"Tabloids," Margrit echoed. "So some of you have died recently. I'm sorry."

"Are you."

"Yeah. Yes, actually, I am." She lifted her chin. "This world of yours, the world the Old Races belong to. A few months ago, I didn't know it existed, but now that I do, despite everything, I wouldn't go back to not knowing. You... make things possible, Janx." Margrit heard the note of longing in her voice and cleared her throat, trying to modulate it. "I used to read stories about the Loch Ness monster. I never believed them, but I wanted to. I wanted there to be something incredible in the lake. It just wasn't rational." A smile curved her mouth until her eyes crinkled, honest delight flooding through her. "I've seen six impossible things before breakfast, now. I can believe in the Loch Ness monster if I want to. You-all of you, Alban and Daisani and even Malik-gave me that. You might see me as a pawn to be played in some enormous game I don't understand, but you've made it possible for me to believe in magic. I regret the passing of anything that takes the magic out of the world, even if it'd bite my head off as soon as look at me." Blue smoke sailed from Janx's nostrils, paling his eyes to granite green, making them unreadable. "I think I begin to understand you, Margrit Knight. Stoneheart was wiser than he knew, breaking centuries of silence with you."

"Why do you call him that? You call me by my full name and you give Alban nicknames. Why do you do that?"

Janx smiled, revealing curved eyeteeth again. "Who's to stop me?

What you don't know, or understand, about the Old Races is this," he said abruptly. Ice skimmed over Margrit's skin, reminding her that easy banter and Janx's playful manner were not the reasons she'd come to an East Harlem warehouse at two in the morning.