“Pay attention,” Meredith tapped the old dusty book in front of me with her switch. She hadn’t used it on me lately but she really loved using it as an implement. “Without referring to the book, tell me the name of the Seelie court, in old Fae.”

“’Allo,” I responded, hoping I wasn’t messing it up.

“And the inner sanctum?”

“Alloquandirm,” I said a little uncertainty. The look on her face told me I was wrong.

“Alloquandirum,” She corrected me. “You’ve gotta get that ‘u’ in there.”

“Sorry,” I shrugged. “It’s a lot to learn and-“

“We’re just covering the basics,” She lectured me. “These are things that you NEED to know. The Seelie court is ruled by nineteen elected individuals, tell me who they are?”

“The Hish’Virt,” I said, starting to feel exhausted. We’d been over this a million times, maybe a million and one.

“Great, you’re paying attention,” She passed around the table, walking behind me. For the last month we’d done nothing but cover Fae history and politics, information I was sure I’d never even use. During this exercise she’d done away with the training bunkers and went for more of a library setting, the walls were lined with wooden bookshelves, all containing massive tomes, some accessible only by long ladders affixed to rolling tracks. The room was dead silent other than Meredith’s instruction; I couldn’t even hear air circulating. Meredith herself looked like a goddess, a picture of perfection, or maybe I’d just been in here way too long. Her shoulder length black hair was accented with a slight curl at the bottom, and she was dressed in a tight gray turtleneck. It was a serious deviation from her normal attire, she usually favored low cut tops, but today it was a turtleneck and jeans. I couldn’t tell you if she was really this attractive or if I was just losing my mind.

“Tell me what stops the Hish’Virt from killing each other over minor disagreements,” She instructed. “And stop ogling me, you’re like twelve.”

I blushed a bit and looked down.

“The answer, please,” She instructed again, pacing back and forth in front of the table.

“Because they’re not Unseelie, right Mr. Giggles?” I turned and looked to the cat that Anabelle had left behind for me. Mr. Giggles mewed and I scratched behind his ears.

“Funny,” She shook her head. “The Ritual of the Weeping Sage – they all undergo it, blood magic that means killing one is to kill yourself.”

“When is mom coming back?”

“I talked to her last month, she’s doing fine. She’ll be back as soon as she can.”

“Why doesn’t she talk to me when she calls?”

“Close the book,” Meredith tapped the table. “We’re taking a break.”

I sighed with relief; we’d been training hard. A lot of the time had been spent in this library, even more of it in Meredith’s training room learning to shoot, run, fight hand to hand, and she’d even shown me how to use her favored weapon: the dagger. I trained, Mr. Giggles watched, that’s just the way it had been, and I still had no idea how long mom had been gone. I felt pretty good about myself, but I didn’t know how well I’d do in an actual fight. I stood up from the table and straightened my skirt out, then waited for Meredith to make a move, which she did. I scooped Mr. Giggles up in my arms and we walked toward the massive mirror at the back of the library and she took us home. We materialized in the living room just in time to hear a knock at the door.

“Wonder who that could be,” Meredith said in a really upbeat tone of voice. I wandered off toward the kitchen. In another life I would have found the contents of our refrigerator to be nothing short of disturbing. Lemon juice, apple juice, orange juice, lettuce, various fruits and vegetables, hummus, and not a single bit of meat in sight. I thought I would have missed meat more but I hadn’t even asked Meredith or Angela why we didn’t eat it. They had simply told me we were vegetarians and I took at it at face value. I mean, what was there to ask? The cravings for lemon juice were unreal though.

“Jasmine could you come here for a minute?” Meredith called out from the living room. I glanced at Mr. Giggles, sitting patiently on the kitchen island.

“I guess the lemon juice will have to wait,” I smiled to Mr. Giggles, rubbing him from head to tail as I made my way around the island and sort of skipped across the threshold, into the living room. As soon as I passed through, my jaw dropped. I was starting at a face I never thought I’d see again: my sister, Meghan. She looked older now, much older than me, her physical age was probably about the seventeen, her complexion extremely pale, and her brown hair pulled back into a pony tail. This was a weird moment for me; she’d always been younger and she’d always looked up to me. Now the tables seemed to be turned.

“You must be Jasmine,” Meghan smiled as she crossed the living room and embraced me. “I missed you so much little sister.”

“What happened after I left?” I started asking her questions a million miles a minute. “Were mom and dad worried? What happened to them? What happened to you?”

“Shh,” She put a hand in the air, silencing me. “Over to the couch, we’re not going to do this standing in the middle of the living room.”

I kind of stood there in stunned silence at the moment, so Meredith literally pushed me over toward the couch until I sat down. I heard Meghan chuckle a little at how disoriented I was.

“Is she always like this?” Meghan laughed.

“Unfortunately,” Meredith shook her head as Meghan sat down beside me.

“So, a Fae,” Meghan grinned at me. “You climbed the social ladder awful fast. Angela told me it wasn’t intentional though…”

“Yeah,” I said, pursing my lips a bit. “It was um…it was a thing.”

“I heard all about it,” She nodded. “It was kind of rough but you did have a thing for being dominated, and she didn’t do it on purpose. You asked like every girl you met to do it for you so…”

“I didn’t ask EVERY girl,” I protested. “There were some-“

“You asked me,” She rolled her eyes. “Case closed.”

“Wow that’s awkward,” Meredith interjected as I dropped my head and stared at the floor in shame; I felt the redness spread across my face.

“After you left, mom and dad filed a missing person’s report but you were eighteen so there wasn’t really an extensive search. I kind of…didn’t do well. I missed you, a lot. Didn’t know you were right down the road. I went into this really rebellious stage, I started dating all kinds of guys, mom and dad hated it. Put in therapy, hah, as if that would work. When I was seventeen I met this guy that they REALLY didn’t like, and um, well, it turns out he was a little different.”

“Different how?” I said jokingly. “Did he drive a moped?”

“They thought he was a little too wild…which is weird because he always had perfect manners. So um, here’s the thing. You’ve probably noticed there’s something a little bit different about me, and it’s uh…okay, when you look at me, what do you see?”

I stared at her for a good minute, other than the pale complexion and her being a little older, I couldn’t really see much of a difference.

“I don’t know…” I said, trailing off and shaking my head.

“We covered this,” Meredith interrupted. “The book of Magnus Rho, page 767. Look at her. Pale complexion, deep blue eyes, red lips. Come on Jasmine, you can do this.”

I frowned and stared at her. No, it couldn’t be.

“V…vampire?” I felt like a fool for saying it out loud.

“Yes, little sister, vampire,” She confirmed. “My boyfriend, at the time, turned me. He didn’t want to do it, I begged him to turn me just to get me away from mom and dad, so he did. And so here we are. You live forever, and now so do I.”

“I don’t understand…” I said, frowning. “You…I…how?”

“Sis,” She said, taking both of my hands. “The supernatural world is huge, it’s more likely for a mortal to become entangled with it than it is for them to spend their entire lives in the dark. But enough about me, look at you, a Fae! That is…so amazing, I can’t even put it into words. My kind looks up to your kind, you’re like gods, you understand that, right? And you know what? You’re gorgeous, you look SO happy as a girl. God I can’t wait to take you shopping and do your makeup.”

“Someone has to,” Meredith snorted. “With Angela gone she’s been an absolute wreck.”

“So, do you…eat people?” I asked what was probably the weirdest question that I could come up with, but just as she was about to answer, we were interrupted by a bang, a huge bang right at the front door. The three of us turned and stared, mouths agape as the front door tore from its hinges and clattered across the tile foyer. Through the open door, a huge beast of a man stepped through with glowing yellow eyes and a sword large enough to match his size. There was a moment of silence before Meredith finally spoke.

“RUN!”