Death By Chocolate (all's Fae In Love And Chocolate) y475l

Death by Chocolate

All's Fae in Love and Chocolate Story #4

By

Michelle L. Levigne

Uncial Press Aloha, Oregon 2011

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events described herein are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ISBN 13: 978-1-60174-121-9 ISBN 10: 1-60174-121-9

Death by Chocolate Copyright © 2011 by Michelle L. Levigne

Cover art and design Copyright © 2011 by Victoria Conrad

All rights reserved. Except for use in review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the author or publisher.

Published by Uncial Press, an imprint of GCT, Inc.

Visit us at http://www.uncialpress.com

Some stories don't die--but they might be asleep for a long time.

Many thanks to my intrepid publisher for picking up these stories again, and for encouraging me to write another misadventure of lovelorn Fae in the Human realms.

This story might--and might not--be the last Fae adventure. It ties in some characters and locations from the Neighborlee, Ohio books, most notably the Divine's Emporium stories.

Death By Chocolate

Queen Mellisande IV--the fourth Fae Queen of that name, and no relation to the previous three--was dead of a surfeit of chocolate.

Such a thing had never been heard of, or even imagined, in all the Fae realms. It was like one of the gods of Olympus being dead of too much ambrosia and nectar. Or a Fae not getting tipsy after chugging an entire six-pack of diet cherry cola.

In short: impossible.

Yet she was dead, with a blissful grin on her face. That was entirely expected, considering the ambrosial, healing qualities of chocolate. However, no one expected to find her bloated to the point of strained seams in her official royal gown. This was her uniform of sorts, worn for official public presentations and functions, and when the Fae Council was in session and all the Fae in the Enclaves as well as the Human realms could tune in through the Ether and watch as their duly elected government handled the careful istration of all things magical.

It was a pity, too--about the gown, at least. The queen had just been elected and crowned after the impeachment of the previous King, and the gown was still stiff and shiny, practically fresh from the silkwyrm's lair.

The usual suspects: the s who had been rivals in the election, the

upper class Fae who thought they had previous claim on the silk from that particular silkwyrm, the rabble-ros who wanted to bring back the hereditary royalty, and everyone who had brought Queen Mellisande chocolate to celebrate her election.

That was a lot of Fae, because most of the queen's congratulatory gifts were chocolate. As evidenced by the fact that it had taken her nearly three months to eat her way through the inventory of gifts to reach the chocolate that killed her.

Everyone who had brought the queen chocolate was notified by communication globe not to travel, period, until they were taken off the suspect list, the investigators came to talk with them, or they were given further instructions. Whichever came first.

"Okay," Epsibellah said, when the communication globe patiently strobed through green to blue to green to yellow and back again, waiting for her response. "But does that mean I stay here?" She gestured around Lori's kitchen.

Technically, it was Brick's kitchen in his big, two-hundred-year-old ancestral home in Neighborlee, but since Lori and Brick were on their honeymoon, it was now Lori's house and kitchen. Epsi was house-sitting and trying some exposure therapy to get over her agoraphobia directly linked with being in the Human realms. She was an Enclave baby, which meant she was terrified and broke out in purple and yellow spots when she was exposed for too long to alien environments.

She had spent the last three days isolated in Brick and Lori's home, watching DVDs, learning to bake chocolate cake and chocolate chip cookies the Human way, and enjoying herself tremendously. She had run out of chocolate chips and cocoa powder. Because her experiment had gone so well so far, she had psyched

herself up to venture out to the grocery store instead of transporting Fae chocolate in to her.

Now the communication globe floated in the air in front of her, with the warning, and she was frozen again, terrified to move. And wondering if she was smart to just stay in the Human realms for the rest of her life. She had given Mellisande a boatload of chocolate as a congratulation gift. Her election as Queen had been a triumph for Epsi, by extension, because they had been classmates at Serafina's Fine Arts Academy for Magically Slow Young Ladies of the Slightly Purple Blood. Meaning they were descendants of the last of the royal line of the Fae, and had a hard time getting control of their magic when they were children. Like Human children were a little slow in learning to walk or talk.

And when Epsi gave a boatload, it was exactly that: a boat the size of Cleopatra's barge, the small one, for private day trips down the Nile when she wanted to get away from Julius and Marc, made of chocolate and filled with chocolate.

Knowing Mellisande and her tendencies, Epsi was pretty sure that boat wasn't sitting there in the royal gift cupboard-slash-warehouse, waiting to be eaten. With her luck, the queen had floated the boat in that royal Olympic-sized pool of chocolate syrup that Epsi's wretched distant cousin--but not distant enough-Theodosius had given her for her coronation gift. Then she had gone deep sea diving, so to speak, and ate her way down to the life preserver of chocolatecoated marshmallows.

That was a lot of chocolate to investigate. Epsi could only hope the queen had eaten all of that first, and not recently enough for it to be considered the murder weapon.

Which brought up a point that hadn't been explained to her yet: How could chocolate kill someone? Especially a Fae?

"Or do I have to come home?" she asked the communication globe.

"Processing," it responded, the magico-mechanical voice somewhat static-filled, owing to the multiple dimensions it had to reach through between the Human realms and the Bureaucracy Enclave where it originated.

Epsi sighed, knowing that "processing" was bureaucrat-ese for "wait until your ear points droop." She looked around the kitchen and wondered if maybe there was some chocolate she hadn't discovered yet.

Three hours later, she had ransacked the entire kitchen, drank two cups of hot chocolate mix--not bad, but she decided to save the rest of the box for emergency rations, like in case of a siege--and considered breaking into the crate of diet cherry cola that Maurice at Divine's Emporium had given Lori and Brick as a wedding gift. Sighing, she crooked a finger, beckoning, and the communication globe followed her as she went downstairs to the pantry in the cellar.

The communication globe was still strobing through the holding pattern by the time Epsi hit pay dirt. At least, she hoped so. She found three bags of chocolate candy hidden away in the cellar, wrapped up together in multiple layers of zipper bags, with a sticky note on each one that said emergency stash--use only when invaded by disgusting relatives.

It took her another ten minutes to get through all the layers. She ripped the first

bag of chocolate open. It looked like bridge mix, which was okay, but she preferred not to dilute her chocolate with nuts and raisins and caramels. The delay hadn't brought her to the point of pain, but she was feeling a sense of panic she had never known before, and that made her step back and assess herself. There was no reason to dive into the bag headfirst, was there? After all, she had a touch of purple blood, and even though the hereditary royalty no longer existed, she still had some obligation coded into her genetics to act with class. So she paused to inhale the aroma that escaped the bag, like wine connoisseurs would savor the aroma when the bottle was first opened.

"Aauugghh!" Epsi staggered backwards, blinking furiously, feeling as if she had inhaled liquid fire, with a good dose splashed in her eyes. She staggered backwards, tipping the bag. Half the contents splattered all over the tile floor before she could think clearly enough to protect the rest by clutching it against her chest. Even in pain and panic, it simply was not done to waste chocolate. Despite how diluted her royal blood might be, there were some obligations she lived up to. Respecting chocolate was one of them.

"Do you require assistance?" the communication globe inquired in that irritatingly calm, cool voice.

"Absolutely!" Epsi bit her tongue to keep from shrieking that she had purple blood and she deserved better than this. She was the one who had inhaled like a glutton. What was she thinking, unwrapping something that Lori had definitely gone to a lot of trouble to keep sealed up and hidden?

"Who would you like to call?"

"Will and Phill," she gasped, feeling a new wave of fire washing over her. And realized she had been frozen in that position with the chocolate only inches from

her nose. What had she been doing, protecting chocolate that had tried to blind and suffocate her? She flung the bag away and, with her eyes blinded by tears, staggered backwards, aiming for the stairs.

What was Lori doing with that stuff in the house? What kind of horrid relatives had she been expecting, fearing, and hoping to kill?

"Hey, Epsi," Will said, as a wave of warm, flower-and-sea-scented air filled the room, along with a gush of humidity that could only come from a South Seas island.

"Oh, honey, what happened?" Phill added, and caught hold of Epsi's hands. "You're all swollen up."

"Poisoned chocolate!" Epsi gestured in the general direction of the bag she had thrown away. She feared that when it hit the floor it had exploded, scattering the pellets like rat poison.

"Why would Lori-- Forget it." Will took one of her hands from Phill's grip. "Brace yourself. On three."

Epsi gripped their hands and when they had counted down together to one, there was a flicker in the air signaling dimensional transfer. A second later they were in a room that echoed, and with the sound of running water.

"Drink this," Will said. He held a container of something fizzing and smelling of

powdered charcoal, senna, and other bitter herbs up to Epsi's mouth.

She obediently drank, and drank, and drank until her stomach threatened to hurt. Will took the glass away and a moment later a door closed.

"Off with your clothes." Phill got to work unbuttoning Epsi's shirt before she could respond. "Standard decontamination procedure."

"What was in that?" she said, trying not to whimper.

"Clean you out from the inside. Detox, and a purgative, just in case you ate something."

"No, I only inhaled."

"Hey, Epsi, there's a communication globe out here trying to get in," Will called through the door.

"Take a message!" she shouted, and finished shucking her clothes with Phill's help. In moments, she stepped into the shower and was surrounded by a whirlpool of herbals, Epsom salts, and warm water, suspended in the air so it bathed her from head to toe and saturated her skin to pull out the impurities. And of course the standard undersea spell was mixed in, to let her breathe water without drowning.

She could only hope the poisoned chocolates had been bought as a last-gasp measure defense against the Dreadful Greats, the great-aunts, great-uncles, greatgrandparents and other not-so-great distant relatives who thought they had a say in how other people who actually had lives lived those lives--who had tried up until the last minute to keep Lori from marrying Brick and staying in the Human world.

Half an hour later, able to see again, but with her face and hands still slightly swollen from exposure to the suicide bomber chocolate, Epsi settled down in the kitchen with Will and Phill to indulge in a triple-chocolate brownie sundae. They had even brought in cans of chocolate Reddi-Whip, so each of them had their own private supply of chocolate-flavored whipped cream.

That was the test of real friendship, right there.

"That's insane," Will said, after Epsi finished explaining the announcement from the communication globe, which had vanished while she was in the shower. The message had been to simply stay where she was, not attempt to go into any alternate dimensions where communication might be difficult, and be prepared to return to the central Enclave at a moment's notice.

"You're the last one to be suspected of poisoning 'Sande," he added, when Epsi and Phill both gave him questioning looks. "Now your freakazoid slimedog cousin, Theodosius, he'd be first on my list."

Epsi filled her mouth with chocolate chip brownies and chocolate ice cream covered in hot fudge sauce, rather than speak the loathed name. Theodosius had been King of the Fae for several years, and had another ten years on his term when allegations of voter fraud arose. It was simpler, bureaucracywise, to have him step down and conduct another vote, rather than create the

time travel spell to send the Ministry of Elections--which meant fifteen officials, with ten secretaries each--back to the time of the elections that first put Theodosius into office.

He had been just as foul-mouthed and disgruntled as anyone would have expected. However, he had abided by the court order not to go anywhere near the istration Enclave, and none of his friends had gone within fifty miles of Mellisande or her chocolate.

That didn't mean that sympathizers hadn't struck Mellisande in retaliation for replacing Theodosius, even though she and her ers had nothing whatsoever to do with the original allegations of voter fraud. After all, the troublemakers who wanted to bring back hereditary royalty could have struck, taking drastic actions to prove how much trouble it was, with loads of paperwork and bureaucracy, to change the leader of the Fae every twenty or thirty years. Or, Theodosius could have had a contingency plan in place from the day he took office, especially if he had committed fraud and rigged the election that put him there in the first place. He was that kind of a personality who would feel justified in punishing anyone who brought him to justice.

The problem was that Epsi was a relative of his, which immediately put her under suspicion, even though she was ten steps removed from Theodosius and hadn't talked to him since their Great-Aunt Meliflua's wedding festivities, just around the time of the Spanish Civil War.

"The thing is, I gave Mellisande chocolate, gobs of it, and she died of eating chocolate." Epsi shuddered and reached for the Reddi-Whip to squirt it directly into her mouth, filling it with the light, creamy taste of heaven. "I would never have believed it, until I nearly killed myself with that poison Lori had hidden downstairs."

"That?" Will laughed, earning glares from Epsi and Phill. "Honey, that's chocolate just like Theo is a guy you want to bring home to meet your under-age sisters."

"Explain," Phill said, and loaded her oversized wooden spoon with brownie and syrup, holding it up in a threatening position, ready to catapult right at Will.

"The dreaded five-letter C word." He nodded, his expression turning grave when Phill gasped.

"Look, I don't have the mental bond you two have had for the last hundred years. What are you saying?" Epsi said, trying not to snarl or wail or burst into tears. Could she blame the traumatic shock she had when chocolate tried to kill her? Or maybe it was the underlying jealousy that had nibbled at her ever since she figured out that Will and Phill were meant to be together, each other's completion and better half.

"Carob." Phill shuddered, and her throat convulsed like she would be sick in another moment.

"Huh?"

"Oh, you're so lucky to be so sheltered. Or maybe not so lucky, if you walked into it blind like that." She reached out and caught hold of Epsi's hands, as if she was bracing her for bad news. "It's a nasty trick of the Human realms--it grows here, and Humans decided it was healthier than real chocolate."

"Yeah, shows what they know. What does... Do you mean...?" She couldn't complete the horrifying, nauseating thought.

Phill nodded and said the dreaded words for her. "Fake chocolate."

"Blasphemy!"

"Yeah, I know." Will shook his head and slouched in his seat. "The thing is, Humans are always worried about their weight, so some genius decided carob, which is actually natural--just shows you what mutant plants show up when you've poisoned your world enough--tasted like chocolate. You wouldn't believe the advertising campaigns that go on, trying to brainwash Humans into thinking that just because it's lower in calories and fat, that carob is just as good as chocolate and more healthy."

"And it's poison to Fae." Epsi tipped up her bowl to drink the melted ice cream and congealed, cooled hot fudge, to brace herself. "I can't imagine anyone deliberately eating that stuff, to die from it, but that would be a good explanation for what happened to Mellisande, wouldn't it?"

"The thing is, not all Fae have the same reaction to it that you did. Some of us just get hives. Do you have any idea what it's like to have hives in your throat and stomach? Hives that don't show up until ten hours later, so you have no idea what you did to bring it on?"

"Oh, Will, that's horrid!" Epsi reached across the table to rest her hand on his in sympathy.

"Don't feel too much sympathy for the big idiot," Phill said, wrinkling up her nose at her husband. "It took four bouts with the intestinal hives before he made the connection. I thought the stuff smelled atrocious and wouldn't eat it, and he wouldn't believe me when I insisted it gave him bad breath." She sank back in her chair and sighed. "We had to learn the hard way. It never occurred to us that Lori would actually keep the stuff around."

"The question is if offering carob as a possible murder weapon and avenue of investigation would put you in good with the Ministry of Explanations and Investigations, or just put you on the short list of suspects," Will said.

* * * *

Before it left Epsi, the communication globe spat out a tracking band that attached itself to her wrist. It would report her if she tried to leave the boundaries of Neighborlee, either by Human means or by slipping through the dimensions. As if that weren't enough, she had to report every other day to Angela, the proprietress of Divine's Emporium, who had been drafted to act as her monitor. Epsi almost laughed when she heard that part of the conditions of her interim freedom, because Divine's had been the only place she had visited since coming to the little town. Chatting with Angela, who was human, but with enough magic wrapped around her to grant her status and respect among the Fae authorities, would be no problem for Epsi.

As an added bonus, she enjoyed the idea of seeing Maurice on a regular basis. He was from one of the upper echelon families among the Fae, so they had run into each other often growing up. Being shrunk down to five inches tall, with shrunken magic and burdened with glittery, fluttery, rainbow-psychedelic wings had made him a much more thoughtful, sensitive person. He had always been a champion for the underdog--at least, when he wasn't playing tricks on someone.

His changed circumstances had just brought out the knight errant qualities in him.

Epsi found it rather amusing, in a bittersweet way, that she could have fallen for Maurice as he was now, in his second year of exile and punishment. However, he was unavailable and totally out of her reach, even if she had gone into Need. Maurice had fallen in love with a young woman who had her own kind of magic; the variety generated by the mind and the imagination. And the fact that she had been living in Neighborlee all her life made Holly the librarian a little higher on the magical endowment scale than ordinary mortals. Epsi didn't know what Holly and Maurice would do if they couldn't finagle things to let the two of them be together forever, once his punishment ended.

She wished them well. When she finally did go home to the Enclaves, maybe she should just dedicate some of her time and energy and connections to doing some research of her own, to help them. After all, she reasoned, this whole mess over the death of Queen Mellisande had reminded her of her own purple-tinged blood. And that reminded her of just how much influence and "pull" she had, just because of who her ancestors had been. Maybe it was time Epsi used her genetics on someone else's behalf.

"That would be very kind of you," Angela murmured, when Epsi shared her idea the next morning.

The two of them sat in the garden behind Divine's Emporium, perched on the slope above the Metroparks. The big old Victorian house-turned-shop sat at the top of the hill that formed the western edge of town, looking down into the river valley and quarries that had been turned into parkland some time in the last century. Angela's garden was a haven in all weather, but Epsi found it especially glorious now, in the spring.

"Don't tell Maurice, though. Since I'm under suspicion, my having royal blood, no matter how diluted, might work against both of us. I wouldn't want to raise his hopes and then disappoint him," Epsi said, thinking too late to look around to make sure Maurice hadn't flown outside to them.

"My lips are sealed." Angela tipped her head to one side and that soft, wry smile lit her face. "He's grown up quite a bit since he landed here, and I'm beginning to think he's having a wonderful, maturing influence on every Fae he's encountered so far."

"Is that your way of saying I'm a selfish twit?" She laughed, even as she felt her ear tips warm up. Any moment now, they would shoot off sparks, signaling her churning feelings and deepening her embarrassment.

"Hardly. But I do believe that seeing Maurice in his...predicament...has given others pause for thought. They re-examine their own lives and don't need the harsh lessons he had to learn. Would you have considered helping a mixed marriage smooth out their path, before you met Maurice and Holly? Before you saw how happy Lori and Brick are together?"

"Ummm, no. Honestly, I never even considered the thought. I mean, we're definitely taught that mixed marriages can be good, fresh blood, bringing in Human magic and all that, but I've never met anyone who considered it, until now. Suddenly there's an epidemic of it." Epsi sighed. "If I could find a great guy like Brick, I'd certainly go for it."

"Some people mature faster than others."

"What's that supposed to mean? You mean, like emotionally or something else?"

"That, and other considerations. If you could find your true love, your soul mate, before Need throws you into panic mode, would you?"

"Heck, yeah! I mean, I've seen Need-bonded couples, and they're always happy, so one-mind, sometimes it's scary. But I'm jealous, too, even when I get the oogies over the idea of somebody being inside my head all the time, without conscious effort." Epsi shivered for emphasis. "But then I see people who bonded without Need, like Will and Phill, and Lori and Brick, and I think, maybe it's worth more because they have to fight for it. And I think sometimes, if it was just handed to me, 'the one' picked out for me by powers beyond my control... Maybe sometimes, at the back of my mind, way down deep where I'm not even conscious of it, maybe I'd feel trapped? And then I'd worry if the guy felt trapped, even if he was blissfully happy with me. And I think... I want a guy to choose me because he wants me, and not because some insane spell created by the far-distant ancestors, to ensure effective breeding and total partnership, chose us for each other. Does that made sense?" she ended on a sigh.

"Perfect sense." Angela chuckled and gracefully rose from the swing where she and Epsi had been sitting and drinking iced mochas. "I think you might enjoy talking with Lanie. She's the commodore of our resident Star Trek club."

"Huh?" She followed Angela into the house. "What does Star Trek have to do with Need?"

"Pon Farr. And other alien lifemate-choosing conventions in science fiction. Lanie's brother did a paper on it for his psychology class in college, and she helped him do a large amount of the research, so she knows a great deal herself."

"Talk with a Human about Need?"

"I assure you, Lanie is not your ordinary Human."

"Got that right!" a cheerful voice responded, as the two of them approached the front room where the counter and cash for the shop were situated. A young woman seated in a sleek, electric blue wheelchair, turned from the counter to face them. She wore cut-offs and a dark purple Klingon Battle Academy Tshirt, "Did I hear somebody taking my name in vain?"

"Epsi, this is Lanie Zephyr." Angela gestured between the two of them as she stepped behind the counter.

"Everything all set?" Maurice fluttered down from his usual perch on the shelf behind the counter, and came to rest on Angela's shoulder. "Lanie was just getting my help plotting evil tricks to pull on her shipmates at the spring rites."

"Spring rites?" Epsi decided if Lanie could see Maurice and talk to him, and Angela recommended the two of them talk about a touchy subject like Need, then she definitely wasn't an ordinary Human. Even without the natural fourwheel drive of her wheelchair.

"My Star Trek club's annual spring picnic. We go out to the quarries and have a treasure hunt and war games among the pits and streams. Maurice suggested a tug-of-war battle with the rope stretching across the river, which is such brilliance, I'm surprised nobody every thought of it before." Lanie tipped her

head to one side and narrowed her eyes. "Okay, I know nobody would have a Trek convention in the area without ing my ship, so you must be another visiting Fae."

"How could you tell?" Epsi glanced at Maurice and Angela for clues.

"The ears give you away big-time." Lanie grinned and raked her long-fingered hands through her tangled mane of dark hair. "What brings you to town?"

"Epsi is house-sitting for Lori and Brick during their honeymoon," Angela said. "I thought the two of you might hit it off."

"Might be fun. I could get the lowdown on Maurice, at the very least. All the deep, dark, dirty secrets he hasn't spilled yet." She stuck her tongue out at Maurice, who responded by shooting a streamer of green sparks that turned her hair and skin green for a few seconds.

Epsi stared, fascinated and a little stunned by the easy teasing between them.

"When are you free?" Lanie continued, not reacting at all as her coloring faded back to normal. "I'm on my lunch break. Got to get back to work soon."

"Epsi's along your route. Why don't the two of you walk together?" Angela suggested. "Don't say it," she added quickly, and shook her finger at Lanie.

"Say what?" Epsi asked, after the two of them had made their farewells and headed out the front door. She had been fascinated to learn that Lanie had some telekinesis. She opened the front door of the shop by "remote control", and used it to slide her wheelchair down the shallow steps of the front porch of Divine's Emporium.

"What do you-- Oh, you mean Angela telling me not to say it." Lanie gave her wheelchair a hard push and glided for a dozen squares of sidewalk as they headed into the center of town. "What she said, about walking together. I usually shoot off a smart-alec remark about 'don't you mean walk and roll?' And that usually gets me a slap on the back of my head or someone groaning or whatever. Since you're new here, she probably wanted to spare you getting your brain bounced around the room." She pushed again, and this time Epsi felt the tingle of power at work that kept the wheelchair going without physical effort. "That's my specialty, actually. Playing with people's minds. I have a regular gig at a local comedy club, doing a sit-down routine." She gave Epsi a sideways glance, obviously waiting for something.

"Sit-- Oh, I get it. Instead of stand-up." Epsi chuckled with her.

"What did Angela want you to ask me about?"

"How long do we have until you're back at work?"

"I'm just a couple streets over, at the Neighborlee Tattler. Maybe ten minutes at a brisk roll. I usually try to get out of the office on gorgeous days like this and zip around town, just to get my blood pumping. How big is this thing she thinks we should talk about?"

"She said you're the expert on alien mating--"

"I learned a little about Need last winter, when Will and Phill were going through their crisis. Is that it?"

"Kind of."

By the time they reached the door of the local newspaper, Epsi had barely begun explaining her mixed feelings about Need and choosing a lifemate versus having one chosen for her, the pros and cons, the happy couples she had seen on both sides of the question. She didn't know whether to be encouraged or worried that Lanie didn't say anything, just listened and murmured, "uh huh," and "okay, makes sense," a couple times.

They made arrangements to meet for dinner at Lanie's house that evening and parted. Epsi decided she did feel better, just getting her concerns out into the open. There were benefits, she decided, in talking to someone who was unaffected by the situation, but who understood it, albeit from a different and unexpected angle. At the very least, she wouldn't have some old auntie or uncle who had gone through the rigors and terrors and ecstasy of Need insisting that his or her personal experience was the only answer or solution or tactic.

She felt so good, in fact, that she ventured into the grocery store and bought enough supplies to last through the end of Lori and Brick's two-week honeymoon, and into the next month. Just in case she was forced to stay in Neighborlee for a long time, while she waited for the investigative team to make its next move. Most of the groceries were chocolate in one form or another, and two twelve-packs of diet cherry cola, but those could be considered medical supplies.

When she came out of the grocery store with her cart piled high with bags, she realized she had a problem. She didn't have a car, and there were too many people moving around the shopping area to simply pop out and teleport herself and her haul to the house. There were all those meddlesome rules established by the Ministry of Invisibility to Humans, after all.

By the time she got home, after having had to duck into the alley where the delivery trucks parked to teleport unseen, Epsi's mood had dropped from eager anticipation to irritation. She treated herself to an entire can of diet cherry cola, and then lay down to take a nap before going to Lanie's for dinner. She hoped Lanie knew enough about Fae to serve chocolate--dark, and in large quantities.

* * * *

"Cosmic," Guber sighed, watching the Bubblemaniac bouncing around the tiny screen of the handheld video game. "How come they didn't have stuff like this when we were kids?"

"Maybe because when we were kids, electricity wasn't even invented yet?" Kevyn kept his head bowed over the pile of papers he was studying.

"Hey, man, you're really boring." Guber looked around the recreation room in Kevyn and Sophie's home, realized he was hanging upside down in mid-air again, and turned himself right side up. "If Sophie wasn't so cool, I'd say being married did it to you."

"It's called being responsible." Kevyn finally raised his head and tipped back in his chair, stretching his arms out to his side. "And it's called being up to my ear points in pro bono work. You thought it was rough being a Fae advocate? Try earning your parallel dimensions JD degree and ing the bar in four dimensions, as well as in the Human realms."

"Why'd you do it?" Guber tapped the screen and it paused the game. Something it normally wouldn't do in the Human realms, but a lot of laws of reality were twisted into knots inside the spell-woven walls of Kevyn and Sophie's house.

"It's the right thing to do." He chuckled and leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table again. "And yeah, because I'm a boring old fogie, now that I'm married and degreed and practicing and responsible. But you know what? It's kind of fun, being responsible."

"Yeah, well, if I had a babe like Sophie looking up at me all adoring and trusting, I'd be responsible, too." Guber thought back to the day he had met Sophie, during a crisis when an academic rival thought she could actually kidnap Kevyn and use him for her doctoral thesis on magic. He sometimes wished he had made a move on Sophie, tried to get her attention and interest. Every time he had that thought, he realized it was a waste of time. Sophie and Kevyn were meant to be together. They were in love with each other long before the fact hit them between the eyes.

"What do you think of the game?"

"Cosmic. So your cousin Glori is into video games now?"

"Her and her husband, Lance. They're devising them with the kids in her daycare. Lance has a talent for stuff like that, now that he's gone through the Changeling process and he's out of the extermination business. What's really cool is the factor built into them to encourage kids who have latent magical talent, reinforce it with subliminal programming, and send out a signal to any Changeling Detection Squad who might be in the general area. Meaning in the surrounding ten thousand miles. And for the kids who are just ordinary kids, generating the usual magical flow, it channels that energy into a collection grid, for Human realm-dwelling Fae to tap for emergency purposes. It's ingenious."

"So what's the problem?" Guber settled down at the other end of the table and put his feet up on one of the few clear spots.

"Deciding if it's legal. Getting clearance to establish the grid. And the hardest part--setting up a dummy corporation here in the Human realms, along with a fake factory and assembly line and inventory, so whenever they get inspected, they'll as the real thing. It's not like you can build such technology in the Human realms without a good boost from magic to get it started."

"Uh huh." Guber grinned, understanding now why his good buddy from their bad old days of running rebellious and hiding from the horrific aspect of growing up, had finally grown up. "You want me to do my thing and try to set up a link between the Fae dimensions and the Human realms, so we can have an actual working factory, and get around all those problems."

"You're the wizard of Human tech."

"Yeah, and I'm also trying to keep a low profile. It really sucks worse than gravity on Jupiter, having to hide from the Revisionists."

"Did I mention I'm working with a few people who are working on your little problem?" Kevyn grinned.

"Little problem?" Guber shook his head, returning the grin with a wry twist. "It's no fun having a bigger percentage of purple blood than ninety percent of the Fae population in any known dimension. When slimy old Theodosius got tossed, you wouldn't believe how many people tried ing me, wanting to start up the old saw about re-establishing the hereditary throne. They would have found me, too, if they could have traced the messages that did make it through to me."

"Except you have more rerouting routines crisscrossing through the Ether than a dozen Fae put together." Kevyn snapped his fingers and the refrigerator at the far end of the room swung open, allowing two cans of diet cherry cola to leap out and float across the room, to land on the table in front of each of them.

"Yeah, well, it's a good thing I like being among Humans, and I like adapting the tech." He leaned back in his chair and let out a long, deep sigh. "So I'm kinda not all that thrilled about getting involved in a project like this, no matter how cool, if it might give people a hint how to find me."

"How about legislation being processed right now, despite the death of Mellisande, legally and magically divesting you, and everyone else descended from the former royal family, of your purple blood status?" He barked laughter when Guber fumbled his can and got some liquid up his nose.

"You can do that?"

"Bureaucracy can do almost anything, even if--especially if--it's totally illogical. We technically erase all the legal records, overwrite the historical documentation, and change the registration of the genetic code. Once that's done, it doesn't matter how many samples the Revisionists get from you and anybody within ten generations of you--you're not royal anymore."

"Man, the things you'll do to get me to run some tech for you." He held out his can and the two friends tapped rims in salute.

"Besides." Kevyn shrugged and offered a lopsided grin. "Sophie thought of bringing you in to do the flim-flam for the video games, so even if you said no, I was duty-bound to talk you into it anyway."

"Hey, pal, I might say no to you, but I'll do anything for your sweet lady." Guber tipped back his can and took a big swig. He grinned as the carbonation fizzed in his sinuses and the sweet intoxication swept down to his toes. "And maybe if we succeed in this, she'll find another cool chick among her Star Trek friends who'd be interested in me and won't get her brains fried by finding out Fae are real."

"If you're lucky, she'll kidnap you and take you home to study for a few weeks," Kevyn said, and raised his can in a toast to him.

"I should be so lucky."

* * * *

"Safety in numbers, right?" Epsi said under her breath. She leaned back against the wall and watched the friendly insanity transpiring in the community theater building where Lanie's Star Trek club held their monthly meeting.

In the last week, she had made many new friends, thanks to Lanie including her in her ramblings and activities around town. She had met Maurice's Holly and been talked into reading to the children during afternoon story hour at the library. She had tagged along with Lanie's childhood friends, Felicity and Kurt, and Kurt's sweetheart Jane, who ran the local spa. All of them had unusual gifts, and a mutual goal of unraveling the mystery of where they had come from, how they came to Neighborlee, and how they were born with their strange gifts. They also had a bizarre, fun sense of humor and outlook on life, and weren't above using their talents to play nasty tricks on the bullies who ran across their path.

And now Lanie shared her Star Trek friends with Epsi. That took a lot of trust, because they were a wild, slightly crazy, and fun bunch. Take for instance the current activity.

It was a game that remotely resembled Tag and took place mostly in the dark. She gathered that the object was to move around the room as quietly as possible, and for one person to sneak up behind all the others, whisper, "You're dead," and then move on to the next "victim," while the person just tagged would "die" in as loud and as dramatic a fashion as possible. Those who were just slightly more insanely creative than the others managed to take down tables and/or chairs or tumble down flights of stairs when they collapsed.

Since Epsi could see in the dark, and really didn't know how to turn off that particular talent, she elected to stay on the sidelines and observe. Harry, another Fae visiting Neighborlee, ed her while his fiancée, Bethany Miller, participated with gusto.

Epsi reflected that Bethany was guaranteed to have fun. She was part Fae, way back in the past, and part whatever Lanie, Felicity, Kurt and Jane were. That heritage combined to give her the almost unfair ability to move without even disturbing the air. If she hadn't seen the popular young actress stumble over a backpack left lying on the floor, Epsi might have accused Bethany of being able to see in the dark. She was the current "murderer," and she wore an expression of almost unholy glee as she sped around the room, "killing" one victim after another. At this rate, the game would be over before the last ice cube melted in the soda in Epsi's cup.

"Look at it this way," Harry muttered. "Lots of witnesses, lots of defenders. No matter what happens."

"Oh, you're a big help." She turned to him and they exchanged grins.

Finally, someone stumbled over one of Bethany's victims and shouted the ritual call of "Body!" which allowed the few "living" participants to turn on the lights. Epsi giggled with the rest when the living--numbering five--struggled to haul the "dead"--numbering twelve--into the little anteroom of the community building, which had been designated the "morgue."

"You need to appoint a new District Attorney," one of the corpses lying on the floor announced.

"Huh?" Epsi looked over at Harry, asking for an explanation.

"The DA is the only one who can question the suspects, and the Murderer must answer honestly. The DA only gets one question per round," Harry added, while

Epsi was still framing her retort that it wouldn't take long to go through the suspects.

"If I didn't think I'd get targeted right away, I'd volunteer," Lanie offered.

Epsi never saw who finally took the job, because she realized Bethany was lying on the floor among the dead, and she was busy trying to process this development.

"Isn't that against the rules?" she whispered to Harry, as the lights were turned off and the group moved back into the main room to continue the much-reduced game.

Someone among the dead made that same comment, when Bethany slipped out of the anteroom.

"Nobody's ever changed the rules to prohibit it," Harry offered. "Oh, great, here they go again. I wish they'd find a new one. It's getting monotonous."

Epsi was about to ask what he meant when the muttering and giggling among the dead turned into humming and then singing. She clapped both hands over her mouth to stifle giggles of her own when the song turned out to be multiple choruses of, "Them Bones, Them Bones, Them Dry Bones." Appropriate, at the very least.

Just then, a communication globe shimmered into view in front of her. She didn't

worry immediately because she knew no one but the magically gifted could see it. A moment later that reassurance fled. Considering that she was in Neighborlee, where the weirdness quotient for the town nearly matched the combined level for the surrounding five states, chances were good more than a few people could see or at least sense something.

Epsi signaled the globe to follow her as she slipped out the door and down the front steps, to stand in the front parking lot. Harry followed her, in time to hear the official summons to return to the Fae central Enclave and prepare to be sequestered.

"Sequestered?" he said. "For what? How long?"

"Time is undetermined," the globe's synthesized, unidentifiable voice responded. "All those being sequestered will be unable to use magic outside the boundaries of the holding area, so all possessions that might be needed for a stay of a week or more must be brought in at the time of entrance."

Epsi was as stunned by that limitation on her magic--and the entire concept of having to plan ahead instead of just magically fetching whatever she needed--as she was by the realization that the globe had answered Harry. Usually, official summons globes only acknowledged and interacted with the ones they were sent to.

"You must be pretty powerful," she said, when the globe had vanished.

"It helps to have a whole lot of powerful advocates in the family," Harry said absently. His brow furrowed in concentration, and little fizzing sparks whirled

around his ear points, indicating the intensity of his thoughts. "I know you told me about the chocolate and the carob and the whole stupid situation. It's not good that you've got a lot of purple blood--that makes you an automatic suspect. But the fact you're even remotely related to Theodosius, who has to be the top suspect, that's going to count against you, taint the whole thing even though you're innocent. But to be sequestered? They're having trouble already, and it's getting worse."

"But why did they wait two weeks before they sent for me?"

"Two weeks here. Maybe a day back home. Depends on how the time currents are flowing." Harry shook his head as his frown deepened. "I'm going to send for some help. If you don't mind?"

"Thanks. I'll take all the help I can get!" She flinched when he conjured up a small recording globe. Then she understood, and was grateful for Harry's foresight. He had her verbally confirm her wishes, and then press fingertips of both her hands against the globe to record her identity when she named his cousin Kevyn, and by extension all the advocates of Kevyn's bloodline, as her legal representatives.

"Are you sure all that firepower is necessary?" she had to ask.

"When you don't know what ammo the other side is bringing to the battle, it's better to be prepared for global thermonuclear war and have it end up being a squirt gun fight, rather than the other way around."

"Oh. Yeah."

She tried to use his words to comfort her as she hurried back to Lori and Brick's house. She packed up her belongings and scribed a message saying thanks and good-bye to her friends, who were at Playhouse Square that evening. Epsi stepped through the dimensional gate and went home to gather up everything she thought she might need for the next three or four weeks--just in case.

The thought that she might have over-planned and over-packed was comforting, in a way. She would rather be embarrassed to show up for sequestering with enough luggage for a month's holiday, and not need any of it, than to run out of books to read, music to listen to, and crafts to finish, and then start going starkraving mad with cabin fever.

She couldn't get the image of global thermonuclear war out of her mind. What if it ended up that all the advocate firepower she had lined up, thanks to Harry's connections, turned out to be squirt guns in comparison to what the governing council of the Fae enclaves brought to the battle?

There had been a lot of trouble from the group that wanted to reinstate hereditary royalty when Theodosius was taken out of office. What would they do now that Mellisande had died? Had they been involved in the poisoning?

That disturbed Epsi, until a more disquieting thought arose and made her feel a little nauseous. She immediately ed Harry to her new theory on to him, and to his cousin, Kevyn.

A new outer-dimensional movement had been rumored for the past century or so, in reaction to the outer fringes of the pro-royalty group. And of course, like any extremist group, they couldn't agree on anything, so dozens of splinter factions

with their own ideas for handling the "problem" of royalty among the Fae had emerged. Many of them advocated the forced sterilization of anyone with purple blood, to totally wipe out the chance of anyone re-establishing the throne. More than a few claimed to be more practical-minded: just kill everyone with royal purple blood, and avoid the expense and legal hassle of forced sterilization.

What if those anti-royalty lunatics had killed Mellisande to put blame on the proroyalty lunatics, and get for their agenda?

Maybe sequestering all suspects was a defensive move?

* * * *

"Ouch," Guber said, when Harry had finished relating Epsi's situation and her theories to Kevyn and Sophie in their recreation room that evening.

He had writhed a little as the Fae security specialist explained all the details and the little side bars that exacerbated Epsi's situation--getting chocolate from the Human realms, being related to Theodosius, having a strong dose of royal blood, and being a school chum of the dead queen. Guber felt a little guilty, too, over Epsi's situation. He had a chance in basic schooling to settle Theodosius's hash once and for all, and he had tried to be mature and generous and not exercise his rights.

If he had reported all the dirty tricks Theodosius had pulled, including spying and cheating and stealing, maybe he would never have been elected King. Then he never would have been accused of unethical behavior, never would have been replaced by Mellisande, and she never would

have been killed by overindulgence in possibly tainted chocolate from coronation presents she never would have received in the first place. Maybe if Theodosius had been punished and exiled as he deserved when he was younger, he wouldn't be the handicap to his family line that he was now, and Epsi wouldn't be implicated.

Besides, Guber kind of liked her. They had met numerous times, growing up, but because they didn't share the same interests or run in the same circles, they didn't do more than nod and smile at parties and other social events, or when they were invited to each other's distant family celebrations. When he learned that she had resorted to old-fashioned tactics when Theodosius gave her a hard time--popping him in the eye and on the nose and stomping on his foot with spiked shoes-Guber had sent her a bouquet of chocolate roses.

Right now, looking at the recording globe that showed Epsi reciting the entire situation as she knew it, he wished he had followed up on her delighted thankyou note, and spent more time with her. After all, Harry had said he ran into her at a Star Trek meeting. That put her in the top five percentile of women who wouldn't drive him stark raving mad if they were ever caught in a stalled transdimensional elevator together.

One big problem to a relationship of any kind: Epsi was an Enclave baby, up until recently. Guber specialized in Human technology, so even if he wasn't hiding from a bunch of lunatics who wanted to keep sliding a throne under his backside, he would have lived almost exclusively in the Human realms anyway. Enclave babies were psychosomatically allergic to realms outside the central Fae realms.

Still, she was cute, and Harry hadn't hesitated to come to her rescue. That said a lot for her.

"Anything I can do to help?" Guber nearly leaped out of his chair in shock when he realized he had spoken. Where had that come from?

"Actually, we could use all the help we can get," Harry said. "Since Epsi's chocolate coming under investigation was made in the Human realms, I'm beginning to think there might be aspects to it that Enclave-only examiners might miss."

"Like what?" Sophie said.

"There's the carob theory that Will and Phill came up with." He sighed and settled down into the far end of the U-shaped seating group. He had chosen to stay on his feet while he delivered his request for help for Epsi. Guber hid a grin and decided Harry was an okay dude, despite being so stiff and bound by ancient rituals that required a messenger to stand at attention.

"Carob theory?" She frowned, eyes narrowing. "You're talking fake chocolate, right?"

"Blasphemy," Kevyn muttered. He snorted, and grinned a moment later when she slapped his hand.

The look they exchanged, teasing and adoring, sent that funny little hot, twisting sensation through Guber's middle. When was he going to find a cool, smart, gorgeous chick like Sophie for himself? She didn't have any sisters or cousins, although her crazy great-aunt, Serena, was interesting. Just not quite to Guber's taste.

Harry hurried to explain how Epsi had been scorched by the fumes from a bag of carob-coated candy when she thought it was chocolate. He listed the different reactions to carob that some Fae had, just like they had different reactions to iron and silver.

"Okay, I get it," Guber said. "Most Fae don't know about carob, just the ones who spend any serious time out here in the Human realms. So you need a carob detector. If the investigation ministers even let us near the warehouse of the queen's gifts in the first place. But it definitely has to be built out here, by people who know what to look for, because it's a given nobody who stays strictly in the Enclaves would have even the slightest clue."

"They'd probably just label it as poison and leave it at that. If we can prove it's carob, and we can definitely prove by time-folding that Epsi didn't know anything about carob until she was nearly blinded by it, then if any was in her chocolate gift, it was an honest mistake and accident," Kevyn said slowly. "Guber, my man, how long do you think it'll take?"

"How many different kinds or strengths of carob are there?" Guber stood and rubbed his hands in anticipation of the challenge. "I'll need to program all the variables into the sensor. That's what'll take the most time. I have enough gizmos in my workshop right now, I can cobble something together in a few hours. That soon enough?"

"You guys are life savers," Harry said.

"Let's hope it doesn't actually come to that," Sophie said.

* * * *

There was no justice in the world. Any world, Fae or Human.

Epsi knew that for a fact because she was in the same holding dimension as her rotten slimebag scumsucking cousin, Theodosius, former King.

Obviously, no one had impressed on him the meaning of "former," because he had been in a royal snit since the moment she walked into the holding area. She couldn't believe his griping because no one granted him the respect and consideration he considered his due. Obviously, neither had anyone ever impressed on him the fact that being King meant he was supposed to put the needs and desires and best interests of others before his own.

The current-and-dead queen had been the epitome of what a Faerie queen should be. She spent thirty hours of the thirty-six-hour day tending to the problems and needs of the connected Fae realms and Enclaves, not sitting around demanding that everyone wait on her hand and foot. Sure, she got the silkwyrm clothes and the bottomless warehouse of chocolate, but she had Fae watching her work whenever she was in the throne room--which was actually a glorified, oversized office. Granted, it was supplied with better-than-average coffee and pastries, and the cubicles had actual doors on them, but basically it was an office.

Yes, most silkwyrms were so backed up in producing the much-desired clothes spun without seams that some brides waited ten years so they could be married in an original silkwyrm gown. But did that make up for the fact the late queen had essentially been in the position of being mommy to a sprawling, multidimensional nation of temperamental brats who sometimes couldn't find their

own noses to wipe them, and then couldn't what a handkerchief was for? Epsi shuddered at the mere idea of knowing thousands of Fae could watch her at work at any one time. She would be too inhibited to get any work done, always worried someone would catch her scratching her hair or her nose or burping or yawning or slouching.

Fortunately, Theodosius barely acknowledged her presence when Epsi appeared in the holding area for suspects. Which, she learned when the next person landed in the holding dimension, was a good thing. Her unwanted cousin could have charged over and tried to paw through her bags and boxes and trunks of possessions to help himself to whatever he absolutely needed for survival and hadn't thought to bring--or more accurately, hadn't thought to tell his servants to pack for him. Epsi found a cubicle where she could stash her luggage, put a magical resonance lock on it so no one but her could get in, and set about to introduce herself to the other occupants currently under suspicion and investigation.

After about three hours, she had made a handball date with her old school chum Pippirella, followed by ing in the book discussion group that had formed. And wasn't it a little depressing that people had been there long enough to form a book discussion group? Then the vortex opened again and Braccadocius stumbled through, looking like he was about to burst into tears. That had been his normal expression as long as Epsi could , since they had been in the nursery section of the purple blood school, so she wasn't worried.

Theodosius saw Braccy and nearly flew across the common room to land on him. For a moment, Epsi thought he would hug the newcomer. From the dawning, trembling smile on Braccy's face, he thought the same. He opened his arms, reciprocating the open arms of Theodosius--and stood there, arms open, while Theodosius descended on the pile of luggage that came through with him.

"You have got to have a copy of the most recent Magical Mumbler," Theodosius

snarled, after opening half of Braccy's bags and tossing most of the contents out onto the floor. Epsi was impressed to see Braccy had a valet spell in effect, immediately putting everything back into the bag as soon as Theodosius tossed it aside. "What good are you, showing up without it?"

"You didn't place an order with him, did you?" Epsi snapped, and stepped up to put herself between her cousin and Braccy, who had started to collapse into himself, trembling. "How was he supposed to even know he'd be put in the same holding dimension with you? Hmm? Neither of you got ing grades in prognostication class, so how could he know?"

"Epsibellah." Theodosius attempted a smile, which was more along the lines of straightening the downward curve of his mouth. "How wonderful to see you here, dearest cousin."

"Sixth cousin, five times removed," she reminded him, and gestured behind her for Braccy to move backwards. From the shuffling sounds, he was alert enough to notice and comply. "I've got the feeling the main reason I'm here is because I'm related to you. Should have surgically removed the connection centuries ago."

Several people tittered or sputtered, and a couple laughed outright. Those were the brave ones who didn't care if Theodosius knew how much they despised him.

"I'm surprised you're here. I would have expected you to be in the holding dimension with those who have three strikes against them, not two. After all, you went to the academy with our late, lamented queen. And you gave her chocolate."

He kicked aside the luggage he had disemboweled, sniffed, and sauntered off to a corner of the communal living area that looked like he was trying to turn it into a throne room or Mafia don's office, whichever came first.

"Thanks," Braccy whispered. He caught up the tethers of his luggage when it finished reassembling itself and levitated for easier transport to his temporary quarters.

"You're just as innocent as the rest of us." Epsi patted his shoulder. She smiled thanks to several former school chums who gathered around to welcome the timid little man.

"What did he mean, about three strikes and two strikes?" Dulcibella chirped, as their small group escorted Braccy to the cubicles that were still open for occupation.

"That's the newest thing in this investigation." Braccy gave them all an apologetic smile, as if he thought the news was his fault.

Epsi felt another flicker of guilt. Braccy and others like him thought everything was their fault because selfish, power-hungry bullies like Theodosius pounded the idea into their minds. And also because people like her, who wanted nothing to do with schoolroom fights, avoided confrontations and didn't think to stand up for the poor downtrodden souls until it was too late.

"They're sequestering all those who are under suspicion, and ranking them according to how many marks they have against them. I guess it's logical," Braccy said. "The ones with the most reasons or opportunities for killing the

queen get investigated first. Those of us with less reason have to wait."

"So the really innocent ones have their lives disrupted the longest?" Dulcibella snorted, rolled her eyes and shook her head. "That's the bureaucratic mind for you. Thoroughly logical--backwards, of course."

"So how come I'm not in the three strikes holding dimension?" Epsi asked aloud. She counted off on her fingers. "Related to ugly Theo, school chum, big boatload of chocolate. How many of us imported chocolate from the Human realms for our coronation gift? Should that be counted against us, too?"

"Why would Human chocolate be any more suspect?" Beauregard asked. His voice was just as resonant and rich as it had been once it stopped breaking.

Epsi had just finished sharing Will and Phill's revelation about carob--and how Humans used it as substitute chocolate in a ridiculous effort to convince themselves they were being healthy--when a communication globe shimmered into being directly in front of her. She had two seconds to read the message that she had visitors and was to report to the visitation dimension. The next moment, she blinked and found herself in the visitation dimension. It was a good thing she hadn't been taking a bath or changing her clothes or eating or something else that would put her in an embarrassing light.

"Harry?" She looked around the room, essentially featureless, with slowly churning lavender and pink walls and floor, and a conference table and chairs that oozed up from the floor. She was alone with her three visitors--Harry, and two Fae men who looked familiar in that "I've met you before, maybe centuries ago in a really, really crowded party" way.

One was dark-haired and handsome, polished in the hereditary advocate style and wearing the Fae knock-off of Armani. The other wore Army fatigue pants, and a baggy purple T-shirt with the Tasmanian Devil slavering on it. He had shaggy, dusty brown hair, a beaked nose and slightly bugged eyes. Despite that, there was something charming and little-boyish about him that had her smiling as soon as his gaze locked with hers. She liked his slowly dawning grin and the blue and green and gold sparkles in his big, chocolate-brown eyes.

Right now, she hated all mention or thought of chocolate, but she definitely liked this bit of chocolate in her life. Not that that made any sense.

"This is my distant cousin, Kevyn. He's an advocate," Harry said, pointing to the immaculately groomed one as they settled around the table. "And this is his buddy, Guber."

"Guber!" Epsi was so glad to him, she nearly leaped over the table to hug him. It had been years since she had seen him. If she ed correctly, he had stood up to Theodosius with some really clever, messily nasty tricks. That made him her hero, even before the realization that he was probably here to help Harry in her defense.

"He's a tech wizard. Human tech is his specialty," Harry added.

"We're putting together a carob detector," Guber announced, eyes sparkling, his voice rich, as if this was all a fascinating adventure he was enjoying immensely.

Epsi kept her mouth pressed in a tight smile, to avoid blurting that he had no business having so much fun when her life and liberty were at stake. It took a

few seconds for her to catch on to what he was saying, and it occurred to her that Harry couldn't have found anyone better suited to help her with her problem than someone who was totally immersed in all things Human and tech.

"A carob detector? Can you do that?"

"Better this way than doing it your way," Kevyn offered with a tip of his head.

"My way? Oh--getting sick. Yeah. Not cool." She decided maybe she was on the verge of being out of her depth, so she should just sit back and let the experts handle the problem.

At least she had someone helping her on the outside.

Kevyn, she learned quickly, might be a relatively young advocate in of years of practice, but his time spent exploring the Human realms had given him a perspective that stood them in good stead. He specialized in any areas where Humans and Fae interacted, or problems that resulted from Fae and Human interaction. She wondered where he had been when Maurice got exiled to Divine's Emporium. Wouldn't Kevyn have been a good one to have on his side?

The four of them talked for nearly three hours, exchanging theories. Epsi had gathered up information from some of her fellow sequesterees. Many of them had imported chocolate from the Human realms, even if they hadn't gone out personally to do the purchasing. Kevyn liked her theory that maybe some of the suppliers weren't quite reputable and had adulterated the chocolate with carob for reasons of their own, especially when it came to elaborate shapes, such as the boat Epsi had ordered. He left them for a while to talk with the investigators'

liaisons to propose the theory and gain access to records.

Then Harry had to step away to the corner of the visitation dimension to take a phone call. She was thoroughly impressed with him, that he had a cell phone that could take trans-dimensional calls.

"So, how does this carob detector really work?" Epsi said, when she and Guber were alone at the table.

"We had to feed it samples of all the different kinds of carob formulas out there, from the good stuff that es for gourmet chocolate to the really wretched stuff people think their dogs like."

"Who would feed chocolate to dogs?"

"The same people who think that dogs actually like things like chocolate and ice cream. Y'know, if it ain't the real thing, what makes them think it's gonna taste and feel like the real thing? And why train your dog to want the stuff if the real thing is gonna kill it? That's just totally loco, know what I mean?" Guber snapped his fingers and a five-dimensional display globe popped into being with a shower of multi-colored sparks that shifted through the spectrum as they faded away, and brought a fresh aroma of pine boughs to the air. "Are you gonna be bored if I show you what it's supposed to do?"

"I don't know. I've never really been into technical things. Especially Human gizmos. No time like the present to learn though, right?" She decided for all his sleepy looks, Guber was kind of cute in an adorable, worn-out-teddy-bear way. And she liked that he actually asked before he inflicted his technical schematics

and demonstrations on her.

As it turned out, she wasn't bored. His globe peeled away the layers of the device as he explained what it did, so she could see the different elements of the process as they worked. It totally amazed her when she was able to follow what he said. Even better, when something escaped her and she asked for an explanation, Guber did so without giving her that "you're supposed to know something so simple, how could you be so dense?" look that a lot of people gave her when she was much younger.

Long before she was ready to go back to the holding dimension, the disembodied, de-personalized voice of the monitors informed Epsi that visiting time had ended. She was surprised to realize how sore her throat was from talking and laughing with Guber. Despite his rather off-beat appearance, he was up-to-date and informed, intelligent, and had a wicked, sharp sense of humor. Besides, he despised almost exactly the same people she did, loved the same Human TV shows, and belonged to several groups that took episodes from their favorite science fiction and fantasy TV shows and rewrote them to add new characters or fix major logic holes. Epsi had been delighted to realize there were people who dared to re-invent sacred cows, and wondered why she hadn't ever tried it. There were dozens of shows she had wished had gone a different way, after all.

Even better, Guber promised he would bring her copies of his and his friends' stories when he came back.

"You will come back?" She blushed and sparks that strobed through green to yellow to orange to red swirled around her head in lopsided orbit. "I mean, I expect Kevyn to come back, but you don't have to."

"Oh, yeah." Guber gave her a crooked smile. The whites of his eyes turned green, then blue, then purple in synch with the expanding corona of his blush.

Epsi muffled delighted giggles. How long had it been since she had made anyone blush?

"I definitely got to come back. I mean, yeah, I could probably get to work with everything you told me, but... Don't want to leave you alone in there, y'know?"

"Thanks. You guys are the best." She decided not to tell them that there were several dozen Fae just in her holding dimension, let alone the other two areas designated for different amounts of strikes against the suspects.

Epsi took a step back, startled at the sudden impulse to hug him. Then she decided, Why the heck not? Just to be safe, she hugged Kevyn first, but she held onto Guber three times longer. He had a decidedly dazed grin on his face as the two of them stepped backwards and the transportation portal opened up behind them in the wall.

Epsi was still grinning and blushing as she stepped back into the holding dimension. Her sparks strobed all the way back to purple and blue and green now, and increased their orbits, so they crashed into each other. Immediately, her companions clustered around her, demanding to know what had happened and if she had any news of the progress of the investigation.

* * * *

"Welcome back." The totally unfamiliar female voice came from behind Guber.

He honestly thought the speaker was addressing someone else, until a slim hand landed on his shoulder. Turning, he found himself gazing at an equally slim face with magico-surgi-enhanced slanted emerald eyes.

Then he realized that the voice was not only female and sexy-raspy, but it hadn't gotten any reaction from him.

Well, duh. Brain's too tangled up with Epsi and her problems and ... well, yeah, with Epsi. He muffled a chuckle, and a moment later realized he might just be in trouble. There was something about the elegant face and form that made all his self-preservation interior alarms burst into dissonance.

"Sorry, don't know you, so I'm guessing you mixed me up with someone else. Sorry." He shrugged and turned to leave.

That elegant hand turned into a claw of titanium alloy, holding him in place. Guber flinched, trying to twist sideways to free himself and then another twitch sideways to slide into another dimension. He caught himself before the second twitch--the last thing he wanted was to take this stranger with him when he fled for shelter.

"Do you mind?"

"Actually, I do." Those emeralds turned to steely gray. Guber swore he saw shark

teeth behind those lavender-tinted lips. "You have a civic duty to all the Fae."

"Excuse me?" Kevyn stepped up and stared at the hand--and the invisible magic force--holding Guber prisoner. He displayed his Advocate powers and legally enhanced strength without even touching this stranger. "You're Sybellianora Prescaville of the Heredity is Best League."

She paled a few degrees, released Guber's shoulder, and stepped back.

Guber groaned, realizing exactly what civic duty this super-slim, super-hot chick referred to.

"I'm not bound by my genetics anymore, 'kay?" He held up his hands in the inter-dimensionally recognized sign of "no harm, no foul."

"Skabellious's legislation--" Kevyn began.

"Has been suspended for the unforeseeable future," Sybellianora said with a smirk that somehow managed to be elegant. "Since it hasn't ed yet, it isn't valid. Which means you're still one of four candidates for the throne with over ninety-eight percent royal blood." She held out a hand, beckoning for Guber to surrender and put his life, his sanity, and his future into her grasp.

Right at that moment, Guber mentally slapped and silently scolded himself to wake up. There were some--only a few--advantages to having that much royal blood. One of these days, he was going to sit down and go through the family

tree and the mathematical calculations to figure out how he could have ninetyeight percent royal blood. It just didn't make sense to him. But who had time to spare for brain-teasers like that at a time like this?

One of those advantages was the ability to detect when influencing spells were being used, no matter how subtle the spell, no matter how delicate the control.

And this twitchy chick definitely was using an influencing spell on him. In that fraction of a second it took to figure out what was being done to him, and to fight it, Guber realized something else. Part of the spell was anchored in pheromones, meaning he should have been dragging his tongue on the ground about forty seconds ago--but he wasn't.

Mental multi-tasking was another benefit of a high concentration of royal blood.

His lack of reaction meant his physical attention was already focused on someone else of the female persuasion, and focused strongly enough that Sybellianora couldn't leverage herself in to capture his attention.

Okay, Epsi, I owe you a big one.

"Not interested, 'kay?" Guber stepped back. He wasn't too proud to put his advocate friend between him and one of the extremists who wanted to put hereditary royalty back into power. "I got better things to do with my time and powers."

"What could be more important than taking your fated place at the helm of the ship of destiny of all Fae in every realm and dimension of reality?" Sybellianora blurted.

The panic tinting her eyes orange was almost amusing. She might have done her homework to create a spell that would subliminally influence him, but she obviously hadn't connected the dots. She should have realized that someone with that much purple blood, by default, had the sensitivity and the strength to resist anything she tried to do to him.

That was what gave the royal family the ability and advantage and leverage to become the royal family in the first place.

"Hold that thought," Kevyn said, holding up his index finger. A blue spark flashed off the tip. "Okay, I just filed a new restraining order against you and your cohorts, anyone involved in your league, and anyone who has even heard about the league. My client here has other things on his mind right now--"

"Rumor is, he's using Human technology to track down who killed Queen Mellisande," she said, stepping back the required four steps. Meaning she had just received the restraining order by Ether transmission. "Isn't that a conflict of interest?"

"If I was interested in taking over the throne, which I most definitely ain't," Guber said. "Kev, pal, can we split?"

"Definitely." Kevyn stroked his index finger downward from above his head to his waist. A slit appeared in the air and continued splitting downward, creating a

dimensional short-cut. He gestured for Guber to step through ahead of him. Green sparkles flashed along the edge of the slit, marking it as a restricted access doorway. Even if she wanted to, Sybellianora didn't have the power to overcome the bureaucratic barriers and follow them.

Advocates on official business, especially when they were involved in something as serious as the death of an Queen, had even more power than purple blood and the Council and the speaker for every ministry board in all the Fae enclaves combined.

"You rock," Guber muttered, as the two of them stepped out in the suite of offices reserved for Kevyn's family in the istration dimension.

"It's fun the first dozen times you do it, then it gets kind of..." Kevyn dropped down into the big chocolate brown recliner that was an exact match to his favorite chair at home and grinned. "Can't lie to you. It never gets boring."

"I'm starting to see that. Guess we were wrong all those decades, huh? Hiding you from your folks and avoiding school and all that."

"Hmm. Maybe. But when you figure I never would have met Sophie if I hadn't been playing hooky for so long..." He shuddered. The last glimmer of playfulness faded. "Guber, I'm sorry. I honestly thought that legislation was a slam dunk. I'll get to work, following up. Restraining orders have a whole lot more punch here than in the Human dimensions, but they still can only do so much to get those radicals off your backside."

"Nah. Don't worry about it. At least, not while we're working on Epsi's problem.

If we're working with the investigators, that'll protect me, right?" He didn't wait for Kevyn to think and nod. "I'll just activate the dozen-odd escape and distraction spells I've put together since the last time I had to run away to avoid the throne. If they're running at full speed before I actually need them, ain't no way those loonies can track me when I hit the launch pad."

"Uh huh." Kevyn studied him for a few seconds, with enough intensity to make Guber fidget, and then snap his fingers to teleport in his favorite recliner for serious thinking. "I have access to a whole lot of serious information. I know that whenever some group shows up wanting to restore the hereditary throne, on their heels is another group. Just as extreme, but instead of being annoying, harassing you with rhetoric about civic duty and other idiot rhetoric... well... restraining orders won't make an impression on them."

"The Erasers? Yeah, I've heard of them." He shuddered more violently than his friend had only a few moments ago. The problem, he reflected, was that his shudder was for real, whereas Kevyn had been acting silly. "Why waste time convincing people that hereditary royalty needs to be nullified? Just save your breath and wipe out the entire gene pool."

Funny, but Guber didn't want to snap his heels together, activate every selfdefense spell at his disposal, and get it out of there.

He wanted to stay.

He wanted to see Epsi again.

And that was the weirdest thing that had happened to him in a long time.

After all, he was a charter member of the Single, Serene and Smokin' Men's Club. It was one of their core principles that as soon as a member felt any sort of attraction to someone of the female persuasion, they put as much distance, physical, dimensional or otherwise, between them and said object of attraction.

Guber had made up that rule.

Of course, he had made the rule before the French Revolution, when it was dangerous in a lot of different ways to hang around with those hot French chicks. Or any other hot chicks in a lot of different dimensions. That was the funny-funny weird, not funny ha-ha--thing about political and social unrest. It spread to multiple dimensions.

In the centuries since then, Guber had grown a little smarter, worked out a lot of wildness, had a lot of fun, and realized that the female side of fandom and science fiction writing came up with a lot more fun than the male side. Girls were cool.

Maybe girls didn't have cooties.

Even if they did, he was willing to bet Epsi didn't have any.

"Well, I figure, hanging tight with you is probably the safest place to be, if the Erasers or anybody who thinks like this is on the hunt. I'm in." He snapped his fingers, bringing his electronic tablet to him, to start putting together the next phase of his research.

"What I should do is a PR campaign, once Epsi's problem gets cleared up," Kevyn mused as he brought in a stack of paperwork four inches thick to land on his lap. "We need to show both sides of the problem that nearly everybody with purple blood wants nothing at all to do with politics."

"Except for creeps like Theodosius." He sighed. "And that's exactly what the Erasers are trying to prevent."

"Too bad we can't do genetic screening for the creeps."

* * * *

Theodosius wouldn't lower himself to actually come chase Epsi down, but he did send one of his flunkies to listen when she reported to her friends about her meeting with Kevyn and Guber. She had settled down with some of them to dissect the conference in further detail by the time the flunky came back, with a summons to report directly to Theodosius. She considered for a moment just ignoring the poor, worn-out looking fellow. Knowing Theodosius, he had intimidated the flunky into volunteering to accompany him to the holding dimension. Or he had attacked the poor fellow to the point that the flunky's ear tips were wilting, convincing him that he deserved all his troubles, and only Theodosius could protect him from dire punishment--if he kept the former King in a good mood.

"Sorry, but you can tell my very distant cousin that not only do I want to maintain my distance, I'm not repeating myself for his benefit," Epsi said, after tossing aside a half dozen other, more astringent responses. "He keeps forgetting he isn't the king anymore, and he doesn't have any right or authority to give

orders." The flunky went so white all the color bleached out of his ebony hair and his navy-and-peach cashmere sweater. Pity for him prompted her to say, "Tell you what, though. I'll ask my advocate to take you on."

"Would you?" The flunky nearly wept. His knees buckled and the color returned to his hair. His clothes looked only marginally better; a washed-out shadow of the original colors and pattern. He looked over his shoulder in the direction of Theodosius's cubicle. "Who's going to tell--"

"Let him find out for himself." Rosamundiana giggled and her eyes sparkled wickedly.

How Theodosius found out and how long it took, Epsi had no idea, but somewhere along the way her distant cousin had learned how to make requests to the monitors for information, including notifications when others had visitors. When Kevyn and Guber returned for another meeting, Theodosius darted out of his cubicle and snatched at Epsi's sleeve as she stood up, in preparation for being transported to the visitation area.

"I demand representation by my dear cousin's advocate," Theodosius said, using his plummy, I'm just so jolly and beloved, everyone has to give me what I want, tone of voice.

"Such a request can only be granted by the advocate in question. Epsibellah, do you grant permission for this suspect to accompany you to your meeting with your advocate?" the monitor voice asked.

"If my advocate says no, does he get sent back immediately? He can't stay and

harass us until he gets his way?" Epsi immediately snapped.

"Of course. Your advocate is not required to take any clients he does not wish to handle."

"Okay. He can come. Hands off, Theo." She twisted her arm free of Theodosius's grip and checked her sleeve, positive there would be oil stains from his fingers. After all, she had only brought six changes of clothes. She wanted them to last as long as possible, and she didn't know how long she would be held in the holding dimension.

Kevyn and Guber both stood up when Epsi walked through the portal. Their welcoming smiles fell off their faces when Theodosius stomped through. He nudged her aside and snatched at the only chair on his side of the table.

"Hey, dude, show some respect for the lady," Guber said, before Theodosius could open his mouth and begin what promised to be a harangue, based on the sour look on his pudgy face.

"What lady?" Theodosius said, looking around the room. His gaze landed on Epsi, who took her place at the end of the table, standing closer to Kevyn and Guber than to him. It was evident from his sneer that he was about to say something derogatory about her, but he glanced at Kevyn and his expression froze. His flushed complexion paled, and he swallowed hard.

Epsi looked at Kevyn. He had definitely graduated from his final steps of training, because only full advocates were able to manifest the official Thundercloud of Disapproval, guaranteed to intimidate the most obnoxious,

arrogant, self-righteous, malicious pests to ever stand before the Fae High Court. It wasn't directed at her, but the flames in his eyes and the sub-zero temperatures radiating from Kevyn's frown made Epsi tremble for a few seconds.

"Could we have a new, clean chair for the lady?" Guber said, when Theodosius cleared his throat in obvious preparation to begin his demands.

The chair appeared immediately. Guber hurried to move the chair to the end of the table, positioned so Epsi was definitely seated with him and Kevyn, and leaving the other side of the table all for Theodosius. He held it for Epsi, then pushed it in for her after she sat down.

"Yes, well. I'm sure you know what I want," Theodosius began, to be cut off by Kevyn's sharp upward flick of his hand.

"We heard. And I'm not dropping my representation of Epsi to take you on," Kevyn said.

"I'm not asking you to drop her. Just put her case aside until you tend to mine." Theodosius's oily smile made Epsi want to pull out her compact and touch up her makeup to get rid of the shine that was probably coating her from head to toe.

"Why?"

"Why? Why--because--well, I'm the King, of course."

"Former." Kevyn sounded bored.

Epsi wondered if he had taken a class in advocate training to learn how to do that, too.

"Very well, former. But only because it was simpler to terminate my term than to investigate--"

"The investigation is going on at this very moment. Advocates and clerks from every level of the judiciary are working on the allegations and counterclaims." Kevyn sat back in the chair and crossed his arms. "What made you think the allegations had been dropped?"

"That doesn't matter right now. The fact of the matter is, I'm far too important to simply allow me to sit in there, cooling my heels, until someone gets around to investigating my innocence."

"The term is 'determining innocence or guilt.' Which means that until that determination is made, you could be guilty, so you cannot be allowed to roam freely in any of the realms hospitable to Fae life. But because you could also be innocent, you are not incarcerated with total deprivation of magical means to effect your comfort." Kevyn glanced at Epsi. "Do you want me to handle his case?"

"Not even if he was holding a knife at my throat, or blackmailing me with all the lies he used to tell to get his way at family get-togethers, back when we were children." Epsi knew that was far too long of an answer, but she had longed for decades to get a little back at Theodosius. He'd had an incredible talent, as a boy,

for getting to the adults first after some sort of fracas among the children, and spilling so many half-truths and quarter-truths that it was impossible to refute anything of his accusations.

She had decided long ago that Theodosius's philosophy was that if he couldn't have fun, nobody was allowed to have fun. And if he was going to get punished, everyone would get punished. And inevitably, the adults did punish everyone, just because it would take too much time and effort and magic to untangle the truth from Theodosius's twisted version of unreality.

"Epsi, dearest cousin, how can you say that to me?" Theodosius's eyes welled up with tears, and his fat bottom lip quivered.

"Ummm, because it's the truth? Because I despise you? Because if there was such a thing as divorcing your relatives, I would? Hello, monitors? My advocate will not be representing the former King. Could you--"

"Whoa. Cosmic," Guber said, staring at the temporary black hole that collapsed in on itself, where Theodosius used to be.

"That's what I call service," Kevyn said. All the dark sternness and cold immediately vanished from his expression. "Hello, monitors?"

"How may we be of service to you, Advocate?" the disembodied voice responded.

"You are recording all this, aren't you? What I'm telling my client will be of use to the investigation. The Supreme Advocates and the Ministry of Investigation already have our report and our theory of carob poisoning and the steps we're taking to find evidence. It would save time if this was recorded and sent to everyone involved, so we don't have to repeat ourselves a couple dozen times along the way."

"Recording. Please be notified that several istrative levels have requested immediate access to anything you clear for distribution to the investigation team. You might be interrupted by questions, if anyone s the conference in realtime."

"That's fine with me. How about you, Epsi?"

"Uh, sure. Let's get it over with." Epsi checked her clothes. They weren't her best, and she hadn't anticipated being put on a couple dozen report globes, streaming to as many dimensions, when she got dressed that morning.

"You look great," Guber whispered.

If she could have leaned across the table and kissed him and gotten away with it, Epsi would have. Guber might be a total Human-phile geek, but he was alert and sensitive enough to know when a girl was feeling entirely too self-conscious, and to know exactly what to say to make her feel better.

Could she hope that maybe he was expressing his opinion, too? Or was that asking for too much, considering her circumstances?

She sat back and listened as Kevyn paced around the table, speaking to the invisible audience. He gave a barebones history of the case, the implications linking to her, how he had become involved in the case, and what Will and Phill had told him about her reaction to carob, and how that whole theory came into being. Then he turned the education portion of the testimony over to Guber, who explained his device and the tests. He described the carob or carob-mixed-withchocolate samples that had been tested already and set up as standards for judging and calibrating the sensitivity of the device he had put together.

Epsi found it amusing that every couple of sentences, Kevyn interrupted with a layman's interpretation, as well as putting it into advocate-speak, for those who had a hard time understanding plain talk after decades of wrangling with the finer points and hairsplitting of language.

"What we propose, honored committee ," Kevyn said, after Guber finally sat down, "is to start with the easiest cases first. We will test all chocolate that came from Human sources. Every person who gifted the late queen on the occasion of her coronation was required to report where it came from. All gifts originating in the Human realms will be tested first, on the theory that this is the most likely source for the quantities of carob that poisoned the late queen.

"At the same time that we are testing the chocolate, we request that the Ministry of Health as well as the Ministry of Culinary Protection set up their own testing program in conjunction, to determine just how sensitive Fae are to carob, to identify the different reactions that are possible, and try to determine if different bloodlines react differently.

"It might be beneficial if emergency medical procedures are set up to automatically kick in as soon as symptoms are noticed in the future. With the increasing traffic into the Human realms over the last few decades, especially for

the sake of obtaining chocolate, the chances of innocent Fae unknowingly obtaining adulterated chocolate and poisoning themselves without realizing it, could be increasing."

He nodded toward Epsi. "My client started the line of thought that led to this suggestion, and I request that she be given credit for what could result in lifesaving measures for other Fae in the future."

Epsi blushed so furiously, she could feel the sparks whizzing past her cheeks. To avoid looking into the reception globes that transmitted the proceeding in the meeting room in all six dimensions, she looked at Guber. He mouthed "teacher's pet," which set off a fit of giggles in her that were hard to control. At least she stopped blushing.

Kevyn covered over most of her reaction by continuing his recommendations for the testing. The late queen's bloodline needed to be tested first, to determine if it was a specific susceptibility that made her swell up and die, or a combination of factors.

Epsi couldn't believe how long the report and testimony and questioning by the investigation committee took. When she was sent back to the holding dimension and her cubicle, she was exhausted. The lights had dimmed in the living areas, meaning it was technically nighttime there.

She found several of her friends camped in front of the doorway to her cubicle, and the protective coded doorway buzzing and hissing and arcing, shooting off sparks sporadically.

"What happened?" She nearly forgot to keep her voice down.

"Theodosius decided to have a temper tantrum in your cubicle. Or at least try to have one in there. Whatever your advocate said, it really set him off," Lucentio said with a grin. "We're pretty sure he worked off most of his temper just trying to slam through the door. He finally got sent to the medical dimension after he knocked himself unconscious for the third time."

"Ouch." Epsi grinned, and bit her tongue to keep from asking if anyone had recorded the battle between enraged Fae bully and security-spelled door.

It took her a few minutes to repair the twisting and damage done to her spell before she could open the door. She washed up and changed her clothes, and came back out to the common area. She wasn't surprised to see that twice as many people now waited to hear what had happened.

It surprised her to learn that more than three-quarters of her friends had gone to the Human realms to obtain chocolate novelties for Mellisande's coronation gifts. Epsi realized that her news gave them all hope. Everyone who had Humanmade chocolate could claim innocence in the matter, if they could prove they had no idea that carob even existed before the whole incident.

* * * *

"Let the madness begin," Guber muttered, taking a step back from the cobbledtogether monstrosity that was part magic, part wishful thinking, part Human technology. It also incorporated a few borrowed pieces from other dimensions that weren't officially in an Intellectual Property trade agreement with the Fae.

He nodded to Kevyn and his five cousins who were officially monitoring the entire operation for six different oversight ministries. Each one snapped their fingers in perfect synchronization, igniting the spells that broke the seals on the portion of the testing procedure that was directly under their authority.

A brown cloud rose up on a sigh of moist air and hovered over the machine that stretched the width of one end of the former Queen's chocolate warehouse. Guber watched the cloud, amused at the awareness that anywhere else, especially in the Human realms, that cloud would be considered pollution. Here--especially in a warehouse filled with every kind of chocolate possible in ninety-seven percent of the realms where Fae were able to live--that cloud was chocolate.

"Eat your heart out, Willy Wonka," Guber murmured.

He watched one of the lab technicians in his lavender lab coat lean forward into the cloud as it descended around him. Guber almost envied him, being surrounded by clouds of chocolate for as long as the testing--

What was he thinking?

It was pollution in the worst sense of the word. As in, poison.

"Don't inhale!" he shrieked, and flung a handful of half-coherent spells at the technician and his six buddies who looked on the verge of following his example. The seven froze, their lab coats turning from lavender to gray as time froze and a bubble of scintillating electric blue magic formed around them.

"Nice touch," Kevyn muttered, coming up behind him. "I think we probably should have adapted some gas masks before we got the first round of tests going. What were we thinking?"

"It's too deep in our brains," Guber said, as he wiped the sweat from terror off his forehead. "Even knowing about carob, it's hard-wired into us to think chocolate equals good and safe and healthy."

"Got them!" someone yelled from farther down the floor, after they used four fork-lifts to move the frozen lab technicians out of the settling cloud of gas.

Guber gagged, seeing how all seven of them were coated in a fuzzy brown film. His magic had included an impermeable skin to keep that possibly poisonous fog from actually touching their skin. However, that assurance didn't do much to fight the nauseating mental image of poison seeping through their clothes and skin, into their bloodstream. There wasn't enough antihistamine in all the Fae realms to handle--cancel that thought. There wasn't any antihistamine in the Fae realms, period.

"Yeah, and we think we know what we're doing?" he moaned, as he conjured up a couple of shipping crates of Benadryl and other equivalents--pills, capsules, and liquid form for swallowing as well as intravenous application. Just in case.

"Nobody got hurt," Kevyn assured him, as they watched the forklifts take the seven chocolate-coated statues to the decontamination chamber. "That's the important part."

An hour later, the seven technicians were back to work, and everyone in the warehouse walked around inside semi-permeable bubbles that filtered the air. For added protection, their controlling spells were Ether-wired directly to the computer controlling the tests on the chocolate in the warehouse. Every time new information on carob was found, another spell adapted the filtering spell implanted in the bubbles. Even if half the chocolate in the warehouse was contaminated with carob, and flash evaporated in an industrial accident into fog that filled the warehouse, it wasn't going to poison anybody.

Not on Guber's watch, anyway.

At the half-hour mark, the first batch of carob-tainted chocolate set off the alarms on the testing machine.

After three hours, nearly three hundred pounds and sixteen different levels of contamination by carob had been identified.

At the six-hour mark, all the bells and whistles and flashing lights had gone off and all the different messages Guber had programmed into the data display screen had been used. There was nothing more to see. His gizmo was working exactly as he had planned.

It was getting boring, quite frankly.

After an exhausting double shift of work, Guber watched Kevyn's cousins leave, one by one, and decided to be the hero this time around. After the third cousin popped back to his own enclave, he turned to his best pal and threatened to be the evil Faerie godfather for Kevyn and Sophie's first child if his old friend didn't

go home to his wife for at least a couple hours.

"Yeah, domesticated and hog-tied and tied to the wifey's apron strings," Guber muttered, when Kevyn didn't even pretend to argue with him. He waited a good five minutes after his advocate popped out, then he let himself relax and grin.

He was definitely jealous. If Kevyn wasn't his absolutely best pal in five different worlds, he knew he might have been tempted to throw a few monkey wrenches into the mix--keep his friend working late or interfere when Sophie tried to make .

Funny thing was, every time he got an image of Kevyn going home to Sophie after a hard day in the advocate's robes, the picture morphed into Guber trucking down a yellow brick road where Epsi waited at the end. To make the image even better, she sat on top of a glass hill, holding the world's biggest goblet of diet cherry cola out to him in silent invitation, with a mischievous grin on those gorgeous lips of hers.

Okay, so he was mixing images from several different faerie tales, but he doubted anyone bored enough to monitor his thoughts would be irritated or offended.

The upshot of his noble gesture was that Guber was entirely alone when the last lab technician rolled out the airlock doors and popped his life- system bubble to leave for the night--and a newcomer who had to be an Eraser rolled in through the airlock door.

"Man, how are you guys going to take over the multi-verses, when you don't pay

attention to details?" Guber groused softly.

Case in point: the lab coat on this newcomer was lavender shading toward rose. And the life bubble wrapped around him had a bluish sparkle in its sheen, when the bubbles Guber created were peacock green.

"But we do," said a raspy, tending-toward-adolescent voice from behind him.

Guber ducked and rolled, and then called up the battery of self-defense spells he had kept tucked into a side pocket of reality. Being semi-sentient, they were permanently activated and raring for the chance to incinerate someone or something.

In retrospect, he realized he should have done that in reverse order--activate, then evade.

A flash in several dozen nearly invisible colors three-quarters blinded him and stunned all his other senses. Guber felt like he was drowning. His eyes nearly popped out of his skull as air pressure all around him fluctuated wildly. Sounds warped toward both ends of the scale, and time itself stretched like taffy in the middle of a vicious pulling party.

The initial attack was strong enough to shatter his life bubble.

Chocolate fog was his first thought. Then a nasty chuckle bubbled out of him-which wasn't good, because clean air was in short supply--when his second

thought was Carob.

Then it was a little hard to think for a few seconds as his self-defense auto-bots went into annihilation mode. The nice thing about creating spells that were semisentient was that they were fiercely loyal, and they got highly infuriated when their originator was damaged or even made slightly uncomfortable. Guber hadn't figured out yet if they thought of him as "Daddy," or if they had reasoned out that if he was destroyed, they ceased to exist.

And if they had reasoned that out, he might need to do some revisions to his auto-bot defense spells. Why? Because every science fiction book he had ever read warned that when computers or anything that was semi-automatic started to think, they soon evolved to the point where they considered themselves superior to the Humans--or in this case, the slightly rebellious, tinkering Fae--who had created them.

But that was a consideration to leave for later. Right now, he had to follow up on that brilliant-yet-nasty thought that had tapped him on the shoulder, but that he hadn't quite turned around to look square in the eyes yet.

His senses started to clear up and settle back to normal levels as he propelled himself away from the zone of batter-to-a-pulp-but-not-quite-before-subduingthe-enemy-and-alerting-the-proper-authorities. His self-defense auto-bot spells were only dealing with the two Erasers who had snuck up behind him. There was a third, and were probably more, sneaking through the warehouse.

The carob-contaminated chocolate had been sorted and stored by the ratio of carob-to-chocolate in each contaminated item. Some of the lab technicians working with Guber had nearly wept when they found the best quality of dark chocolate intermixed with carob. It was like dribbling mud into a bottle of five

hundred-year-old brandy to give it body and texture. Right now, Guber was willing to bet that his attackers would only see chocolate in front of them and not realize they were walking into the equivalent of a poison ivy bath, until it was too late.

He had to work more on instinct than sight, trusting that he had his bearings straight while his physical eyes and sense of direction were still clearing up. Guber reached with his magic for the tank of carob-laced chocolate syrup and sent a streamer of it toward a patch of warmth on the other side of that literal forest of chocolate trees, bushes, and flowerpots, liberally interspersed with a menagerie of chocolate statues of birds, deer, unicorns, hydra--whoever sent that one needed some serious psychological therapy--cats, and of course, the requisite hordes of chocolate bunnies. After all, Queen Mellisande had been elected just at the start of what was the Easter shopping season on Earth, and procuring chocolate bunnies was easier than breathing.

Guber made a mental note to test all the bunnies in the morning--if he survived until morning--because they definitely had come from Human factories. Why hadn't he thought of that before?

Forget asking about what you didn't think of, he scolded himself as he grasped fist-sized boulders of contaminated chocolate using magical streamers, and flung them like pebbles in multiple slingshots at his invisible enemies. Just think, period!

Squawks and sounds of slipping and banging into heavy objects, and then the thuds of other heavy objects falling, and causing other, less heavy objects to fall in succession, gave Guber a better idea of where his enemies were. And gave him a good idea there were at least six more. Well, that was more like it. At least eight Erasers had been sent after him. He would have been insulted if they had only sent two or three.

Which meant that next time, they would send more, because he was proving right here just how strong and talented he was, and how good at multi-tasking. That was a sign of strong royal talent. Which gave him an even bigger shot at the throne, if it was ever re-established. Which it wouldn't be, if he had anything to do with it.

He briefly wondered if exposure to the carob in the air was causing brain damage. Maybe his particular allergic reaction was scattergun thinking. He would have to check into that.

Later!

Now he could see them--seven dark brown, stumbling figures emerging from the falling aisles of stored chocolate in all their weird and wonderful shapes. Guber semi-melted the chocolate he flung at them, aiming at their faces now that he could see them.

To a man--or a woman, in the case of two of them, he found out later--they all licked their lips as they cleaned their faces. He shot more warmed, adulterated chocolate at them, taking his ammunition from the seventy-five percent carob bin, and made facial masks. Just like he thought, and like he would do if someone insisted on slapping soft chocolate practically into his mouth, they all ate some of it.

Several--and he made mental/magical note of which ones--reacted to the taste, showing some shock. That marked them as more sensitive and alert than the others, and probably the brains of the operation.

Then someone screamed and started clawing at his face. Guber nodded in somber satisfaction and finally pulled the alarm that would bring in the Council's security forces. A moment later, he called for the medical team that had been on hand to take care of any industrial accidents during that day's work.

The medics arrived before the security forces, and they had all nine Erasers subdued and spluttering in the decontamination showers. At the same time, they started istering Benadryl intravenously to three who had puffed up like Violet Beauregard in both Willy Wonka movies.

Kevyn and two of his advocate cousins showed up about five minutes later. He thought of istering a genetics tracking test to the ones who showed the most violent reactions to carob.

It was like frosting on the cake for Guber, when one Eraser learned he had ninety-four percent royal blood. His anguish turned to terror when he looked around and saw four of his cohorts giving him that easily interpreted look: You swore to destroy all claimants to the throne. Do your duty, starting with yourself.

"The problem with those one-track minds of theirs is that they realize one big glitch--if they start with themselves in purifying the gene pool," Kevyn said with a smirk, "they won't be able to continue with anyone else." He settled back in the lounge set aside for the testing team and raised a half-empty beaker of diet cherry cola in toast to Guber. "Have you ever thought of going into security systems for a living? You're a one-man destruction zone."

"Thought about it. Then I realized I was basically lazy, and fighting for my life is too much work." Guber was surprised to see that the level of celebratory liquid

in his beaker was only down about two swallows. "It'd make a great video game, though," he offered, more to distract himself than Kevyn.

He couldn't evade the thought that had just occurred to him: Epsi had a large percentage of purple blood, too. Not as strong as his, but enough to make her a target. What if some Erasers had managed to infiltrate themselves into the detention dimension where she was staying until the investigation cleared her of suspicion?

"How soon until we meet up with Epsi again?" he asked, in as casual a manner as he could manage.

Then he realized that was a mistake, because he had never mastered the art of fake casualness in anything. Kevyn sat up straight in his thick, puffy-cushioned lounging chair, put his beaker down on a side table that materialized about half a second before he let go of his drink, and narrowed his eyes at Guber.

"So that's what it is," his friend muttered. "I was wondering."

"Wondering what?" He winced when his voice cracked.

"Don't worry. My folks thought of the danger to the purple-bloods under sequestering right after the Heredity group made with you. They have round-the-clock monitoring." He chuckled when Guber relaxed and sank back in his chair--and guzzled half his beaker of diet cherry cola without thinking. "You and Epsi aren't exactly two of a kind."

"Yeah, well, you know what they say about--" Guber choked when he realized he had been about to say "in-breeding." Which meant he had been thinking about breeding. And all the preliminaries. Including dating and courtship and commitment.

Yeah, but this is Epsi you're talking about here, that usually-silent voice of common sense whispered in the back of his mind. You really like her. She's an uber-cool chick.

Yeah, but this is the Epsi you haven't talked to in decades, and you only realized today she was a cool chick. Don't rush into things, another voice whispered back, from another portion of his mind.

Guber decided he had too many voices back there. It was time to evict some of them. But which ones?

Later!

"Speaking of too much work, I'm thinking we need to set up a better line of defense for anybody with more than forty percent purple blood," he said, sitting up again. He tossed his beaker of diet cherry cola into the air and it winked out before it splattered. "I'm thinking we shouldn't incinerate that carob-tainted chocolate when we find it."

"You're not suggesting we store it, are you? It'll end up being more of a problem than nuclear waste back in the Human dimensions," Kevyn retorted, frowning.

"Not store it. Use it. Like for self-defense." He grinned, replaying in his mind the streamers of carob-tainted chocolate he had shot almost directly into the mouths of his attackers. Eventually, criminals would catch on that there was something wrong with that chocolate, but until that happened, their automatic reaction would be to eat some of it. Between their varied allergic reactions and the effects of really strong Benadryl, they wouldn't have a chance.

* * * *

When she finally went to bed, Epsi slept for more than a day. She found three messages from Guber waiting, encased in delayed-message globes hovering over her bed when she woke up. The first reported on the testing that had begun on the warehouse of chocolate gifts. Epsi felt something go warm and gooey inside her when he said several times he wished she could be there to see his gizmo working. She told herself not to dither over whether he wanted her there because he wanted her to be proud of him, or if he just thought she should be there since she had been instrumental in the genesis of the gizmo. Trying to decipher how Guber felt and thought would give her a headache, and she didn't need any more right now, thanks very much.

So far, over six hundred pounds of carob-tainted chocolate had been detected. A large percentage of that came from the same cut-rate factory that d itself as a gourmet chocolate supplier. It claimed to ship from Switzerland, Austria and , but the chocolate actually originated in a building that straddled the border of Texas and Mexico. The packages were falsely labeled, not even using FDA double-talk hidden coding for carob.

Guber gleefully reported to Epsi that the factory had been reported to the FDA and the truth-in-food-labeling authorities. Everyone who had purchased the gifts from that tainted factory was clearly innocent.

The amounts of carob present in any of the chocolate was so minimal that even a highly allergic Fae would only have hives and shortness of breath. It seemed that even carob was too expensive for those particular manufacturers to use, so they had adulterated their chocolate even further with materials that were nowhere near chocolate or carob. In this particular instance, the presence of carob was a harmless and unavoidable mistake, on the part of the Fae.

Epsi spared a moment to wonder if that factory would soon go out of business, since no more Fae would be going there to purchase truckloads of chocolate at a time. Even if that didn't harm them, the FDA and other Human authorities would soon be breathing down their necks.

The second message dealt with her present in particular to Mellisande. The cargo in her boat was all pure, high quality chocolate. The boat itself, however, was laced with carob. It was necessary, according to the manufacturers themselves, to introduce it into the chocolate to help with the structural integrity and weightbearing .

The interesting part of the report was that the queen's friends, secretaries and assistants had all been interviewed to find out who had shared what delicacies with the queen. More than a dozen people corroborated the same story: several of the ministers of the queen's cabinet had helped themselves to the anchor and part of the top rail of the boat.

Mellisande had been so furious, everyone assumed the resulting illness of the ministers had been an overflow of her anger, an unintentional punishment. They had all recovered, but now that the medical authorities knew what to look for, the symptoms could all be traced to carob poisoning.

Epsi had been proven utterly innocent. The infusion of carob into the boat was

the Human designer's choice. She didn't even know carob existed until she inhaled the aroma from Lori's carefully preserved stash, and nearly blinded herself and scorched her lungs.

So the question remained--who poisoned the queen, and was it intentional or accidental? Laziness and cheating on the part of the human chocolatier, or obliviousness and ignorance on the part of the Fae who bought it?

Epsi promised herself she would be part of the process of finding that answer. She was getting out of the holding dimension, after all. Guber's message had contained an invitation to the team that was making adjustments and additions to the testing gizmo and the procedure. Epsi didn't know what she could do to add to the process, but it was the fact that Guber wanted her there that made her heart pitter-pat until she was nearly breathless.

She hadn't felt this way about a male of the Fae species in decades. Maybe not ever. It was exciting. What amused her was that Guber was not the sort of Fae male she would have chosen to get pitter-pat excited over, and her aunties and uncles and matchmaking relatives would be infuriated.

Which made him even more attractive. Which meant she had to be careful not to fall for Guber for the wrong reasons.

Epsi suspected the question of right and wrong reasons for falling for someone was moot, because she might have already tripped for Guber, at the very least, if not fallen altogether. What was it about the man that just made her feel lighter than air and put blue and yellow sparkles in the air?

Then she read the third message globe, which included several reports from different sources on the Eraser attack while Guber was alone in the warehouse. He apologized for frightening her, but he wanted her to be warned and on the alert--and he strongly urged her to come work with him because security had been quadrupled around the warehouse, so Guber knew she would be safe.

Epsi tossed aside everything but two thoughts, and even those were nearly drowned in the floodwaters of emotion that crashed through her.

Guber was worried about her. That made her giddy.

Someone had tried to kill Guber because of his high concentration of purple blood. That infuriated and terrified her. Those blue and yellow sparkles turned into angry red neon flashes on the order of a nuclear blast on the horizon.

Somebody was trying to hurt Guber? Her Guber? The guy she had just realized was a thousand times cooler and smarter and more fun than she had thought when they had to endure those horrific family parties together as children?

Ain't no way, honey! As soon as she got out of this detention dimension, she was attaching herself to Guber's side, and anybody who tried to hurt him was going to have to go through her, first!

* * * *

Epsi was the coolest chick Guber had ever spent time with. And not just because

she wasn't laying traps for him right and left, prompted by the growing insanity of impending Need that smashed the brains of far too many cool Fae chicks--at least, in his opinion.

She understood Star Trek. She liked old movies--especially ones starring Errol Flynn, Tyrone Powers and James Cagney. She wasn't afraid to it she didn't know padiddly about tech, and she liked to listen to him talk about it.

In the four weeks--Human time--since she had been released from the holding dimension, they had spent nearly all their days together, studying and throwing ideas back and forth about how to track down the carob that the testing teams kept finding in the gift chocolate. She didn't mind when he sat her down at a table and presented her with a pile of books to get a general understanding of the principles of Human tech that he was trying to adapt to Fae magic.

Even more important, in his book, she could understand and explain all the legalese that Kevyn kept bringing up, whenever he reported on the progress the other advocates were making in debriefing their many and varied clients. Epsi not only understood, she could explain it to him in he understood, and she didn't make him feel like a slow child or a particularly dense foreigner. Even better, she seemed to find great delight in translating into the tech-fandomHuman speak he enjoyed, so that Kevyn, standing right there in the room with them, got the craziest look on his face, as if he couldn't understand half the words she said.

Which made it even funnier, because Kevyn was his pal in all things fandom, especially when it came to Trek, Galactica, Galaxy Quest, Dr. Who, and Discworld. With a heavy dose of Highlander, Stargate, and Harry Potter on the side. After a few seconds of thought, Kevyn always caught up and agreed that Epsi had explained it better, faster than he could. Guber enjoyed teasing Kevyn that his time studying to become an advocate had petrified some of the cooler parts of his brain. Kevyn usually agreed, laughing.

The time Guber and Epsi spent together wasn't all work, though. She was learning to enjoy baseball with him. Today, they were at Lanie Zephyr's house, relaxing in front of the TV, watching the latest chapter in the battle between the Indians and the Tigers. Lance and Glori were with them, having come to Neighborlee for the weekend.

Guber liked Lanie. Especially since the chick didn't freak out knowing she was in a room with four Fae. She didn't stare at their ears all the time, and didn't ask a lot of stupid questions that were rooted in the efforts of the Ministry of Misinformation to make sure no Humans could ever recognize a real Fae if they ever ran into one.

It still freaked Guber, a little, when Epsi made remarks about their current problem and mission in front of Lanie. It just wasn't part of his programming to be that relaxed to take off his mask in front of Humans. Sure, Lanie knew about the problem, and she had offered some suggestions based on her own weirdness quotient. Still, it was like breaking deep conditioning to talk about the business at hand in front of someone who didn't have ear points.

"Too bad we don't have instant replay for the last couple months of the queen's life," Epsi murmured, during a time out in the game.

"Say what?" Guber's internal radar went off so strongly, it physically manifested as fireworks that shot up from the tips of his ears and exploded through the spectrum from red through green-blue and then back to red.

"The commentators were just talking about it. They don't have instant replay in baseball, like they do in other sports." She gestured at the TV, where the coaches

of both teams were going nose-to-nose with every referee on the field, "discussing" the recent play with visible heat.

"We can backtrack someone through time," Glori offered, "but it takes up a lot of magic, and it only focuses on one person at a time. The sheer bureaucratic mess of getting permission to backtrack each person, using that much magic...and that's after identifying each and every person who might even remotely be a suspect. The numbers alone make it impossible."

"Yeah." Epsi's ear points drooped for a few seconds. "It could take years, identifying everybody who might have come in with Mellisande who might have had an opportunity to poison her and might have had motivation."

"Do you have the equivalent of security cameras in your government buildings?" Lanie popped a wheelie and pivoted around to face Guber.

He was standing at the snack table, which was situated behind the couch and easy chairs where the five of them were relaxing, watching the game.

"If you can narrow it down to just the ones who actually went anywhere near the warehouse, and anyone who went through the dimensional gates to Earth to get chocolate, wouldn't that cut the numbers? And you'd have proof to bring up in front of all your bureaucrats and the paper-pushers who make the decisions. That ought to help."

"Not recorded, but..." Epsi knelt on the sofa to look over the back of it at Guber. "But there are trace impressions that are left, enough to backtrack them, right?"

"Trace impressions, like radio signals. Yeah." He nodded, his mind churning through a dozen different mental images that merged and created a dozen more, creating a geometric progression that soon had his head full and buzzing with energy. "The trick is recording them so you can sort through them ..." He grinned, and sparks shot out of his ears to zoom around the room with fizzing sounds. "Epsi, baby, you are a genius!"

"Well, I wouldn't say--" Then she couldn't say anything, because Guber leaped over to the sofa, grabbed her shoulders, and planted a long, loud, fireworksencrusted kiss on her.

The other three in the room had the courtesy to focus on the baseball game on television. Lanie turned up the volume with a flicker of her telekinetic power. She had to, because Guber had left the remote on the table with his plate full of food.

Despite the volume being loud enough to make the lamps on the end tables vibrate, Guber could still hear the hammering of his heart. Or maybe that was Epsi's heart? She stared at him, real sparks swirling in her eyes, gold and green, and the goofiest crooked grin on her face.

It almost physically hurt when he had to let her go. She must have felt the same way, because she held his hand when they sat down to talk with the others and start hammering out the details of what they wanted and needed, and how to get it.

Guber wondered if maybe the really lucky Fae males went through their own version of Need. Whatever was happening to him, it was pointing at Epsi and

shouting, "Her! Gimme her! Now! Forever! No substitutions allowed!"

* * * *

Will and Phill had the resources to obtain the equipment. Lori and Brick provided the workspace in the unused basement of a Willis-Brooks College building. Kevyn and Sophie explained the theory behind the device Guber planned to build, and obtained permission from the judiciary as well as the Ministry of Temporal Observation and Privacy.

Sophie camped out with Epsi and Guber. Alexi and Megan took a short break from their Las Vegas work and brought Bethany and Harry with them, thereby providing all the hands they needed to get the massive job done. Or so Guber hoped. He couldn't be sure this would work until they actually got it all assembled and tried what they envisioned. They worked together to assemble more than ten dozen VCR and DVD recorders, and then hooked them into the temporal bandwidth of the ether surrounding the Fae Enclaves, focusing on the entrance gates that monitored traffic between the Fae and Human realms.

Using the list of all those who had given the queen suspect, tainted chocolate, they focused the temporal tracing spells on them. The machines then recorded their lives and actions from the present, backwards to five Human months before Mellisande was chosen to replace Theodosius. The judiciary had decreed they had to go that far back, just in case the first rumors that led to Theodosius being de-crowned and de-throned were the trigger for all that had happened.

A of advocates, made up almost entirely of Kevyn's relatives, came to oversee the spells that would filter through the recordings, to safeguard the privacy of the innocent. And it was agreed that anyone who actually spoke the word, "Carob," would be arrested immediately and considered guilty until

proven otherwise.

"Cosmic," Lanie murmured, when she and Angela from Divine's Emporium brought dinner for the team. "So in a sense, time travel really is possible."

"Just not physical time travel," Guber said, sharing a grin with her. "See, all action is not ephemeral, there and gone, like most people think. Actions and words involve energy, and energy is not destroyed. One of the Fae laws of thermodynamics. Whatever is done and said is preserved, because it's energy. The trick is just unraveling all the multiple permutations of that energy, to see what was done ten years ago, a thousand years ago."

"Some trick." Lanie frowned at the banks of monitors filling three of the four walls of the massive basement room of the WBC building. "So, does thought come under that category? It's energy, right? Could you technically read someone's mind, using this same thing?"

"Sure. But who'd want to?"

"I wouldn't want to read my own mind," Epsi said, coming over to them. "Have you ever sat down and really tried to track down the thoughts going through your head? Talk about the tangled web we weave!"

"The more intelligent the mind, the more talented the person," Angela offered with her trademark serene, slightly smug smile, "the more tracks the mind follows at any one time. Geniuses often have no idea where they got their flash of insight, because their minds move on so many tracks at the same time. It might drive them insane to try to control the traffic, so to speak."

"So for those who do read minds?" Epsi prompted. "How do they do it, and how do they filter out one stream of thought?"

"They guess." Guber chortled when she gave him a narrow-eyed look and frowned at him. "Yeah, they pick up a lot of clues, and they know what they're looking for, and they guess."

"You've done it?"

"Ain't got the patience, babe." He was delighted when her eyes widened for two seconds, then she burst out laughing. The relief he felt, knowing Epsi understood, that she thought like he did, that she caught on, was a little frightening. And gratifying. And comforting. Which didn't really make sense. He liked Epsi. If they spent every day working together like this for the next dozen centuries, he'd be the happiest man on the planet--and the thirty contiguous dimensions of reality.

* * * *

After weeks of recording and filtering and webbing and tracking and pinpointing, Kevyn and his team of forensic advocates came up with enough evidence to not only catch the murderer of Queen Mellisande red-handed, but cover him with enough red paint to drown him.

Using simplistic freezing, blinding, and memory-wiping spells, the culprit caught up with over three hundred Fae who had bought chocolate as gifts for the

new queen. While each person was temporarily disabled, he inserted small quantities of carob into each gift. Never enough to disrupt the taste or texture or smell of the chocolate. However, the poisonous qualities of carob remained in the body longer than chocolate did, and if enough was eaten, it could build up to dangerous levels.

In some of the test subjects, the allergic reaction to carob created a craving for more chocolate, which led to a larger build-up of the substance in the blood, which led to a stronger craving, in a vicious cycle. Since many Fae tended to turn to dark chocolate first as a cure-all for any slight physical or mental or emotional ailment, it turned into a recipe for disaster.

"At first," Epsi said, explaining the report to the rest of the team, "the healing properties of chocolate were protecting the queen. But she was one of those who were hyper-sensitive to the build-up of carob. The more she ate, the more she craved it, the more damage it did, and the less help the good chocolate did her. Kind of like the episode of 'The Trouble with Tribbles', where the tribbles were eating poisoned grain. The more grain they ate, the less good it did them. She literally starved to death, gorging herself on what should have helped and healed her--in this case, a vault of chocolate instead of a storage bin full of grain."

Whoa, Guber thought, gazing at Epsi through a golden and purple haze of iration. She is definitely my kind of girl. Classic Trek all the way!

After weeks of filtering the records of activities and the traffic through the various portals to Earth, the pattern was obvious enough that even his most ardent--or blackmailed or intimidated--ers agreed that the murderer was indeed guilty.

Theodosius, former King, was guilty of causing the death of

Queen Mellisande IV.

Since the queen's poisoning had been done by stealth, over time, and spread out over large quantities of chocolate, Theodosius's punishment would be carried out the same way. The judiciary was convened and judgment handed down in a private, need-to-know, secrecy-to-protect-the-community-from-emotionaldamage session. An elite team of Fae commandos infiltrated the holding dimension where Theodosius and only a dozen or so of his closest ers were still sequestered. He was rendered unconscious and taken under cover of darkness, and a good silence-and-darkness spell, to the warehouse. Then he was sealed in with all the queen's chocolate gifts, good and bad, pure and tainted, with all the tags and labels and wrappers removed, so it was impossible to tell what chocolate had come from whom. His fate was to stay in the vault until all the chocolate was eaten. He could confess, saying he knew about carob and what it did and how allergic the queen was, and he knew what had killed her. Confessing would get Theodosius the standard punishment of time in the dungeon dimensions, disbarment from all public office for life, and denied access to the Human realms as well as all Human-oriented forms of entertainment. Theodosius was addicted to French art films, and to be deprived of them might be the worst punishment imaginable.

Which might have been why he didn't confess. He probably decided to take his chances with the carob, banking on the pure chocolate to protect him from whatever carob he ingested. So he stayed silent, ignoring the communication opportunities that came once each day during the first four days of his incarceration.

Those involved in the investigation would never know how allergic Theodosius was, because on the fourth day of his imprisonment, the monitors reported that he had thrown himself into the swimming pool of chocolate syrup and drowned.

Review of the security recordings, which were now standard practice, thanks to

Guber's invention--and the royalties would provide him income for life--revealed that Theodosius had started his sentence by eating Epsi's chocolate boat. Within two hours of devouring the unicorn figurehead, Theodosius broke out in purple and green spots, and sneezing that blew him from one side of the warehouse to the other. His tongue swelled up so badly that he couldn't speak clearly. This was a benefit to those who had to review the recordings, because it was obvious from his face and tone of voice that he was venting the most horrific, rancid curses imaginable. It also explained why he didn't respond when communication channels were opened between the sealed warehouse and the authorities monitoring his incarceration.

Obviously, Theodosius knew what was happening to him, and the cause, and decided to end his misery.

"Ironic, isn't it?" Epsi said, as she walked into the basement room at the college with Guber. The team was supposed to show up in another hour to begin dismantling all the equipment. "Death by chocolate for the queen, as well as for her murderer."

"Kind of cosmic, poetic justice, if you really think about it." He snapped his fingers and the strips of blue-tinted light came on across the ceiling. "This is gonna take forever to dismantle." He gestured at the shelves full of equipment, silent and dark now.

"Yeah." She decided there was something sad about all those screens without any movement on them, no blinking lights, no statistics scrolling across the ceiling, counting down all the Fae still being monitored and those who had been taken off the suspect list. "I really liked working with you. Wish it didn't have to end."

"Doesn't have to." He looked up at the ceiling and scraped the toe of his sneaker across the floor.

She wondered for a moment what he was doing. Then it occurred to her that he was doing a bad imitation of a little boy trying not to look guilty.

Which made her wonder what he was guilty of.

"What do you mean, it doesn't have to? Like, work with you? Go into security work?" Epsi thought maybe she could like that. Not the security work exactly, but she'd put up with a lot worse to be able to spend every day with Guber. He wouldn't be an all-work-and-no-play bureaucrat, like a lot of other Fae men who had grown up a little too much for her taste. Even three centuries from now, he would still be an off-beat, overgrown little boy playing Star Trek and watching really badly done special effects British science fiction TV shows.

"Nah, not security." He met her gaze for two seconds, and blushed so hard that a red plaid haze covered him from the top of his head to nearly his waist. "Just...with me. Together. Y'know?"

"Yeah. I know. Like...a lifetime?" Her voice cracked and broke, because she had never thought she would use that word in relation to a Fae man. They were just so immature, even the eight hundred-year-old ones. Human males, even those touched with Fae magic, were a whole lot more mature, reliable, but still stayed fun.

"Sorry. Lifetime has been cancelled," a voice rasped from the ceiling.

Which started to move downward toward them.

The racks and racks of shelving stopped the ceiling before it lowered more than two feet.

"Smooth move, Ex-Lax," Guber chortled.

"And that's exactly why we have to put an end to this hereditary throne!" the same voice roared, making the monitors and other equipment rattle. With a flash of blue and green and yellow sparks, four Fae popped into the room.

"Y'know that water cannon game at the county fairs?" Guber said, as he grabbed Epsi's arm and led her in a hasty, backwards retreat to the storage room at the far end of the basement.

"Yeah," she lied. Epsi called up the quick-access addendum of the Ether Lexicon. In four steps, she had an image of what he referred to. She nearly laughed, wondering if he was thinking specifically about the open mouths on the clown faces.

"Flight is useless," the leader of the four Erasers growled. The walls shimmered through several sour-tinted shades of yellow and green, revealing a bubble now enclosed the room, sealing them all in.

"Hope you're a good shot. We want to get the flower all the way to the top of the

pole." Guber ducked into the storage room and came out two seconds later, carrying enormous super-soakers, and put one into Epsi's hands.

"Resistance is futile," their enemy shouted, his voice about fifty decibels louder. He was probably peeved that Guber ignored him.

"Yeah, yeah. I will be assimilated. Blah de blah blah. I know the drill. Didn't you learn anything when the Borg went up against the Federation?"

Epsi muffled a giggle at Guber's reference to the half-machine aliens on Star Trek. Then she laughed aloud when the four Erasers paused, confusion momentarily wiping away the grim determination on their scowling faces.

"Now, baby!" Guber shouted, and pulled the battery-operated trigger on his super-soaker.

A brown stream shot out, and Epsi realized in that split second before she followed his lead, that had to be pure carob. The man was a seriously warped, demented genius.

He hit the leader of the Erasers while his mouth was open, just like shooting a stream of water into the clown's mouth to make the flower rise to the top of the pole to get the prize at the county fair games booth. Epsi went for the woman next to the leader, whose mouth dropped open even more in shock at the brown stream hitting him in the face. The other two behind them let out shouts--and a heartbeat later, Guber and Epsi, in perfect teamwork, shifted their streams of carob to them and their open mouths.

The intra-dimensional intruder alert went off, lights streaming through the spectrum and alarms whooping. Epsi giggled when Darth Vader announced, "I feel a disturbance in the Force," at a volume loud enough to make the floor and ceiling tiles rattle. That was a Guber addition, definitely.

All four Erasers were thrashing on the floor in brown puddles, scratching and choking and wailing as they vainly struggled to clear their faces, when the newly created Purple Blood Protection Detail Special Forces team arrived. They were accompanied by a HAZ-MAT team that was still undergoing training in handling carob.

Guber put his arm around Epsi and they retreated to a clean corner of the room, to watch and wait until the authorities had cleaned up the mess.

"Are we gonna have to put up with that kind of trouble for the rest of our lives?" she mused.

"Yeah, probably. Or at least until they get a new King or Queen elected who can push through that legislation to rewrite the royal genetic code." He waved his free hand, opened up a dimensional pocket, and brought out two frosty cans of diet cherry cola. "Until then, I'm gonna be rich from all the royalties on those carob cannons I'm deg and selling. Correction." He popped the tops on the cans with flickers of light. Epsi rather hoped it was so that he wouldn't have to remove his arm from around her waist. "We will be rich. Because you're part of this."

"I just suggested automatic machines to shoot the liquid carob. I didn't say anything about cannons or how to do it," she protested.

"Yeah, well, that's teamwork. I kinda like it, y'know?"

Was it her imagination, or did his arm tighten around her, and did he lean a little closer?

"Yeah, I do, too." Was that her voice, getting husky and low? Epsi had never thought she could sound like that.

Guber certainly seemed to like it.

"Maybe... I don't know... You want to go steady?"

"Steady?"

"It's basically the Human equivalent of courtship." His voice cracked and he leaned close enough she thought his nose would touch hers in a moment more. Which would be fine, quite frankly, because she had been thinking about ambushing him with another kiss, and that put him in close proximity for it.

"Courtship?" Epsi's eyes got wide and filled with sparks as her face heated and her blushing tinted the air in strobing shades of hot pink and lavender. "As in...?"

Guber could only nod, blushing so hard his face was green and the color began

seeping into his hair.

"Eventually marrying?" she finished on a whisper.

He nodded again, and sparks shot off his ear tips.

"Yes!" Epsi tossed aside her can of cola and threw herself at him. Which wasn't very far.

Guber stood up, and the force of her impact against him had them tumbling head over heels across the room. A defensive bubble encased them, keeping them from hitting anything hard--another of Guber's patented designs that was sure to keep him rich. Guber and Epsi kissed and tumbled through the air, shooting off sparks that acted like jets that kept them tumbling, bobbing gently up and down.

"So, like, did you say yes?" Guber gasped.

Epsi kissed him again. He was smart enough to figure out what she meant.

END

About the Author

Michelle has been a story addict for as long as she can , discovering Narnia and Star Trek at an early age, and becoming addicted to Greek mythology. After discovering fandom in college, she published 40+ short stories in various universes including Star Trek, Highlander, and Stargate SG-1. This launched her writing career, eventually creating her own universes instead of playing in someone else's.

She has a BA in theater/English from Northwestern College and a MA in communication, focused on film and writing from Regent University. She continues to write and submit scripts for various screenwriting competitions.

In 1990, she broke into the public market when she won 1st place in the 4th quarter of the Writers of the Future contest, earning prize money, royalty money, and publication in that year's anthology. It took another 10 years before her first book contract, for Heir of Faxinor. Since then, Michelle has published 40+ books and novellas with multiple e-publishers, in science fiction and fantasy, YA, and many sub-genres of romance. She has been a finalist in the EPIC Awards competition multiple times, winning with Lorien in 2006, and The Meruk Episodes, 1-5, in 2010, and has garnered 4s and 5s from many review sites.

Her training includes the Institute for Children's Literature; 8+ years in advertising; 10 years at a community newspaper; and freelance editing for small presses and a major business publisher.

In 2008, she launched her own freelance editing business, offering proofreading

as well as light or in-depth editing services on an hourly basis. Check her Web site: www.Mlevigne.com and click on the red pen to learn more.

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Uncial Press brings you extraordinary fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Put a world of reading in your pocket.

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