Rook takes in the fantastical scenery unfolding in front of her. It truly is a magical fairy land. Lush greenery, vibrant flowers and what looks like fireflies floating all around. She gasps, taking it all in, wondering if any of this is real.

“Close your mouth, sweetheart.” Alfrigg walks past her after closing the entrance, “One of the smites could fly in.”

“Smites?” she asks, still looking around in wonder, following him absently.

“Yeah, smites, they’re sort of a cross between a sprite and a gnat. Annoying little buggers, but they’re great for the ambiance.” He hobbles down a path cut into the landscape.

“What is this place?” Rook looks up to see if she can see the New Orleans sky, but she can’t.

“It’s my little slice of heaven, you’ll be safe here,” he assures her. “It’s just a little further.”

Rook watches for any other signs of life aside from the smites. There are some run of the mill animals, rabbits, deer, but nothing out of the ordinary.

“Here we are,” Alfrigg says as they turn a corner. “Home sweet home.”

Rook takes in the small cottage nestled among tall mangroves. “This is nice,” she says as she ducks to get through the door.

The cabin smells sweet and homey, a cross between rosemary and freshly baked bread. Similar to Vivienne’s shop, there are herbs hanging from the ceiling and in the far corner of the room there’s an alchemy set-up with bubbling liquids glowing in a myriad of brilliant colors.

“It’s not much but you’ll be safe here.” He follows in behind her, takes a cross body bag over his head and rests it on the table near a wood burning stove. “Are you cold?”

“Lord no.” She tugs on her shirt that’s sticking to her body covered in sweat. She drops her backpack onto the floor. “Is there somewhere I can change, and maybe wash these clothes?”

“Through that door on the left you can freshen up, don’t worry about your dirties, they’ll be taken care of,” he says, clunking around in the kitchen.

Rook continues down the hallway that defies physics. She recalls how small the cottage looked from the outside, but this hallway seems too long to fit. She turns the knob on the first door on the left and steps inside. She squeezes her eyes shut and opens them again to see if what she’s seeing is an illusion.

The bathroom is a beautiful bright, airy room with a spa feeling to it. The light streaming through the windows couldn’t possibly be from outside where the entire area is shrouded in a green canopy of vegetation. “What the hell is this place?” she asks, putting her backpack down on the floor. She digs through, getting out her change of clothes and sniffs the socks. They aren’t too bad, she thinks to herself and puts them on the counter.

Rook undresses and examines the bruises Jeziah left on her arm, she feels vindicated that he died trying to kill her. A pang of guilt flows through her, but she’s getting better at pushing it aside. If vamps didn’t try to feed from her they’d be alive. She warned them, all of them.

She leaves her dirty clothes on the counter and gets into the lukewarm shower to cool down from the hike.

She lets the water flow over her and wash the dirt, grime and stress down the drain. This is the first decent shower she’s had in a while. The bathroom at Vivienne’s leaves a great deal to be desired, just a weak trickle out of shower head encrusted with years of minerals.

She gets out and wraps the soft towel around her body, loving how it feels against her skin. “I could get used to this,” she says, getting her hair brush out of her pack and running it through her hair before pulling it all back into a ponytail. She brushes her teeth and turns to get dressed.

Her clothes are gone from the counter. “Shit.”

She goes to her bag, hoping there’s something in there she can put on. Nothing.

Rook opens the door a crack. “Alfrigg?”

“What is it?” He sounds distracted.

“Um, my clothes are gone.” She can’t believe she let her guard down enough for someone to come into the bathroom while she was showering.

“No, they’re there,” he says.

“They really aren’t.” She pulls the towel tighter around herself.

“There’s a robe on the back of the door. You can wear that.”

Rook closes the door and sees a white robe hanging from the hook. It reminds her of the time her parents took her to that fancy hotel. The thought spurs a memory and she looks around the bathroom again, realizing it’s the bathroom from that hotel.

She’s perplexed. How can this be? Rook tries to push the worry aside of feeling like the lamb being led to the slaughter. She let down her guard and got too comfortable. “Next thing you know, he’s going to try to fatten me up,” she says, trying to figure out what her next move is.

She ties the belt of the robe around her waist and ventures back out into the living area. “Alfrigg?”

“Yes?” he answers, distracted in the kitchen.

“What’s up with the bathroom?” She tries to sound curious, not alarmed.

“Was there a problem?” he asks, coming out of the kitchen with a plate full of food.

“No...it was…” She eyes the plate full of all her favorite foods, “What’s this?”

“I’m sure you’re hungry.” He smiles and offers her the bacon cheeseburger with steak fries covered in cheese.

The blood drains from her face and she takes three steps backward. “No, thank you.” The thought that he’s trying to fatten her up rolls in head on repeat.

“What’s wrong?” he says, trying to discern her expression. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“No...um, where are my clothes?” she asks, backing up.

“They should be in there. Damn flicks.” His frustration changes the color of his pointed ears. He puts the plate down on the coffee table and heads toward the bathroom.

“What’s a–” He stops in place and turns back to her, “You’re afraid.” The revelation strikes him. “Come here, sweetheart, sit down.” He motions for her to sit on the couch.

She cautiously sits on the edge.

“I know you’ve been through a lot and I know nothing of where you come from this time around, but I can assure you, I will not harm you.” His kind eyes convey a message of deeper meaning.

She presses her lips into a tight line, wanting to believe him, wanting to trust. But since she’s gotten to New Orleans, trust hasn’t gotten her very far. No one wants to talk about what she is, and for a brief moment she considers going back home to where she was just a girl.

Rook studies the room and looks down at the plate of food. Her stomach growls, reminding her how hungry she is, and it looks delicious.

Alfrigg lifts the plate to her. “Eat. I promise, it’s just a cheeseburger.”

She takes it from him and places the plate in her lap and lifts the cheeseburger to her mouth. Rook takes a bite. It must be the best burger she’s ever tasted. She says with a mouthful, “Thank you, this is delicious.”

“I’m glad you like it.” He scoots back on the love seat, “Why did you come to New Orleans?”

Rook swallows and pulls her shoulder to her ear, “I’m not sure. I knew I wanted to leave Idaho, there’s really nothing there for me. It’s beautiful, but it’s not where I belong. So, one day, I threw a dart at a map. It hit New Orleans dead on. I packed what I needed and left.”

“New Orleans is a funny place.” Alfrigg huffs out a laugh, “The mundanes are like nowhere else I’ve ever been. There are two types, those that are oblivious and those that accept the paranormal like they’re just regular folks.”

Rooks eyes widen, “That’s the thing, I never knew this world existed, I didn’t know about vampires and werewolves and…” She motions to Alfrigg, “Fae. This is all new to me. And sometimes I just don’t know what to make of it.”

“So, you didn’t know you were a Rook until you got here?” he asks.

“Nope. I had no idea. I was sitting in the bar my first day here and a man approached me. His name was Bruce.” She stops and laughs, “It’s been a few years and I still laugh at the thought of a vampire named Bruce. In the stories you always hear of them having names that sound nearly royal.”

Alfrigg lets out a boisterous laugh, “True, so many of them are pompous asses. Some of them change their given names because they don’t fit the times. They are a hoot.” He slaps his knee.

Rook puts her empty plate on the coffee table and continues, “He sat down and kept talking about how he couldn’t smell me. Which was weird enough as it is. Where I come from if you can’t smell a person, that’s a good thing.” She raises her brow.

“He said he had a job for me and brought me to this office building and introduced me to a bunch of other people. He kept calling me Rook, but he never asked my name. As I watched everyone around me, I thought of the possibility of not going by my real name as benefit. I think I was right.”

“So, he just took you straight to The Directive?” He seems surprised.

“Yeah, and I had a job, just like that. A job that paid very well and all I had to do was watch and report back. Easy stuff.” She shrugs. “I had to really work to wrap my brain around this new world that just the day before I thought was all a fantasy. But it worked out. I made a lot of money.” She looks down at her hands, worrying her cuticles.

“But then it got ugly.” He finishes her thought.

“Yeah.” She nods, pressing her lips into a tight line. “And now I don’t know if I’ll ever be safe anywhere. Hell, I still don’t know exactly what it is I am or what I can do. I half expect one day to have some sort of magic shooting out of my hands or be able to move objects with my mind.”

He laughs, “I wouldn’t count on any of that, but hey, you never know.”

“I know it’s unlikely, but that doesn’t mean I don’t try from time to time.” She sits back on the couch relaxing and musters the courage to ask the question that no one seems to want to answer. She’s asked Vivienne, Samuel, Seamus, everyone that she could, and no one could explain it. “What is a Rook?”

“Honestly, we only know a little. Your blood is toxic to blood sustaining creatures, you have no scent, with practice you can obscure yourself from plain view, but really no one knows exactly what Rooks can do and often don’t wait to find out what their true powers are,” he says with a sad down-tick in his tone.

“What do you mean?”

“Usually, when a Rook is found they are destroyed.” He stands from the love seat, “Consider yourself lucky that Bruce saw a use for you.”

“Destroyed? Like killed?” Her tone is full of alarm.

“Yup, you’re very dangerous to some creatures that are damn near impossible to kill. But one drop of your blood and they’re done for.” He leans in closer to her, “They aren’t used to that kind of threat.”

“But I would never want to hurt anyone,” she defends.

“Yes, and that is also one of your downfalls,” he says, moving toward the alchemy table in the corner. “Always has been.”

“Wait, what do you mean by that?”

“Rook, you’re a very old soul, descended from the Scalbloods. They rarely have a cruel bone in their body. It makes them vulnerable.” He clanks some of the beakers on the table, clearing a space, “But it also makes you valuable. Now about that blood you promised me.”

She stands from the couch and wraps her arms around herself, unsure. “How much do you need.”

“No more than you’d have to give at the doctor He smiles kindly. “But if you’d like to do it later, we can. I still have to figure out what I’m going to do with you, how badly the vamps want you and how I’m going to get you out of here.” He peers at her with shiny eyes, “Unless you’d like to just stay here with me.”

She looks around and gives it a moment’s thought. “It’s lovely here, but I’m not sure…”

“Of course you don’t want to stay here. You’re a people person,” he says and shoos her toward the bathroom. “Go get dressed.”

She turns toward the hallway, thinking that being a people person isn’t nearly as bad as he made it sound. Sure, she’s changed her mind a little the more she knows about people. But that doesn’t stop her from wanting to be around all of them. She’d just rather avoid the ones that want to kill her.

She steps into the bathroom and stops short when she sees all of her clothes folded neatly on the counter. “I’ve got to remember to ask him what a flick is and if I can take one with me.” She picks up her clothes and takes in the scent of them.

Her mind races with apprehension remembering what her dad used to say, “If it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t.

Rook slides into her jeans and pulls her t-shirt over her head. She packs the rest of her clothes in her backpack and starts for the door.

Before she can turn the knob, a commotion stills her. She can hear raised voices but can’t make out what they’re saying.

She jumps when she hears a loud crash and footsteps coming down the hallway. She looks around the bathroom for another way out, but there’s nothing. No way to escape whatever it is outside the door.