Laura Anne Gilman by Heart of Briar

need to know. The clock’s been ticking ever since your
boy was taken, and you waited too long to show up and claim him.”
    “Excuse me?” Jan was, weirdly, relieved to feel angry. She
didn’t like anger, but it beat the hell out of being scared and confused. She
put the tea down, having only taken one sip from the mug, and glared at all
three of the...whatever-they-weres ranged around her. “If you knew what the hell
was going on, whatever the hell is going on, why
didn’t you do anything? Before I was in danger—before Tyler was in danger?”
    The jötunndotter lifted her hands,
each finger a smooth length of brown stone, the palms like congealed gravel. “We
couldn’t. Not without—there are ramifications and limitations to the natural
world, and—”
    “Elsa, stop.” AJ stalked back from the perimeter, which he’d
been pacing, and crouched in front of Jan. He’d pushed the hoodie back when
they’d come in, so she couldn’t avoid seeing the strange wolfen features, or how
his oddly hinged jaw moved when he spoke. “We didn’t because we can’t. It
doesn’t work that way. What’s going on caught us by surprise, too.” It hurt him
to admit that, she could tell. “We’re trying to play catch-up.”
    “So you’re not....” She didn’t know what she was going to ask,
but AJ laughed. It wasn’t a nice laugh.
    “Humans veer between thinking they’re the only ones here and
assuming that there’s this malicious cabal of woo-woo, messing with their lives
at every turn. Both’re crap. There’s the natural, that’s you, and the
supernatural. Us. We all belong in this world together...you people just take up
most of the room. Mostly, we ignore you. Occasionally, our paths cross. It
doesn’t end well for us, most of the time.”
    Jan spoke without really thinking about it. “Fairy tales.”
    AJ spat on the ground, and Martin sighed.
    “Humans call ’em that,” AJ said. “Humans don’t have a clue.
They revile what they don’t recognize, demonize what they fear, simplify it so
they don’t have to deal with reality.” He sighed, his muzzle twitching, and then
shrugged, as though deciding it didn’t matter.
    “Like I said, we try to ignore humans, the same way you ignore
us. Most of the time when our people meet, it’s just...skirmishes. Awkward
moments and bad relationships.”
    “But not always?”
    “Not always. Sometimes it works out—not often, but sometimes.
But that’s when it’s us, natural and supernatural.”
    “There’s something else?” Jan felt her body tense, as if a
fight-or-flight reaction was kicking in, although nobody’d said or done anything
threatening in the past minute, and wasn’t that a nice change?
    “Yes...and no,” Elsa said.
    “Seven times that we’ve recorded,” AJ said, “something else
gets added to the playground.” He held up his hand, not even trying to hide his
claws now. Three fingers ticked off: “Naturals, supernaturals, and
preternaturals.”
    “Preter...”
    “Humans call them elves,” Martin said. “What we call them isn’t
so pretty.”
    Elves. Jan thought of Keebler elves first, baking cookies, then
the slender, coolly blond archers of the Lord of the
Rings movies, and suspected AJ wasn’t talking about anything like
that.
    “Why two names? Aren’t you both—?”
    AJ didn’t roll his eyes, sigh, or make any other obvious sign
of irritation, but he practically vibrated with it. “Supernatural, above nature.
Preter, outside nature. One belongs here, the other does not. Nobody teaches
Latin anymore, do they?”
    Jan had gone to school for graphic design, not dead
languages.
    “Supernaturals are part of this world,” Martin said. “The
preters...come from somewhere else.”
    “Fairyland?” Jan laughed. Nobody else did.
    “And they...took Tyler? Why?” If they didn’t belong
here...where had they taken him? How had they found him?
    AJ settled in on his haunches, resting his elbows on his knees
in a way that she would