She’d been connected with Merhaine for a year now, increasingly so in the past several months because of the bakery she and her business partner, Elena, were due to open in the next few weeks.

Merhaine, one of the Nine Realms of North America. She was used to the existence of the realm world, as most humans were, at least those who were on the Internet with any consistency. The discovery of the realms some thirty years ago, before she was even born, had taken Earth by storm especially since the parallel nature meant that Realm and Earth cultures shared many things in common, from simple bonding rituals like marriage to much more complex things like language.

English was prevalent throughout the Nine Realms and the now inter-connected planes and the sharing of history and culture had even broadened realm-dialects.

Gerrod, on the other hand, was over three-hundred-years-old so that his speech patterns still hadn’t caught up to the current Flagstaff vernacular. But she had seen other mastyr vampires interviewed from all over the United States’ plane. Some of them, like Mastyr Ethan of the Bergisson Realm, spoke like most of the cops she knew, with a fair sprinkling of Earth-based profanity. How and why the revelation of a connected parallel plane had occurred at this point in Earth history was not something even the most brilliant scientists had yet to figure out.

But here Realm was and because of her bakery, she’d spoken to numerous trolls, fae, and elves about Mastyr Gerrod, about Merhaine, about all the various species that existed on this parallel plane.

Trolls were the most helpful, however, being extremely garrulous. In fact, the saying among realm was that if you kept a secret like a troll, it meant you never kept a secret, that you couldn’t keep a secret if your life depended on it.

“Ask me.”

Abigail turned to Augustus who was Gerrod’s Master of the Household. She was alone with him now, in the hall not far from the shouting that had begun in the entrance hall.

Gus, as he was known, side-stepped like a child who had to go to the bathroom, but this she’d gotten used to as well. Trolls showed enthusiasm as well as many other emotions with their feet. Given that most trolls had lovely feet, contrary to human depictions, she thought all that movement fascinating.

Gus was five-six, which meant tall for a troll. He was also quite good-looking, with long light brown hair combined stylishly away from his face. She hadn’t thought trolls could be handsome but in fact they were like any specie, running the gamut from homely to stunning. Gus ranged at the upper end, his blue eyes fringed in long lashes. The three ridges of his forehead had elegant turns.

Yes, much of Merhaine had become very familiar to her.

His eyes held such a light that despite all that had happened, Abigail smiled. “Yes,” she said, answering the question he hadn’t asked. “I want to know everything.”

He smiled, his eyes now shining like stars. Did a troll love anything better than disseminating information? She didn’t think so. Maybe not even better than her cupcakes and trolls were known for their sweet-tooths. This was one reason a troll made an excellent household governor but a very poor secretary.

He led the way to the far side of the castle, well away from the shouts now rolling from the entrance hall, to the northern wing that housed a massive kitchen, an equally long state dining room, and in the northwest, a lovely family breakfast room full of windows.

Because of the Invictus attack, the blinds were drawn. Otherwise, she knew that the forest had been illuminated with a thousand lights and was very pretty, another reminder that much of Merhaine life was lived at night.

He waved her to a chair by the hearth, in which burned a large log fire and after a few minutes, returned with tea service in white and green ivy.

Because she had come to the castle often to chat with him when she delivered her orders from her bakery, he knew how she liked her tea. He handed her the cup and saucer, prepared his own, then sat down.

The tea was redolent of cloves and cardamom. Now what was that novel she had read recently where the hero of the story, a great warrior, had smelled of cardamom. It was something like ‘Ascending’ or ‘Accelerating’, she couldn’t quite remember. She had enjoyed reading that version of vampires. But how strange that now she was caught in her own world of not just vampires, but about every childhood tale she had ever heard of.

Gus’s feet manipulated the footstool with the skill of his hundred and thirty years, until he was perfectly comfortable. All realm-folk were long-lived, which meant that Gus was still fairly young by Merhaine standards.

He met her gaze and lifted a brow.

This was her cue. She took a deep breath. “Why did the mastyr dismiss me?”

“Ah, the best question first. I like that. He told you to leave the castle because he is feeling too much for you, and you must trust me in this. I have known Mastyr Gerrod most of my life. You are the only castle supplier he ever seeks out. And the strangest thing is, he seems to know the moment you have come. Have you not noticed that he often brings an entire army to help you unload a few boxes of cupcakes?”

“I thought that was your doing?”

Gus chuckled. “And he always insists you stay for tea, have you not noticed that?”

“But he never sits down with me.”

Gus appeared to be very knowledgeable as he nodded his head slowly. “But he hovers. Once you leave, I often find him standing about the great room.” He gestured to a shorter hall behind her that led to the massive room where an annual fae ball was held.

She frowned. “He really does that?”

Gus nodded. “I don’t think the mastyr quite understands his feelings at this point.”

Gerrod felt too much for her? She wanted to know more, but the subject seemed too personal to her, as though Gus was sharing private things Gerrod wouldn’t want her to know about. Gus might have few scruples about sharing everything, but she decided to draw the line.

Instead, she took a sip of tea, then asked, “Has he always been so tense?”

Gus sighed, his shoulders drooping. “Always. Since I have known him. He bears the burden of the entire realm on his shoulders.” He brought his teacup to his lips and drank. Trolls tended to drink their tea in hearty gulps.

“But why is that? I mean I know that he has a lot of battling power so that he can fight the Invictus, but why isn’t there a government in place to support him?”

Gus snorted. “Have you not been in Merhaine a year now? Do you not see the greater problem?”

She was afraid to give her opinion. She didn’t know if it was politically correct to speak of the differences in the species. There was a lot of intermarriage among realm-folk, but it was still in the range of ten to fifteen percent, which meant that a majority could still be hostile and disapproving.

“Well,” she began, trying for tact, “I have noticed that fights tend to break out between trolls and elves, elves and fae, fae and shifters, shifters and vampires. I even watched a forest gremlin start shouting at a fae who was ten times his size.”

He nodded several times slowly. “Then you understand. Each folk believes they are the smartest, the best, the most reasonable, the strongest, the prettiest, you name it. And the older the realm individual, the more profound the belief in superiority.”

“Oh, yes, I saw a fae woman spit on the ground in front of a troll. I was later told she was over five-hundred-years-old.”

He shook his head, pinching his lips tightly together. He took another drink of tea, the three ridges of his forehead folding into a scowl. “We are not a perfect society. And though being long-lived has a wonderful advantage, it is even harder to rid our world of its deepest prejudices.”

“Like a human dating a vampire?”

He met her gaze and his forehead relaxed, though a solemn light entered his eye. “Especially a vampire, not to mention a mastyr vampire.”

“You would disapprove, then?” She leaned forward and took another sip.

“Thirty years ago, yes. Today, I don’t know. I have come to know your kind and you are not as…well…as ignorant as I had supposed, or as cruel.”

She wasn’t offended. How could she be? “There is great cruelty in our culture.”

“But much goodness as well.”

She met his gaze once more. Because she wanted to understand the position of the castle staff, and especially Gus’s take on the subject, she said, “Gerrod kissed me this evening.”

Gus’s eyes went wide.

She couldn’t help but laugh. She knew his gossipy kind well, but she also knew something else. He was a wise troll and she trusted him, so she added, “I kissed him back.”

His eyes literally moved in a complete circle, as though he was trying to wrap his mind around a certain thought. Or perhaps he was just wondering how the hell he could keep this a secret.

Since he didn’t respond right away, she thought she would be more direct about what she wanted to know. “Do you disapprove? Is this a very bad thing?”

Finally, he set his cup and saucer back on the table, and bid her do the same. “Come with me. There is something I wish you to see.”

She was on her feet and moving swiftly. Trolls were fast, those feet again.

The return walk in the direction of the entrance hall took at least a couple of minutes. The castle, as the dwelling was called, was more like an ancient European church, made of stone, with only one level, but having several extremely tall, and quite beautiful, vaulted ceilings.

Because of the gray stone, however, it definitely had the feel of a castle, especially with several suits of armor, imported from Medieval England, standing like sentinels near several of the doorways.

She thought he meant to take her straight into the entrance hall, where a lot of shouting could be heard. Instead, he turned into a shallow alcove about twenty feet from the doorway. She frowned, wondering what he was doing. But he shoved the small table to the right and slid his hand up the left side wall.

She heard a click, then the wall moved inward a few inches. He pushed and gestured for her to precede him.

The room was pitch black but as had happened in the forest, her vision altered and changed and she could actually see as though the room had a glow. Was this some kind of fae magic, a spell that had been cast over the room? Or was this something she was actually doing?