March 19th, 1929

It had taken some time for Nicoletta to find the right diner. She’d walked them into town, catching the scent of massed humans from half a mile away, but there was more than one eatery. She’d passed two before she saw Fex—Droste had coaxed the name out of him, or maybe tricked the name out of him, during their hike back—perk up at the sight of a third. 

When they’d entered she’d spent a long moment expecting Droste to take her and her clothing somewhere private where she could shift back to human, and only realized he had no intention of doing so when he shoved her under the table with his foot. 

Fex, meanwhile, had been mobbed by some of the staff and was getting dried and fussed over. 

The sleet had gotten through even her thick coat almost everywhere, and she was shivering uncontrollably. Every joint ached, especially her new stump, and her nose felt frozen. Her feet wanted to slide on the black and white checkered floor, and water was about to drip into her ears. Meanwhile, Droste had peeled out of his wool coat and was primarily dry. 

Frustrated, she slithered out from under the table and climbed so that the upper half of her body was in his lap. So there. She wanted her damned clothes, tucked safely in his pack. 

Under the cover of her thick fur, he pinched her neck and leaned to mutter angrily into her ear, “If you don’t start behaving yourself, there will be consequences.”

Her heart lodged in her throat and she slid off him with a whine of defeated frustration. He patted her head, but there was nothing nice about it. 

Movement beside her caught her attention, and she glanced over just in time to see Fex’s gaze shift from her to Droste and harden. Then he pulled a mostly-dry towel from around his shoulders and knelt at arm’s length. His expression softened and might even have become a touch concerned. He opened the towel and said very hesitantly, “Come here, Nicoletta, let’s get you dry, too.” 

She resisted the urge to glance up at Droste for permission. Instead, she slunk forward, keeping herself low and non-threatening, and then shoved her head against the towel, pushing until she was up against Fex’s chest. When his arms closed around her shoulders automatically, she knew he was just trying—and failing—to keep his balance, not grab her. 

With him solidly on the ground she flopped over, squirming against the dry cloth, trying to rub off as much of the water as she could. 

Now planted on his rump on the floor, Fex called over his shoulder, “Hey, Rayna, can I get another couple of towels, and… I don’t know. Could you put a bowl of whatever soup’s on that’s meaty down for her?”

A faceless voice beyond the towel said, “You’re going to run us out of towels, kiddo.”

Even the one towel was better than none. Nicoletta pressed her head against Fex again, rubbing her cheeks and that drip that kept threatening to fall into her ear. Then several more towels landed on the floor beside her. 

Nicoletta kicked herself off Fex and into the pile, squirming on her back. When someone started rubbing her belly she froze and eyed the culprit. Fex, of course, who went as still as she was. Nicoletta rolled to her side, his hand shifting to her bad shoulder, and continued squirming.

“You really don’t have to do that,” Droste said, above. “She can dry herself, and you don’t need to spend money on her; she’s been fed.” 

Nicoletta’s head snapped up and she stared at him, hard, willing him to be quiet.

Then Fex said in an appalled tone of voice, “She’s cold.” She felt his hand tremble with a fine shiver. She wasn’t the only one who was cold. 

Emboldened, Nicoletta made a noise less than a bark, more of a huff, in agreement.

Droste shot her the briefest of dirty looks, then sighed and crouched down near her back feet, picking up a towel. “You’re right. I forget that even her coat can soak through.” He reached out to start drying her haunch, and she pulled her legs up. The urge to snap at him until he backed off roared within her, but she knew that’d be pushing her luck, so soon after his reminder. Instead, she lay still and watched him carefully.

She could feel Fex’s attention on Droste as well, in the way his hands slowed as they rubbed her coat. With a world of chastisement in his tone, he said, “I’m surprised you couldn’t see it.”

Nicoletta flattened her ears. She knew full well that Droste could see how wet she was, and that leaving her that way was as much out of spite as her hauling him around on the leash was. 

Droste gave one of those smiles that had fooled her once, and spread his hands before returning to drying her. “I just didn’t notice.”

The woman—Rayna—came clicking toward them on proper heeled shoes. Nicoletta could smell the earthiness of barley and the mouth-watering fat of beef. “Here’s for your…” The pause was full of words. “Dog,” she finished. “And here’s for you.” She set two cups of coffee—an even more pungent smell—on the table. “Up you go. You’re wetter than her, now.” She draped a towel covered in ducks and flowers over Fex’s shoulders as he rose. “Made me go all the way upstairs for this, but Aunt Dee would haunt my dreams if I didn’t. Might think about buying a raincoat, though, kiddo.”

“Thank you,” Droste said before anyone else could say anything. He, too, sat back in his seat. Probably couldn’t wait to get his hands off Nicoletta, which was fine by her. Her flesh crawled everywhere he touched. 

**

The coffee was too hot to drink, but the mug was a fantastic little ceramic radiator for Fex’s hands. He wrapped both of them around it and eyed Droste warily, still wearing the ducky towel like a capelet. Dignity be damned, he was shivering. And wolf-bitten on one shoulder. And he’d lost his cap and his favorite hunting knife. And by the lords and ladies, if he’d lost his mushrooms, or they’d been ruined, he’d be—

Droste interrupted his dark train of thought by tapping one corner of the heavy cardboard menu on the table near him. He looked—ordinary. Quite benign, not at all menacing or like someone who would run a man down with a wolf. Vaguely handsome, blond, well into adulthood by human standards, but young enough that his short hair held no grey. There were faint lines at the corners of his eyes, as if he smiled often.

As he was smiling now. “I think we got off on the wrong foot. Can we start over? I’m Robert Droste.” He held out a meaty, pink hand with neatly manicured nails. He wore a slim gold band on one finger.

After a moment, Fex peeled his right hand away from the warmth of the coffee and accepted the handshake. “Fex Woodward,” he said, giving the name he was using with the humans these days. A few years and a hundred miles ago, it had been ‘Fex Bennett’, but that alias had aged too much for him to continue with it; he didn’t really enjoy pretending to be an old man. So now it was ‘Fex Woodward’, fresh-faced young apothecary, relatively new to Berkeley Springs. “You said you’d been looking for me?”

Droste inclined his head. “Yes, and no. We’ve been looking for one of your kind. My company does research on magic, and of course that goes hand in hand with…” He glanced around the mostly empty diner, then leaned in slightly. His voice dropped a little lower. “Unusual people.” He met and held Fex’s eyes. “We understand that some unusual people are struggling, and we think we might be able to help.”

A thousand and one questions raced through Fex’s mind. First among them, how had Droste singled him out? Could the man see through his glamour the way Nicoletta had?

At their feet, she’d stopped lapping at the bowl of soup. Her ears were back, and her look malevolent. Sweet mother of saints and sinners, could she perceive Fex’s thoughts?

But she was looking at Droste, not at Fex. 

Fex looked at the man again, too. He’d certainly earned Nicoletta’s ire, Fex supposed, with the way he’d treated her. But he still looked unremarkable. A little expectant, waiting for Fex to respond to his offer.

Fex smiled blandly back. “What makes you think I’m ‘unusual’?”

“As I mentioned,” Droste said, “my division specializes in magic. We’ve found that certain groups of people share a certain energy. I don’t know exactly how our specialists found the area, but Nicoletta was able to find you.” He nodded at Nicoletta, who seemed to wilt a little, avoiding looking at either of them now, and going back to her soup. She gave it a few desultory laps.

She definitely understood at least some human language. It seemed she felt bad about something. Maybe having tracked Fex? 

“Energy,” Fex echoed. “I’ll have to let my ‘people’ know about that.” As if he were in close contact with his clan, or any of the Fey. There were ways to contact them, of course, and he would get the word out. “What does your company want with people who have this energy?”

Droste leaned fully forward, elbows on the table to enclose the gap between them. “We don’t just research magic,” he said, with the fervor of a man who believed in his cause. “We use it to help where we can, and keep items that have been steeped in it or are magical themselves out of the wrong hands. We’re finding people with unique gifts to help us in this endeavor and with our research, and of course, we’re helping unusual people where we can.” He paused a moment, and his expression softened into sympathy. “I understand that there’s some people trapped here, and unable to get home?”

Oh. He really did know who Fex was. Or at least what Fex was. “Ah,” Fex said, to give himself a second to scrape together an answer. “That sounds like a worthy cause. Your research and preservation goals.”

Droste nodded agreement. His blue eyes were still brimming with purpose and sympathy. His offer of help hung like a tiny werelight for Fex to follow.

“So. My, uh, my people. You seem to know a fair amount about us,” Fex said. “Do you truly know a way for us to go back?”

“You understand, I’m not on that team. I don’t know all the details,” Droste said. He seemed genuinely regretful he wasn’t able to provide a better answer. “But yes, with your help they’ll be able to start sending people back within a matter of months. It’s expensive—” He stopped with a little wince at having let that slip. A secret, or just an embarrassingly uncouth faux pas to mention money?

“How expensive?” Fex asked, bludgeoning through the opening without a care. “Money, or is there a more serious price?” If there was one thing the Fey understood, it was that the cost of a thing might do much worse than leave the buyer in poverty.

Droste hesitated with a pained expression on his face. As if each word was damning, he said, “It’s—it’s too much for one person.” 

Fex nodded, waiting for the rest of the bad news.

“But I’ve been given leave to offer you an exchange,” Droste’s distress eased and he sounded more hopeful. “Your peoples’ gifts and information are priceless to my employers. If you, or another of your kind, would agree to come work with us, we can offer to start sending the rest home. We can even start with your family.”

Fex couldn’t control the way his heart raced at the prospect. He hoped Droste couldn’t actually see through his glamour. Nicoletta, who had finished her soup and laid down at some point, stirred, glancing between Droste and Fex with a soft whine. And she could see through the glamour. Probably smell Fex’s hope and fear all mangled into whatever that smelled like to a wolf. 

“What… What would that work be?” Fex asked. “Would there be a contract?” There would have to be a contract specifying how long the work would last. He wasn’t going to sell himself into slavery. But if it meant his family—especially the eldest amongst them—could go home, even a human’s lifespan of a contract would be worth it.

“Nothing you’d find abhorrent.” Droste waved a hand as if wafting away the idea of anything bad. “There would be a contract, though you’d have to work that out with the main office. I’m authorized to give you an offer, and that’s all.” He pulled a slim, tan envelope from an inside pocket of his jacket and offered it to Fex. 

Fex read the letter it contained, looking for the loopholes and tricks human lawyers liked to use, but there wasn’t really anything like that, other than an annoying vagueness on some details. It wasn’t even addressed to Fex personally, but he supposed if they’d been looking for any Fey, and not Fex in particular, that made sense. 

It was a fairly straightforward offer of employment at the ‘Division.’ The Fey employee would give specialized magical aid and knowledge to the division for the study, procurement, and protection of magical artifacts. And in exchange the division would facilitate movement of an unspecified number of other Fey through a newly created portal to the Feylands. It didn’t say how they’d created this portal, but that was presumably a secret that wouldn’t be divulged until Fex had signed a contract.

Fex folded the letter and put it back in the envelope. “This doesn’t specify where I’d be working. Or what the name of the company even is,” he told Droste. “Can you at least tell me that?”

Droste hesitated, looking conflicted. At last he said, “Ideally, you’d join us at our base. Near DC.” He gave Fex another intense, conspiratorial look. “From there we’d send you wherever we needed you to go—on the government’s dime, of course. We’re a new division, Fex, and not well known. We’d like to keep it that way, so as not to panic the general populace. If they knew what the Germans were trying to get their hands on…” His expression turned grave. Reaching into his jacket once more, he produced a slim black wallet and slid it across the table to Fex. 

Fex flipped it open to reveal a paperboard card printed in red and black, with a photograph of Droste against a height chart pasted in the center. A series of numbers underlay the photo—presumably his official record number—and his name in bold white print on a black bar: Drost, Robert Fitzhugh. It also listed a birthdate that proved Fex had been right in his guess that the man was in his forties. More interesting, though, was the rest of the card. Framing the photo, there was the familiar national seal, and a second seal Fex didn’t recognize, consisting of a crossed key and branch over a circle of stars. ‘Project for the Yield and Removal of Esoterica’ was printed on the circle around the second seal, and below that, ‘War Office of the United States.’

Other than the name of the agency being unfamiliar, it seemed as genuine as anyone could expect. Fex studied it for a moment longer, then handed it back. “I’ve never heard of your bureau, but you said it was newer,” he allowed. “If the purpose really is to secure artifacts so they don’t fall into nefarious hands…” 

Droste nodded. “It is.”

There wasn’t a war, yet, but things were starting to look scary in Europe, with militaristic dictators gaining power in several countries. And some objects, Fex knew better than most, could create large-scale catastrophe in the wrong hands. Plus, and closer to his heart, there had been disappearances amongst the Fey there. 

Going to DC would mean leaving his rather pleasant life in West Virginia, but he’d left a series of pleasant lives before, and always been able to create new ones. And he’d be able to see other Fey. Maybe even his own family. And get them home.

“I’m willing to hear what your main office has to say.”