Page 20 of Imaginary Numbers

“It’s James Smith, actually,” said James, and extended his hand toward me.

I looked at it warily. “I’m not sure you want to do that,” I said. “Did Annie tell you anything about me, other than ‘that’s Cousin Sarah’?”

He shook his head, hand still outstretched. “She said you’d been injured and were convalescing, and that she hoped I’d have the chance to meet you someday, but that was all.”

James wouldn’t be living at the family compound—or, apparently, be an honorary member of the family—if he hadn’t had a high tolerance for weirdness. From the spiky, almost crystalline edges of his thoughts, I was willing to bet there was something out of the ordinary about him, some little tweak or twist to his DNA that made him safer here than he’d be in the world outside. But he was still human. I could tell that as easily as I could tell that he was breathing. And unlike Evie, who’d grown up in a cuckoo’s house, or the biological members of the family, who’d inherited Fran’s inexplicable resistance to cuckoo influence, he didn’t have any protection from me.

Crap.

“I can’t shake your hand.” I took a big step backward. “I shouldn’t touch you at all, ever. And as soon as we’re done taking care of Artie, you need to ask my sister for an anti-telepathy charm. It’s dangerous to let me into your head.”

His thoughts turned quizzical—and oddly excited. “You’re a telepath?”

“Um. Yes.” Behind me, Evie and Kevin had managed to pull Artie out of the car and were carrying him toward the porch steps. Annie and her boyfriend moved to help. The four of them moved quickly, heading toward the light and warmth of the living room.

I itched to follow. I wanted to know that Artie was okay, and more, I wanted to talk to Evie about what had happened in the woods. If anyone would be able to reassure me, it was going to be her.

“Are you a sorcerer?”

I paused, blinking at James. “What?”

“A sorcerer.” His excitement was growing. “My mother’s journals mentioned that some sorcerers can learn how to project their thoughts, and that it’s a knack, like any of the elemental affinities. Annie and I have been trying to find instructions, but—”

“You want to learn to be telepaths?” This was just getting more confusing.

“Yes, exactly.”

“Um, no.” I shook my head. “I mean, sorry, but no. I can’t teach you. I’m not a sorcerer. I’m sort of . . . not human?”

“Ah.” James laughed, wryly. “Seems like that’s half the people around this place. It’s been a bit of an adjustment.”

“Humans have been the dominant species for so long that they don’t know what it’s like to be outnumbered anymore.” Evie and the others had made it inside. I realized with a start that Elsie was gone, too, following her brother into the house. Sudden suspicion arrowed through me. I narrowed my eyes. “Did Annie ask you to keep me distracted out here?”

James shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Did she tell you why?”

“She said you and Artie have been dancing around each other for years, and she didn’t want to upset you if there was something really wrong with him.” He didn’t even have the good grace to sound sheepish.

I stared at him for a moment, open-mouthed. Then I whirled and ran for the house, shouting, “Get that charm!” over my shoulder. I didn’t slow down to see whether he was following me or staying where he was. I just ran.

Houses designed by eccentric cryptozoologists who grew up with a traveling carnival are rare, and they all have one trait in common: they’re idiosyncratic at best, and seriously weird at worst. The family compound fell into the “seriously weird” category. The front door opened, not on a foyer or stairway or other reasonable architectural choice, but on the mudroom connected to the kitchen, on the theory that the kitchen had a lot of flat, relatively sterile surfaces, and most people would either need hot water or food when they got to the house, depending on how injured they were. And as a theory it wasn’t wrong. It was just strange.

I ran into the empty kitchen and looked wildly around, reaching out to try to figure out where my family had gone. There wasn’t any trace of them, which meant they’d continued on to one of the shielded parts of the house. Only the cuckoo-friendly guest room was completely shielded from psychic influence, but there were charms and protections built into various areas, largely because someone who’s injured can make a lot of psychic noise when they wake up, and sometimes that attracts unwanted attention.

“Think, Sarah,” I mumbled. They wouldn’t have wanted to take him up any unnecessary stairs, and Evie would never have allowed a still-bleeding incubus on her couch, not even when it was her nephew. Which meant . . .

I turned toward the pantry door. It was standing very slightly ajar. I walked over and gave it a push, revealing the packed shelves that lined the small, square room, stopping at the door on the back wall. It was almost hidden behind its burden of spice racks, but the knob was visible enough. I turned it, pulling the door open.

The thoughts of my missing family members washed over me like a wave: Elsie scared, Annie angry, Evie and Kevin trying to smother their fear under a veil of calm practicality. Even Sam was there, although his thoughts were still too unfamiliar to betray much beyond his presence. I stepped through the doorway, walking down the short hall on the other side until I reached the recovery rooms. There were three of them, each kept perfectly sterile, each warded against all possible negative influences. Even the dead couldn’t enter the recovery rooms, a fact our collection of friendly family ghosts found annoying, if understandable. There are a lot more hostile spirits than helpful ones.

That’s true of cuckoos, too. That’s why I’ve never taken the anti-telepathy charms personally. At the moment, however, it stung.

Evie looked up when I stepped into the room. Artie was stretched on the bed in the middle of the space—hospital issue, of course. We like to be prepared for any eventuality in this family. He still wasn’t moving, and there was no crackle of his thoughts in the air, no psychic sign that he was there at all.

“Sorry to run off on you like that,” she said, and her thoughts turned her words into a lie, because she wasn’t sorry; she wasn’t sorry at all. She was doing her best not to think about how worried she was, but she was out of practice, and all she was doing was throwing her fear at me, over and over again, like a series of stones. “I wanted to get Artie someplace secure.”

Annie and Sam were on the other side of the room, sitting on the industrial-green couch. Sam had his tail wrapped around Annie’s waist. Elsie was standing next to Evie, one of Artie’s hands clutched in hers. Kevin was at the head of the bed, fussing with the machines hooked to the frame.