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"A sort of supernatural preserve for wild paranormal animals that were threatened with extinction. The unicorns are the most common. Stinkiest, too. "
"No kidding. So, what other secrets do you know?"
"If I told you, it'd ruin all the fun. I like surprising people. " Despite his innocent face, something in his expression made me nervous. I was full to bursting with secrets, and recognized the same thing in Jack.
"Please don't tell me our next trip will take us to bigfoot. "
"Nah, according to Raquel's stuff, they went extinct around the turn of the century. "
"Which century?"
He frowned. "Good question. Too bad I can't ask her for clarification, considering I'm not supposed to know. "
I shifted my back to get comfortable and closed my eyes, trying to soak in the sun. "Do you come here a lot?"
"Sometimes. "
"Where do you go when you aren't at the Center?"
"Home. "
"Where's that?"
He sighed. "Isn't that the question? Where's your home?"
"Umm, the room you seem to make a habit of violating?"
"No, think about it. When I say 'home,' what's the first thing that pops into your head?"
I frowned, images flitting before my eyelids. It used to be the Center, but my recent visit had erased any lingering sense of home I might have felt there. My pink closet bedroom felt more like a placeholder-somewhere I was staying before I left for somewhere else. Lend's house felt like a home. But not mine. "I honestly don't know. Nowhere, really. "
"Something we have in common, then, besides the world's most perfect hair color. We were both raised by no one and live nowhere. "
I squirmed, opening my eyes. He had a point, but not one I especially liked. I was connected to people, to places. Wasn't I? There was something in Jack that I related to, though, on a level I didn't quite understand. Here and there, when he wasn't being an idiot, there was this sort of . . . desperation. Like he was trying to find something, but he didn't know what it was yet. It was a feeling I knew all too well. Vivian understood it, too. Lend never could. But being with Lend made that feeling fade, like the unknown question wasn't as important as it used to be, and maybe someday it wouldn't be a question at all.
Jack still hadn't answered any of myactual questions, though. "But what did you do before you started working for IPCA?"
"Survived. "
I grabbed a fistful of grass and tossed it at him. "How about a real answer?"
He smiled. "I'm from Oregon, or at least that's what I think I remember. But, alas, it doesn't pay to be a beautiful toddler when stray faeries wander through town. Now I'm from that dark dreamscape, beauty and terror eternally intermingled, blah, blah, blah. "
I frowned at him, puzzled.
"Hey, they need entertainment and slaves even in the Faerie Realms. "
"Wait-you-you live in the Faerie Realms?"
"For now. "
That wasn't possible. Faeries had a nasty habit of kidnapping mortals and taking them to their Realms. It was a one-way trip. Once you were taken there and tasted faerie food, you could never come back. Even if you somehow found a faerie willing to bring you back to Earth, human food would never satisfy you, and you'd waste away to nothing. Ah-thus Jack's apple-spitting at Lend's house.
"So the faeries raised you?"
He barked out a laugh. "I wouldn't call it that, no. "
Vivian had been raised by faeries, but as far as I knew they never took her to the Realms. She talked about it sometimes, how the faeries took her wherever they wanted to go without any care for how she felt. Once she almost froze to death because they decided to have a ball on a glacier. Excellent caregivers, the fey.
