“Tess.” She nods succinctly.

“Doreen. I got your email. What’s up?” Tess fills a plain black ceramic mug of generic coffee from the carafe on the side table. Only a brief wince betrays the staleness of the brew. It’s not the good stuff Doreen sips.

“Not here.” Doreen looks around warily. A dozen or more pro writers, artists, and other guests of the con mingle, fixing bowls of cereal, nibbling on toasted bagels, and chatting amiably about everything from politics to the business of writing, to their next panel topic.

“This sounds ominous, babe. Let’s decamp to the back of the dealers’ room. They don’t open for another hour and it’s nearly deserted,” I suggest to Tess.

She and Doreen come to an agreement. I flit off to check on the kids. They need me more than the ladies do.

“Yes.” I sent a quick query to Scrap.

Of course, dahling.

“Do you know how to use it?”

“Not really.”

“Will it . . . will it help you find someone?”

“Possibly.”

Donovan would kill me or anyone else who stood between him and that crystal ball if he knew what it could do.

Doreen was engaged to Donovan.

The Nörglein wanted it too. For his own purposes.

He worked for Doreen’s parents.

Too many connections. Best say as little as possible.

“Can we make a date to try it?”

“Later. After the con.”

She nodded in mute understanding. “I saw you with two girls yesterday. I recognized them.”

“They are my daughters now. I have the paperwork to prove it and . . . and a magic link to them stronger than any birth mother’s . . .”

“Are you sure it’s a stronger link than a true mother to her baby?”

“I don’t know that for sure since I’ve never had a child of my own.”

“But you believe in that link.”

I thought of my own mother and how often she’d sensed my moods and problems before I did. I still missed her terribly. “Yes, I believe in a mother’s link to her children.”

“Will you use the crystal ball to help me find my son?”

I paused a moment in puzzlement. “I didn’t know . . .

“The Nörglein used me—at my parents’ prompting but without me agreeing—”

“He raped you.”

She nodded silently. “Sixteen years ago. Then when I wouldn’t turn over my baby to him, my parents gave my son to the monster.”

“That’s awful. I’m surprised you waited so long to go out on your own.”

“I tried. Desperately. Fourteen times I packed a suitcase and went looking for my son. My parents always found me and dragged me back home. They’ve bound me with magic so many times I know the ritual backward and forward. But not how to break it. Only how to let it wear off over time. This time I have Donovan to protect me. They approve of Donovan.”

“Of course they do. Do they know he’s fully human now, even though his sympathies lie with the Kajiri?”

“Yes. They have blinders on when it comes to the grand scheme of a Kajiri home world. They hate their human connections. They hate the restrictions of living in secret among humans.”

“They certainly had no use for me as a daughter-in-law.”

“I can not know for certain, but they may have agreed to Dill’s murder. Since he embraced his humanity and a human wife, they had no more use for him.”

My breath caught in my throat. My heart froze and threatened to shatter. Again. “I have evidence that Dill planned to betray the ‘great plan’ to a human. To my archivist.”

“I helped him find Professor Van der Hoyden-Smythe. Neither my parents, nor Darren Estevez could allow Dill to live after that. I’ve thought about who Darren might have used as an accomplice. Quentin is loyal to Donovan, despite his love of money and lack of concern how he gets it. I think the Nörglein may have been a little too eager to help.”

We mourned together a moment for the man we’d both loved.

“Is your son Oak, Cedar, or Doug . . . I mean Fir?”

“I don’t know.” A long moment of silence as she mastered her breathing and blinked back tears. “I named my child Dillwyn, after my brother. I loved my brother very much. I wanted him to be happy. I loved my baby too.”

“Does Donovan know about the boy?”

“Yes. He promised to help me find him. We started talking at Dill’s funeral, reminiscing about Dill and the time Donovan stayed with us before he was sent to Estevez. Then one thing led to another and another. Now we’re in love. Or at least compatible with a similar agenda.”

“How will he know which boy is yours if you can’t tell?”

“I don’t know. All three boys are very close in age. All three have medium brown hair and hazel eyes. I can’t find a Damiri trait among them and I have studied them carefully. The Nörglein—we call him Pete by the way—brings them to work sometimes to help with moving merchandise and such. I’ve talked to all of them. Searched their faces. Nothing. The magic my parents bind me with is Pete’s spell. It keeps me from asking the boys if they want to come to me.”

“Pete? I suppose that could be a shortening of Purzinigele, his real name,” I said quietly. “Professor Van der Hoyden-Smythe gave me a file full of information. The name was in there. If I speak his real name out loud, in his hearing, he’ll be forced to leave the region. But he’d just set up shop elsewhere. Become someone else’s problem. I need him dead, or permanently exiled to another dimension under lock and key.”

“Unfortunately, King Scazzamurieddu of the Orculli can’t lock him up in the pandimensional prison for rape. Only for endangering the balance among the Universes,” Doreen agreed. The foreign words tripped from her tongue as if part of her native language.

“If he stole the crystal ball I could turn him in. But he’d have to steal it. I can’t arrange for him to ‘find’ it.”

“Damn.”

“Fir is the youngest,” I mused. “He came into my family last night. We call him Doug. He looks like he’ll be the tallest, slender too.”

“Is he truly the youngest, or the least mature? The men in my family are slow to go through puberty.”

I shrugged. “Cedar appears to be the middle child, he’ll be broader in the shoulder than Doug, maybe not as tall. Oak is the oldest. Not as tall, but he has heavier bones and muscles. He acts the oldest, taking responsibility for the younger ones, doing what he can to protect the girls and Doug, who has decided to be gay.”

“I doubt that Doug is mine. Damiri are never gay.”

“Okay.” I thought a moment. “Scrap, get your ass back here. Now.”

“E.T. will tell you all about it later. I need you now.”

What’s so fraggin’ urgent? he snarled, landing on my shoulder, blowing cigar smoke in my face.

I grabbed the noxious weed away from him and stubbed it out in my coffee cup. The coffee wasn’t worth drinking anyway. “No smoking inside. That’s the law.”

Stupid law, he sulked.

“Scrap, I need you to concentrate. Is there a way to tell if Doreen is the mother of any of the tree boys?”

“Later, brat. We need to know now. Is there a way to tell, short of a blood test?” Which would take two weeks once it cleared the backup and paperwork. Possibly a year or two.

“What about the crystal ball?”

Scrap’s eyes turned red with an inner glow of excitement. That’s a good idea. Want me to go get it?

“Not yet. I think we should wait until after the con. I have this nagging feeling that I’m missing something. Before we do anything, I want the Nörglein out of the way, permanently.”

“Good luck,” Doreen said skeptically. “I’ve tried killing him at least a dozen times. He’s always one step ahead of me. Smarter and faster. He lies, and cheats. Anything to get his way.”

“He is truly evil,” I agreed.

“But without him the forest will die. Are you willing to take on that responsibility?” Doreen reminded me. “I will take the responsibility, but I don’t know how to cut out invasive plants, balance destructive and helpful insects, deter people from damaging it beyond repair.”

“Let me think about that.” My aunt MoonFeather came immediately to mind. And so did the World Forestry Center and their army of volunteers and educational programs.

No one person should have to protect the forest on his own, like I had tried fighting demons on my own. And failed.

I had backup now. I had family and friends.

I wondered if Donovan and Doreen would take both Cedar and Oak. A good resolution as long as I got “Pete” out of the way. Deprived of all three of his sons, he just might go berserk, raping even more women.

“Have you seen Squishy?” a Green Room volunteer asked while I checked out the power point equipment and slides. Evolution of Dragons. I could do this. Mostly Gollum had assembled pictures of early artwork depicting dragons. The Egyptian stuff was new to me but flowed naturally into the classical Greek. The middle ages, and modern fantasy book covers grew out of that. The section on Oriental dragons felt strange and wonderful and awesome. I could probably wing it.

“Um, no I haven’t,” I replied. “She was here yesterday.”

“And she left in a hurry, blowing off her five o’clock panel on field treatment of sword wounds. Then she missed her eleven o’clock this morning on electronic publishing of short fiction,” the volunteer grumbled.

“I heard that she might be moving soon. Maybe something came up and she had to move out sooner than expected,” I hedged. I hoped she had a new roommate moving in with her too.

“Maybe so. But it’s not like her to not say something, or apologize, or something.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Maybe bad news for me. I didn’t dare hope for good news.

Sean hurried into the suite. He paused for only half a breath until he spotted me on the sofa beneath a window at the far end. Then he zeroed in on me with a big smile and flattering haste.

“I am so sorry I’m late,” he said on a gush. “I got tied up at . . . work.” He plunked down beside me and took my hand in both of his—the one I was using to fiddle with a setting on Gollum’s laptop. Gently he kissed the back of my hand, then turned it over and flicked his tongue along the pulse point of my wrist.

Tingles flashed up my arm, robbing me of balance for a heartbeat. Oh, boy, this could get interesting.

At least I had someone to turn to if Gollum and Julia got back together.

“I don’t suppose you have a few hours free this evening. We could slip away to my place for some privacy. Blackberry and Salal are so engrossed in their game they won’t notice.” He continued pushing up the sleeve of my sweater to kiss the inside of my elbow.

My bones began melting.

Not a good idea, dahling. Scrap swooped in and landed on my head. His talons tangled in my hair. Just enough pressure to jerk me back to reality.

“Um . . . Sean, don’t you remember, we changed the girls’ names? You came up with E.T. ‘Phone home.’ ”

“Of course. I’m just flushed from my hurry to get here. Phonetia and E.T.”

My breath caught in my throat.

“The imp will leave us alone, won’t he?” Sean continued, taking responsibility for my breathlessness.

I had to remind myself he couldn’t see or hear Scrap.

“Can I have a rain check, Sean?” I asked. I had to breathe to speak. I had to breathe for my heart to continue beating.

My skin twitched with uneasiness.

Gollum was in the building. I’d know soon if we had a chance of a future together.

Awkwardly, I rose from the deep sofa cushions and extricated my hand from Sean’s grasp. “Later. I have an appointment,” I lied.

It took all of my willpower not to run out the door in search of Gollum.

I’d no sooner cleared the doorway and veered right when someone caught my elbow and steered me left.

Two sharp breaths later Gollum pressed me into the alcove by the service elevator. I opened my mouth to ask the most important question of the moment.

But he stopped me with his mouth planted firmly atop mine. My arms crept about his neck. He deepened the kiss and pulled me tight against his chest.

The world fell away. We had only each other, this moment, the glorious blending of two people into one.

Satisfaction, well-being, a sense of belonging right here and nowhere else settled all of my nerves.

Our tongues found each other in a questing dance filled with life and love. My body molded to his along with my soul.

When we finally came up for air he lifted me off the ground and swung me around in joy.

“Don’t suppose you could put me up for a few days while Julia and Pat move elsewhere?” he asked softly, still holding me aloft, pressed against his long length, held in place by his incredibly strong arms. “I talked to my lawyer last night. The divorce is in the works, papers to be filed at eight AM Monday.”

I gulped air praying for strength and common sense. “You can move in the day your divorce is final.”

“I plan on walking you and our daughters down the aisle the day after the divorce is final. If you’ll still have me.”

“All you have to do is ask. And give me details,” I laughed. “What happened last night?”

“Julia has done what a lot of victims of abuse do. She found a sense of safety in a homosexual relationship with a woman her own age. She started with other patients in the asylum who were hungry for any kind of peer relationships. Then she latched onto a health care professional. Typical pattern. She’ll never truly feel safe with me because I’m the one who abandoned her to the asylum where her mother could come and go at will. Nurses and aides were the only ones who ever put a buffer between Julia and Bridget. The fact that she interprets that sense of safety as love is not necessarily correct, but she took a risk, made a decision on her own. She approached Pat. She made a choice that wasn’t me. I’m free! Free to marry you.”

“I will.”

“You know what the funnest part of last night was?”

I shook my head, too happy to speak coherently.

“I got to tell Bridget! She sputtered and snarled and threatened to cut off Julia’s trust fund, but I reminded her I’m a professional researcher. I know things about her and her family tree she doesn’t want known.”

“Then I don’t have to send Lady Lucia to have a talk with her?”

He laughed long and loud. “One bloodsucker to another. I love it. Later, when things are a bit more settled I’ll get down on bended knee with the biggest diamond I can find and propose properly.” He kissed me again and set me on the ground. We clung together, neither of us certain we could stand upright on our own. “Consider this a promise. But right now I’m obligated to lead a discussion about the evolution of dragons.”

“And I should go see about slaying one.”

He quirked an eyebrow.

In short and choppy sentences I related the latest developments. “Pete’s desperate, Gollum. He’s lost three of his children, his ability to demand demon protection on his pot-growing minions, and his hat. That’s a lot of power gone in a short period of time. I have a feeling he’s up to something. I just don’t know what yet. I’ve got to stay close to the kids today. Even if it means dragging them out of their game to sit with me on panels.”

“Meet me back in the Green Room at five. We’ll take them out for pizza and see if they can come up with some ideas. No one knows the Nörglein better than they do.”

“Pete might have confided in, or bragged to Doug,” I continued his thought. “What are we going to do about legitimatizing him?”

“Don’t you have any ideas?” he asked.

“Fresh out. Do you have any relatives who might have orphaned him? He says he’s gay by the way.” I let my fingers brush the fine hair on the back of his head, cherishing the silky texture.

“Hmmm. Let me think a moment.”

“None of my family knows your family. Could he be your nephew sent to us because his parents can’t deal with him?” I speculated.

“Yeah.” He paused in thought. “First cousin and his wife on Dad’s side—Mom doesn’t speak to them and I haven’t seen them since Dad’s funeral—are frothing at the mouth conservatives and really hate gays. They’d throw a kid out very quickly at the first hint of alternative sexuality. I’ll do the paperwork tonight. And take him home with me. He can have Pat’s old room since she’s sleeping with Julia these days.”

One more quick kiss and we parted to our mutual con obligations. I couldn’t help smiling and barely noticed Sean’s frown when he joined me.