Chase’s whole face lit up like Ezra told him he won the lottery. Chase gently scooped her up, cradling her just like Ezra did in the crook of his arm. She was purring, happy to be adored, and her eyes were nearly shut with smug satisfaction. Ezra was glad she was happy. He wasn’t jealous—Lilith loved when other people gave her attention and wasn’t shy about expressing her displeasure if she didn’t want someone else to touch her, or if she was done letting strangers get in her personal space.
“You can give her to me or put her down if you’re done holding her. Just watch for dogs or traffic.”
“Put her down? Never,” Chase vowed, scratching under her chin. “I’ll hold her as long as she lets me.”
“Do you have cats?” Ezra asked.
“Two! An Abyssinian and a British Shorthair. Both are my darlings and I miss them dearly when we’re deployed. My sister watches them for me when I’m gone.”
“As spoiled as their daddy,” Harlan mumbled under his breath, though his expression was fond.
“It is my honor to give them everything they need and want,” Chase proudly declared, and Ezra laughed. He understood cat people just fine.
It was nice talking to people who weren’t treating him like he was odd, or a child. Maybe the trick to getting along with people was to get the weird shit out of the way first. Tracking down and deactivating a cursed skull in the middle of a supernatural disaster had to count as a relationship icebreaker, right?
Ezra
After stoppingat the campus Tim Horton’s for breakfast and more coffee, the sergeants took him at his request to the university library. Chase said something about taking Ezra to the Special Collections of the Rutherford Library to meet with a resident Elder fae expert.
Chase showed him the university map, and while the Sacred Threshold wing of the hospital and the library were technically within a ten-minute walk of each other, Ezra did not want to trek across the sunny, wide green expanse he saw through the hospital windows. Getting hot and sweaty was only acceptable in dangerous or sexy situations, and walking across a huge campusdid not count. He was very pleased when Brown gestured to the black government SUV with MERS plates parked at the curb, and enjoyed the rare experience of being pampered by the very short drive to the campus library.
The Rutherford Library at the University of Alberta was huge. Two wings, North and South, and the galleria connecting the old library to the new one was the most unique piece of architecture Ezra had seen in years, and he lived in San Francisco, home of unique buildings.
He stood just inside the doors and stared upward, eyes wide, dimly aware of people spilling into the wide-open space around him, Brown keeping him from getting run over. “Is that…?”
“A giant glass ceiling over two separate buildings, turning them into one giant structure? Yup.” Chase said, standing next to him. “That’s something special.”
Brown was checking his phone, looking at the map on the university website. “The Special Collections Section is in the South wing. Let’s go before someone complains about the roadblock we’re making.”
Never mind the government vehicle parked at the curb in front of the main entrance.
Ezra let Brown herd him in the right direction, too busy looking at the ceiling and the literal building inside another building to care that much. He was disappointed when they went into the library itself, and the surreal exterior gave way to what he’d expect to see and hear in a college library. The smell of paper, coffee, the echo of hushed voices and the whisper of doors opening and shutting on hydraulic levers, the temperature cooler inside than out.
The main entrance hall was nice, though rather packed with people, and he followed happily behind Harlan as the bigger man cut a path through the anxious, rushing horde of students coming and going. It had to be a busy time of the day, thetransition between classes or something. It was the rushing Ezra remembered not so fondly from his own student days at UC Berkeley. There he was unlucky enough to be a local—most practitioners were at least familiar with his family name, and the assumptions they had about him were burdensome, so the day he graduated could not have come sooner. He lit out the second he could. College, while useful, had been another source of anxiety.
They bypassed reading areas and headed for the Special Collections section. Brown— Harlan—seemed to know where they were going, and Ezra was happy to follow, avidly staring at titles of books and the end-caps of stacks as they headed deeper into the building. He loved the smell of books. When he was in college pursuing his history degree, he spent literal weeks inside the library on campus, so much so his freshman year roommate tracked him down to make sure he slept in a bed on occasion instead of at a table surrounded by books. Ezra hardly recalled what his roommate looked like his freshman year, and didn’t remember the kid’s name at all. Ezra passed his classes with a 4.0 GPA but failed at learning moderation or how to socialize.
The Special Collections room was behind a huge wall of wood and glass. The windows were covered in ornate wrought-iron bars, the doors huge and imposing, displaying the university crest over its main entrance. A uniformed security officer stood beside the staff-manned desk by the entrance, and the staffer stood when their party approached. Harlan and Chase handled introductions, the staff person calling someone to confirm, and Ezra tried peering past the spiraling flowers and unicorns fashioned from the iron bars into the restricted section.
Most universities had a Special Collections system for their more unique and pricey books and materials they had collected. He understood that this was only the section for their rare books, but they had a huge archive in a different part of thelibrary. Clearly this university’s collection was clearly something extraordinary to warrant a secure door and an armed security guard.
There was a beep, and Ezra turned back just as the guard keyed them into the room, waving them through. Lilith got a double take from the guard, but they said nothing about the cat as they passed.
“Professor Norsson is waiting for you in the stacks to your right.”
“Thanks.” At least he remembered to thank the guard before the door shut silently behind them.
“Who are we meeting again?” Harlan asked quietly as they slowly walked down the right side of the front wall. The restricted area was quieter than the main floor, hushed, feeling empty but for their footsteps.
Ezra had no idea, since Grendel set this meeting up, and he was only glad it wasn’t with the archaeology department that fucked things so badly at the dig site. Simmons was still on the run. Myers didn’t seem like she was all that involved with Simmons’ actions, but she was there and wasn’t entirely free from culpability, since all her graduate students died and she likely ignored warning signs from Simmons’ behavior.
Chase answered Harlan, scrolling through info on his phone with one hand while he still held Lilith with the other. She was content, eyes shut, her deep purr loud enough to be heard when they stopped momentarily to listen to what Chase had to say. “Professor Raum Norsson, R-A-U-M, pronounced Rome, like the city. Post-doctoral fellow here at the university, writing a book on ancient Norse mythological artifacts, and he’s supposedly an Elder fae expert too…”
At that, Ezra perked up and paid more attention. He and Dr. Norsson had aligning interests. The artifact angle likely putNorsson on Grendel’s radar, which explained why they were meeting him.
Chase continued. “He teaches a directed study class for graduate students in the History Department. He’s got degrees in Scandinavian and Norse history, ancient religions, and mythology. Second-generation Norwegian, his parents immigrated to Canada back in…” Chase stopped reading and blinked in befuddlement. “It says here his parents came over in 1895, bounced around in the eastern provinces, and finally settled in Edmonton in 1914. No death certificates listed, so they’re likely both still kicking.”
“Fae ancestry? That would explain the expertise in Elder fae peoples,” Ezra thought out loud, though he was certain that would be the case. Some humans with fae bloodlines ended up with longer lifespans, or were practitioners who lived longer than average mundane humans due to their magic use. That specific date, though, leaned Ezra toward fae ancestry. The average max age for powerful practitioners tended to be around one hundred fifty years and they were rare, most known to belong to prominent practitioner clans overseas and on the East Coast of the United States. The Redmayne clan, despite their pompous claims to the contrary, had yet to produce a sorcerer strong enough to live past their early hundreds. Ezra hoped to be the exception.
