Thorn Queen Page 0,39

status, Rowan also didn't know there'd been a complete upheaval in the Alder Land.

"Rowan," I said. "But very close to, um, Alder. There's supposedly a crossroads near there. Do you know where it comes out?"

"No...nowhere around here, I'm sure."

"Any way you could find out?"

"Is this tied in to the demons?"

I hesitated a moment and opted for the truth. "No, it's something else. A different thing I'm helping them out with."

"Eugenie!" Roland rarely lost his temper, but I could see the anger in his eyes now. "What are you doing? You can't do this. You can't get entangled in their affairs. Your job is to protect this world, to keep them and the other monsters and ghosts out of here."

"They're not all bad," I said, surprised as the words came out of my mouth.

"Do I need to remind you about your mother's abduction and the assorted attempts to rape you?"

Hearing him say those words stung, but I held my ground. "I'm dealing with that. It's not an issue."

"It's always going to be an issue," he argued. "And I'm not going to help you keep getting into more trouble with them."

"What, are you threatening to cut me off from information?" I exclaimed.

"Maybe. If it'll keep you safe."

"Well, it won't. The only thing you'll do is put me in more danger if I keep going there uninformed!"

His eyes narrowed. "So now you're the one threatening me?"

"What's going on?"

My mother stuck her head in the den's doorway, concern on her face. "Is everything okay? I thought I heard shouting."

I stood up. "Roland's just getting hard of hearing, so I was helping him out."

I followed her back to the other room, where Kiyo watched me curiously. Even in human form, he had a fox's hearing, and I wouldn't have found it surprising if he'd heard the whole argument.

"We have to take off," I said. "We're going to hear Tim recite some poetry."

Kiyo's raised eyebrow was his only sign of surprise at our evening plans. I'd neglected to tell him earlier because I was pretty sure he would have never left the house with me. He smiled politely at my mom. "Thanks for dinner. It was great."

My mom was sad to see us go. "Well, you should come back next weekend. I'll make lasagna. And cherry pie."

I kissed her cheek. "You don't have to bribe us to come over."

"No, but it doesn't hurt."

Mad or not, I gave Roland a hug too. In that brief moment, he murmured in my ear, "I'll talk to Bill."

He sounded weary and defeated, and I hugged him closer. "Thank you." Bill was a shaman friend of his in Flagstaff.

Once we were finally able to leave, Kiyo didn't waste any time in getting to the point. "Trouble on the home front?"

"Like you don't know," I said.

"Told you he hates me."

"I think he hates me making all these trips to the Otherworld more."

"But he still thinks I'm a bad influence."

"You are a bad influence."

We drove in silence for a few moments. Then Kiyo noticed that I wasn't heading toward my house. We were going downtown. "No," he groaned. "We are not actually going to hear Tim, are we? I thought that was just an excuse to leave."

I shook my head. "Sorry. I promised."

Kiyo sighed but took it like a man.

We went to one of Tim's regular venues, a place called the Fox Den. I thought Kiyo would think that was funny, but he didn't. When we walked in, there was a girl on the stage reciting poetry about the bleakness of existence and litter on the side of the highway. Kiyo looked around, taking in the patrons and tables-and then realized we were in a coffee shop, not a bar.

"They don't serve alcohol here? There's no way I can do this without hard liquor."

"Oh, just hush," I said, trying to hide my smile. We found a small round table in the middle of the crowded cafe, and I left him there while I went to get hot chocolate. I would have loved coffee but had enough trouble sleeping without the addition of caffeine this late at night. When I returned, I saw three visitors had pulled chairs up to our table.

"Hey, guys," I said.

"Nice to see you again, Eugenie."

The speaker was named Barbara. She was an elderly woman, belonging to the Pascua Yaqui tribe. Their religious beliefs, while having some similarities to the nature-oriented views of neighboring tribes, had picked up a lot of Christian influences over the years. Indeed, she wore a