Things got a little better after that. The purebloods of the city were willing to help as much as they could, and the changelings were willing to help even more. My refusal to have much to do with them tied their hands a bit, but they did their best before they left me to my own devices. Evening offered to have my P.I. license reinstated. I refused. I’ve been down that road before, and it didn’t do me a damn bit of good.

I think they told Mother I was back, but I’m not sure she understood. She doesn’t understand much these days. She spends her time wandering the Summerlands, humming songs no one recognizes and rattling at doors no one else sees. In her own way, she’s lost more time than I have.

Evening said not to contact Cliff until I was ready. I held out longer than I thought I could: I made it almost three days before I called him. I couldn’t tell him where I’d been or what had happened—there’s no real way to say “I was turned into a fish” to a man who thinks you’re as human as he is—so I fell back on old clichés, saying I had amnesia due to being attacked by the man I’d been tailing, saying I didn’t know what had happened. Our relationship was based on lies, and he must have known that, deep down. Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised when he hung up the phone, or when Gilly didn’t want anything to do with me. They’d gone on without me, creating a life that had no room for a deadbeat who left them grieving for fourteen years. I couldn’t explain why I went away, and so all we had was a silence that didn’t allow for love. I keep calling. They keep refusing to talk to me.

That was June. I’ve done what I could to reassemble the trappings of a life, but nothing can bring back the years. The summers, the winters, the last hours with my mother before she slipped completely into her own private world, every precious minute with my little girl, they’re gone for good, and I’ll never get them back. Maybe that’s why it was so easy to turn my back on Faerie. It’s taken me away from the mortal world twice now. It doesn’t get a third try.

Six months passed in a blur of despair, self-pity, and isolation. I didn’t understand the world; I was as much an alien as my mother on the day she left the Summerlands for the first time. I called it my penance, I called it what I deserved, and I just kept going. The world was falling down around me, and I didn’t care anymore.

That’s where the dreams end: with the realization that it doesn’t matter where I am, whether I think I’m a woman or a fish or something in-between. I’ve never really left the pond. I still can’t breathe.

THREE

I WOKE UP JUST AFTER SUNDOWN with a pounding head and the vague, nagging feeling that something was wrong. Cagney and Lacey had somehow managed to open the bedroom door while I was sleeping and had migrated from the couch to the warmer and hence more desirable bed. They started to wail as soon as they realized I was awake, Siamese voices vibrating in my skull like buzz saws. I groaned, clapping my hands over my ears. “Can’t you two be quiet?” They didn’t oblige me. Cats never listen. They’re dependable that way; when Rome burned, the emperor’s cats still expected to be fed on time.

The fae have always lived with cats. They’re the only mortal animals that can stand to have us around, and that holds true for all of us, even half-breeds like me. Dogs bark and horses shy away, but cats can look at Kings, and a lot of the time, they do. Cats put up with us, and in exchange, we treat them with respect, and we feed them. We’re related in a way, and I don’t just mean through the Cait Sidhe. We both tend toward pointed ears, stealing cream, and getting burned alive when the wind changes. It was only natural that we’d form an alliance where both sides said, “I don’t need you,” and both answered, “You’ll still stay.”

“All right, you win. I’ll feed you. Happy?” I pushed Cagney off my chest. She jumped off the bed, joining Lacey on the floor, where the two of them continued to yowl as they made it clear that no, they wouldn’t be happy until the food was in the dish. I rolled out of bed, retrieving my robe from the floor. The cats twined around my ankles, doing their best to trip me, and I pushed them ineffectively out of the way with my bare feet, heading for the door.

I got the cats so I wouldn’t be so lonely. I was starting to reconsider that idea. Maybe lonely was a good thing. Lonely certainly got more sleep. In my blackest moods, I tried to tell myself the increased sleep was the one good thing about losing my mortal family; living with Cliff and Gilly forced me to pretend to be diurnal and left me with a coffee addiction that verges on the epic. I don’t know how much caffeine it takes to kill a changeling, but I may someday find out.

The cats fell back once I reached the hallway, letting me walk unencumbered to the kitchen, where I filled their bowl with kibble. As they descended on their feast, I put a pot of coffee on to brew and made myself a quick nighttime breakfast of toast and scrambled eggs. Protein, carbohydrates, and best of all, cheap as hell. Combine minimum wage with the San Francisco housing market, and that sort of thing becomes an issue.

My food was still cooking when the cats finished theirs. Cagney wandered out into the living room while Lacey sat down in the middle of the kitchen floor and started to wash her paws, purring loudly.

“Laugh it up, brat,” I said, eyeing the level of the still-brewing coffee as I waited none too patiently. “We’ll see how much cat food you get after we’ve been kicked out for not paying the rent.” None of my magic was strong enough to make the landlord believe I’d paid him. I’d be out on my ass if I gave him the slightest excuse, and he’d be fitting a new happy couple into my previously rent-controlled apartment before I had a chance to find myself a cardboard box to live in. Evening wouldn’t solve my housing situation twice.

The fog in my head cleared as I ate, and I almost felt like myself by the time I’d finished my second egg on toast and third cup of coffee. I tossed the dishes into the sink, rumpling my hair with one hand as I walked back toward the bedroom. The answering machine light was still flashing. I paused.

“It’s probably Stacy, but it could be work,” I mused. “If it’s work, it probably means coming in on my night off. But it also means there might be money left after I pay the rent. Guys? Opinions?”

The cats didn’t answer. Cats are good that way. Their lack of answer saved me from needing to explain my secret, lingering fantasy, the one that woke every time the answering machine flashed: the hope that Gillian might have found my phone number forgotten on her father’s desk somewhere and decided to reach out for the mother she hadn’t seen in fourteen years. It was never going to happen, but it was a wonderful dream.