accounts agree on that. I think Maggie has to actually feel that, death grief, every time.”
“Oh,” I whispered, trying to imagine that.
“Alright. If you’re sure you can sleep.”
“Yes.”
“If you can’t, I can think of other things to do at night in bed.”
“So can I. And all of them involve reading magistrate journals or ancient books on magical people.”
He laughed. “Well, for now, I’ll be satisfied with friendship. And, as the good friend I hope to be to you, my phone will be close by, and I’m only fifteen minutes away.”
Regardless of the extraordinarily unusual experience I’d had on the way back from checking on Romeo, I felt safe in the house. I grabbed a ginger ale from the refrigerator and headed upstairs, believing I might have two hours of reading in me.
After pulling on my light flannel sleep set, I took the large book out and rifled through until I found the banshee. Some of the handwriting was hard to read and some of the words didn’t make sense, but all in all, it was just as Keir Culain had described.
Banshees, all female, are an uncategorized form of fae, born seldom and randomly. A fae couple who has never had a banshee born in their line, may give birth to one. Although it isn’t recognized until adulthood, when the nocturnal change and the compulsion to wail possess the young female. They’re revered by the fae to such an extent that they might be considered minor deities.
“And they have no choice,” I said to the walls. They serve because they must. Poor Maggie.
I turned to the first journal I’d picked up and opened it. I knew that most of the journals were written in cursive. So that’s what I’d expected. But the one I picked up, off the top of the end stack, was apparently typed and then later bound into a leather journal that matched the rest.
There was no doubt that an old timey typewriter had been used, as opposed to computer word processing paired with a printer. There were a couple of letters that were ever so slightly higher than others, a few handwritten corrections, and an occasional ink smear.
The date read, Imbolc, 1902.
Britain is the strongest power in the world economically and militarily. Yet the people closest to magic kind often do not prosper. Magic kind are continually more distressed about their inability to help in this modern age. That distress is often demonstrated in conflict with their own kind and, ironically, sometimes the plight of the people they feel most affinity with becomes worse as a result. But that is my opinion and not to be taken as part of the official record.
The author continued with commentary for a couple of paragraphs before beginning the record of cases. Knowing that it was true and not fiction made it the most fascinating reading imaginable.
A highlander boy was stolen by a Fae girl to be her boy toy because she’d watched him every day, unseen, and fallen in love with him. RULING: The girl was directed to return the human and her family had to pay a fine.
A sorcerer from a tiny island in the Outer Hebrides had let his dragon get loose, again, and since dragons aren’t able to cast a glamour to hide their true forms, the northern Scots who saw him were terrorized. They also suffered the humiliation of being checked for a psychotic episode in the form of mass hallucination. Since sanity is hard to prove, getting the victims of the sightings released had been difficult for their families. RULING: In light of the fact that this was his third warning in just two hundred and fifty years, the sorcerer had to either submit a guaranteed plan to keep the dragon under control at all times, which meant to disguise him when let out for flight, or surrender him to the fae, who would undoubtedly be more responsible. And a fine was assessed.
A dryad was enraged when her forest was cut down by humans. She gave them food poisoning so severe that two of the ‘victims’ died. RULING: Magic kind are not allowed to murder humans, accidentally or otherwise, for destruction of property in a shared world. The dryad was ordered to accept relocation assistance from the fae. And pay a fine.
One case involved fae brothers who were fighting over inheritance of a small lake with a herd of swans. Apparently, ownership by lineage was unclear and each of them had become determined to inherit