“I got away from Turi’s men before the shifting occurred. But it appears there’s another doorway on this plane, one I hadn’t found before. I thought it might lead to the Earth plane, but now I’m not certain. I met a man I knew from my childhood. Well, it’s not actually him, but someone obviously wants me to think it is. He pretended like he knew me.” Well, he’d called me the queen. So had the vampire. I wasn’t sure why they were referring to my mother as a royal. My mother had been far from royal. She’d been a thief.
How many years had passed on the Earth plane? Time could be tricky on different planes, especially ones as remote as the Earth plane. My mother could be an old woman by now, though no amount of time could have aged my father, the earthbound vampire. He could have kept her young, but she would die eventually and he would be alone.
I hated to think of him being alone.
“Is he a dupe?” Dean asked. “You know you can meet yourself on different planes. I’m still deeply disturbed by the Erna who runs a house of ill repute on that plane where everything’s underwater.”
Like I said, sometimes you can run into yourself. Running into Busty Erna had been a shock. My mentor is a woman of great intellect and restraint. She’d seen how she would have turned out with different forces shaping her world.
But I didn’t think that was what was happening. “It’s too much of a coincidence that I would find this particular dupe on this plane. The Devinshea Quinn I briefly met was only half Fae, and his father was a human. This man is a Green Man in the bloom of his power. Why was he traveling with a vampire? And they both knew the woman with the red arm.”
Erna’s head shook. “I don’t understand half of what you’re saying, child. But if there’s a Green Man walking the plane, I think you should come home and lay low for a while. Do you have the book?”
“I do.” I’d risked a lot to get the book Erna decided we needed. “I’ll bring it to you and perhaps we can find a way out of this situation.”
“Is the Green Man following you?” Dean asked, his young face serious for once. “I can meet you halfway. I can be at the edge of the forest in no time at all. I’m working on a teleportation spell.”
“And more than half the time you screw it all up,” Erna said sternly. “One day you’re going to wind up teleporting yourself into a tree, and then where will you be?”
“Apparently I’ll be in a tree,” Dean replied with a shrug.
“I’m fine. I’ll be home in a few hours.” The last thing I needed was Dean to get all brotherly on me and decide I needed saving. He was barely twenty-three and he should have been having fun on the Earth plane, but his mother had been taken from her original plane. She’d found a happy life on the Vampire plane, but Dean had been human in a world that wasn’t built for him. “And I ditched the Green Man. Make sure our wards are all in place. I don’t want any of them following me.”
“Like they could follow you,” Dean said with a grin. “You’re a badass.”
I held my own, but I got the feeling I’d met a real badass in Kelsey, and I might not want to meet up with her again. For all I knew she was an assassin sent to deal with me. It had happened before and I’d handled it. I wasn’t sure I could handle the woman I’d seen fighting in the forest. Still, I gave the young man I truly did consider a little brother what I hoped was an arrogant grin. “You know it. Don’t eat everything Erna cooks. I’ll be hungry when I get home.”
“No promises since we have almost no food,” Dean replied with a frown. “Hey, if you happen to find a couple of bunnies who are done with the whole life thing, pick them up so I can shove them in my belly.”
“See you soon.” I wasn’t going to listen to him complain about the fact that I got too attached to the sweeter creatures of the forest. They seem to find their way to me as if they know I’ll look into those adorable eyes and protect them.