of fae take children to keep as their own. We don’t know enough about this one to know what happened to Amethyst.”
“Let them in,” said Mrs. Miller from behind her husband’s back.
Dr. Miller hesitated, then opened the door to welcome them inside. “Don’t hurt her,” he told them earnestly, and he wasn’t talking about Amethyst.
“Life hurts,” Charles said gently. “But we won’t lie to you or to your wife.”
Amethyst’s room was neat as a pin. Toys were organized by size, then by color on the white shelves along one wall. The bed was tidy and Anna suspected she could have bounced a quarter off the bedspread.
“Was she always this tidy?” Anna asked.
Sara shook her head. “No. I didn’t even notice when it changed. She’d get started on something and get distracted. So her bed would be half-made. She’d color part of a coloring book page.”
“She’d have one shoe on,” said Dr. Miller. “Because she remembered she wanted oatmeal for breakfast before she found the other shoe.”
Charles had his head tilted and his eyes half closed, a sure sign he was smelling the room.
“How could I not have noticed?” Amethyst’s mother said. “What kind of mother doesn’t notice that her child’s been replaced by a … a thing?”
“Fae can fog your perception,” said Anna. “If you started noticing something wrong, the fetch would have distracted you.” When Mackie had noticed something was wrong, the fetch tried to kill her.
“Is there something that Amethyst kept close to her?” Charles said. “A favorite toy she slept with? Something that the fetch didn’t associate with too much?”
“Something a dog could use to get a scent to track her with,” Anna supplied.
“You’re going to use dogs?” Dr. Miller frowned.
“We’ll use whatever we can,” Anna said. “Some of our methods are unorthodox—magic. And it would help to have something that belonged to Amethyst.”
“Her bunny,” Sara said. She went to the bookcase and picked out a grubby, one-eared rabbit and handed it to Anna. “Will this do?”
Anna held it to her forehead, as if she were a TV psychic. Her nose told her that if the fetch had touched it, it hadn’t been very often. Children didn’t have as much body odor as adults, but they also didn’t disguise it with soaps and perfumes the way adults did.
“This will do,” she said. “Do you have a plastic bag I can put it in?”
Sara looked as though she wasn’t sure she wanted them to take it.
“I promise we’ll bring it back,” said Anna.
“Go get a bag from the kitchen,” Dr. Miller told his wife gently.
As soon as she was out of the room, he looked at them. “Werewolves?” he asked.
Anna smiled at him. “We’re not psychics. Yes.”
“My wife would be afraid, if she knew,” he told Anna. “But I’ve had dealings with your people, when I was in the army, a lifetime ago. Why are you helping us?”
“Because children deserve to be safe,” Charles said.
Charles and Anna got back to the Sanis’ ranch well after dinner. Kage met them at the front door, making Charles think he’d been watching for them.
“Hosteen is still out riding somewhere,” he said, ushering them inside. “Dad ate better than he has in months and fell asleep. Chelsea has been sleeping most of the day.” Kage continued with his dogged recitation. “Kids are up in the TV room with my mom and Ernestine, watching some TV show about serial killers, zombies, or something equally healthy for them.”
Kage waited, but when it became obvious no one else was going to say anything, he continued. “There are leftovers from dinner in the kitchen I can fix if you need food.” He took a breath. “That’s what’s going on here. From you I get a text that says not to expect you for dinner. Not exactly helpful. Did you find out anything?”
“Fae,” Charles told him, pulling off his boots and setting them where all the other people’s shoes waited.
Anna rolled her eyes at her husband with, he hoped, a little fondness to go along with her mock exasperation. “Food would be lovely, thank you. We actually found out a lot—not enough, but a lot. Why don’t we go eat and I’ll tell you what we know.”
“Anna uses actual words,” murmured Charles tranquilly, holding her arm as she took off her shoes, too.
“Useful,” said Kage, leading the way to the kitchen.
“Some people think so,” Charles agreed, and Anna bumped him with her hip.
Dinner was fried chicken, biscuits, and a huge salad. Wade, Hosteen’s second, came in before