t the ways she envisioned escaping off to fairyland.”

I stared off again for a while. “She reminds me of me.”

The glance he gave me was wry. “You dissociated into a make-believe world that you hoped would become real?”

“No. But I was kind of a loner too. I think I had more friends than her, admittedly, but I always had trouble relating to others. It got worse once Roland made me his apprentice. Hard to get excited about boy bands when you’re learning to exorcise ghosts.”

“I don’t think you missed anything there.”

I rewarded him with a smile as I continued thinking. “Even though I didn’t have many friends, I always wanted them, wanted to be noticed. If Jasmine’s the same, then she probably likes being Aeson’s mistress, as sickening as it is. He probably showers her with attention.”

“You’re right…though I wonder if there’s more to it.”

“How so?”

“I think a lot of teens feel disconnected sometimes, like no one understands them. I mean, I felt that way lots of times. Not sure I would have welcomed what happened to her as some sort of salvation.”

“Me either. But I suppose everyone copes in different ways. I took up solitary things. Running. Swimming.”

“Puzzles?”

“Hey,” I said. “How’d you know about that?”

“Because you have about a hundred of them in your closet.”

I laughed, then reconsidered something he’d just said. “What was it like for you, growing up? You knew from the beginning what you were, right?”

“Yeah. My parents never made that a secret. They accepted that they were from different worlds-literally-and didn’t fight that. Growing up with that duality sort of became second nature. Like I said before, I like both worlds, which is why I certainly don’t want to see some conquest of this one. Of course, I had plenty of times in my life, particularly when I was young and moody, when I’d get mad at one of my parents. Then I’d swear I’d be all kitsune or all human, depending on who’d pissed me off.”

“Your teenage angst must have been a terrible thing,” I teased.

“You have no idea.”

“Are your parents still together?”

“No. Still amicable. My mom finally stayed in the Otherworld for good once I got older. I see her from time to time. It broke my dad’s heart-he was crazy about her-but he remarried and seems to be better off.”

I leaned back against the seat. “Now that I know what I am…I kind of wish I’d known sooner. I would have liked to get a head start on my magic and go blow Aeson’s castle apart and get Jasmine back.”

“You don’t know that you can actually do that,” he warned. “You’re half-human. You may not have gotten all his power.”

“Did you get everything your mom has?”

He hesitated. “Yes.”

“I can’t leave Jasmine there. Not knowing what I know. But I don’t know how to get her back.”

Kiyo reached over and squeezed my hand. “We’ll think of something. Don’t worry.”

It was a little comforting, but I think we both knew it was the sort of empty, kind statement you say to make someone feel better. I doubted he had any better ideas than I had on how to get Jasmine back.

Kiyo didn’t have to work until the next morning, so we decided to go hiking at Sabino Canyon. Physical exertion seemed like a good way to forget about abducted girls, and it was. The temperature pushed into triple digits, and we were exhausted and sweaty as we finally made the return trip down, both of us greedily drinking from water bottles.

I saw him watching me at one point while we stopped to take a break. There was a content and admiring expression on his face, not purely sexual, for a change.

“What?” I asked.

“Your hair. I never realized how red it is. The sun lights it up like a flame.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Very good.”

The comfortable look on his face shifted, and I saw the familiar glint of need surface. We didn’t say much after that. The rest of our hike and subsequent ride home proceeded in silence, but the air burned between us, hotter than anything we’d felt outside.

Tim was nowhere to be found when we arrived home. Just as well. I turned on the shower, eager to remove the sweat and grime, and Kiyo hopped in with me.

“We’re here to get clean,” I warned.

“Sure,” he said, pushing me up against the wall.

Water poured down on us as we kissed and touched and attempted some semblance of washing ourselves. I don’t know how good a job we did. I think some parts got significantly soaped down more than others.

I wouldn’t have minded sex in the shower, but we had no condoms in there. Sometimes I thought the double birth control was overkill; in eight years, I’d never had problems with the pill. But we both knew how high the stakes were. A condom was a small thing to ask.

We fell onto my bed, still kind of slick and soapy. He slipped the condom on in like two seconds, and I moved on top of him. Foreplay apparently wasn’t going to play a big role in our relationship. His hands grasped my hips, halting me for a moment.

“You took your pill today?”

“Yes, yes,” I assured him.

He relaxed and released me, letting me move down and take him into me. A soft sound, half-groan and half-sigh, escaped his lips. He opened his eyes and smiled at me.

“You are…the most right thing in my world.”

I smiled back, knowing exactly what he meant. We felt good and right together, like the last month’s tension hadn’t existed. We were where we should be, picking right up after our first night together.

His hands clenched my sides, his nails touching my back as my body shifted up and down. A tingle of apprehension ran through me whenever those fingers came near my back, but he continued to show restraint. The scratches were finally healing, albeit slowly.

He let me stay on top only about a minute or so before he flipped me onto my stomach and took me from that position, all aggression and furious passion. I slyly tried shifting us once, and he playfully returned me back. Maybe it was the fox thing, or maybe it was just his own human nature, but something in him liked being the dominant one. I decided not to fight it, far too busy swimming in the bliss and fire of him moving inside of me.

When he finished, he rolled off and pulled me to him. Happy, I buried my face against his body, drinking in his scent and feel like an intoxicant. Clinging to each other, we listened to our ragged breathing calm down. For the first time in awhile, I felt safe and at peace. Things were exactly as they were supposed to be.

He stayed with me that night, and our bodies wrapped around each other in the darkness. My body fell into its old bad habits, and I found myself lying awake long after he’d fallen asleep. I twisted and turned, counting stars on my ceiling and attempting to force my mind into calmness.

I tried too hard, apparently, because my mind slipped into trance, one off from wakeful consciousness but not really asleep either. Recognizing this, I started to shift out of it until an image appeared in my mind, a familiar one of a barren area I didn’t recognize and a dark, crowned figure standing over me.