The Prof Croft Series: Books 0-4 (Prof Croft Box Sets Book 1) Brad Magnarella (ink book reader txt) 📖

morning without a trace. When classes resumed after the spring break, I learned she had put in for a last-minute sabbatical. She wasn’t supposed to return until the fall semester, if then. After several calls that went straight to her voicemail, I gave up on trying to reach her.

Now, I took a moment to absorb the impact of her sudden manifestation. Caroline was dressed professionally—white blouse, khaki skirt, thin gold jewelry—but she carried the charged air of the fae, still subtle, but stronger than what I had felt around her the last time. The oscillating fan stirred her hair, which had been straightened, I noticed, and trimmed to her shoulders.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

Caroline stepped from the doorway until she was standing in front of me. Her blue-green gaze settled on my chest, and she slid the top button of my shirt free. My breath went shallow, but I realized she was only fixing my shoddy redressing job. When she finished correcting the buttons she smoothed my shirt collar and rose onto her tiptoes. The kiss against my cheek was light, cordial.

“It’s good to see you, too, Everson.”

“You know what I meant.” I tried not to stammer as my face warmed over. “I thought you were going to be away until the fall.”

She took a seat in one of my students’ desks and gestured to my desk across the ring from her. She wanted to talk but at a distance. Whether because she didn’t trust me or herself, I couldn’t tell. I complied, affecting a casualness that felt all wrong. Caroline smiled sympathetically. I moved my leather satchel in front of me and propped my arms on it.

“I owe you an apology,” she said.

“How about an explanation?”

“That too.” She clasped her hands on her desk. “The night I came to you, Everson, I was a bit of a mess. This, becoming a faerie, returning to that world … it happened so suddenly, and I … I didn’t handle it very well. When I went to your apartment, it was to talk, to find my center. You’re my closest friend, the only one who would have understood what I was experiencing. But your feelings—they hit me hard.” She studied her hands for a moment. A silver band glistened on her left ring finger. “I’m afraid I let them overwhelm me.”

“So that night was a mistake,” I said numbly.

“That’s not what I’m saying. I went along with what happened. I wanted what happened.” When she looked up, her eyes wavered with emotion. “But it was irresponsible. Worse, it was unfair to you. That’s why I left like I did. As much for the loyalty I owed Angelus as his wife as for the loyalty I owed you as my friend. I needed to—”

“I’m sorry, Caroline,” I interrupted, “but what I felt from you that night went waaay beyond friendship.”

“I know. But it can’t anymore. That’s what I’m saying. I have duties now, responsibilities.”

“Bigger than this, than us?” Having her answer that terrified me, but I needed to know.

“Yes,” she said. “Bigger than us.”

I sensed there was something she wasn’t telling me. “Are you sure?”

Caroline hesitated before nodding.

“Then I guess we’re done here.” I angled my body toward the door, but Caroline made no move to rise from her desk.

“I didn’t just come to apologize,” she said.

“Gee, what else can I look forward to?”

“I’ve been in the faerie realm for much of these last months,” she said. “At times it’s felt like visiting twelfth-century Europe. The realm parallel to New York is a patchwork of feudal kingdoms, with all of the emphasis on lineages, territories, and certain decorums one would expect. Interestingly, the royalty there consider our modern world to be brutish and dirty.”

“Then why spend time here?” I asked bitterly.

“Because of the portals.”

“What about them?”

“They’re vital to the kingdoms that control them.”

Though I continued to hold myself at an angle to Caroline, I considered the implications of what she was saying. From the way she’d explained it earlier, distances scaled differently between our realms. A trip from Battery Park to the Bronx would take about thirty minutes in a cab, whereas in the faerie realm, the corresponding trip might take weeks, and often through hostile territories. “So that explains the fae’s interest in the city,” I said.

Caroline nodded. “Wars have been fought over those portals, treaties written. Marriages arranged,” she added with lowered eyes. “Angelus’s family has a kingdom in the north, a region that corresponds to a section of upper Manhattan. My mother’s kingdom is in the south. Each kingdom controls a portal. Maybe you’ve noticed a new trucking line in the city?”

“Two Way,” I said automatically. I had seen the green trucks trundling north and south all summer. “Wait, that’s a fae operation?”

“The portals, and our ability to go between them, have not only established ours as the most influential kingdoms, but they’ve also engendered us with a responsibility to safeguard the greater realm. We have to move food, supplies, and forces when and where they’re needed, and often quickly.”

“Fine, but why are you telling me all of this?” I asked irritably. Her explanation of our night together had left me feeling like a cheap toy played with briefly and then tossed away. And now here she was, giving me a geography lesson on the fae realm as if I was one of her students. I wanted to go home and punch something.

Instead, I used my fists to wipe the sting of sweat from my eyes. I noticed that Caroline’s skin remained dry, as though wrapped in its own cool atmosphere. The oscillating fan shuddered another circuit.

“The portals have two sides,” she said. “And though the fae are quiet about it, they are in constant negotiations with city officials to grant them exclusive access to the portals on this side.”

“By negotiations do you mean bribes?”

“When they must.”

I thought about the fae townhouse on the Upper East Side, the one I’d tried to force my way into in the