We arrived outside an expansive restroom tucked inconspicuously into one corner. It appeared as a gap in one wall between the archways leading toward the foyer and a set of closed double doors along the adjacent wall, noticeable only by the tiling on the wall beyond. Peek around the bend, and voila. Restroom, complete with stalls. So many illusions of privacy…

I turned to face him, releasing Damian's arm, and said, “Thank you for the escort, and the dance.”

“My pleasure,” he repeated. “Thank you, as well. I hope you’ll save me another.”

I gave a slow nod but said nothing, wondering if I'd imagined the sultry lilt in his voice or the flirtatious quirk of his smile and trying to remember to breathe either way. He departed with a similar bow of his head.

In the restroom, I found a stall and navigated my gown as best I could. Thankfully, it was enough that I didn’t get anything wet on me, either from poor angling or accidentally flushing my train. When I’d finished, I paused in front of the sinks and mirrors to put my gloves back on after washing my hands, and I fished around near a seam for a hidden pocket I’d felt bumping against my leg, producing a small silver compact mirror, complete with powder and puff. I powdered my nose and forehead, delighting in the task.

Movement in the mirror drew my eye and I gasped, surprised to see a man in what I assumed to be the women’s room. I relaxed when I recognized the figure and smiled, putting my compact away.

“How are you enjoying my little get-together?” Jerry asked, beaming at me.

I beamed right back. “I’m having the best time,” I gushed. “There are no words. Honestly.”

“Oh, good,” he said, apparently genuinely happy and relieved to hear it. “Is there anything I can do to make the evening positively magical?” he asked, taking one of my gloved hands in both of his bare ones.

“No,” I laughed, “It’s perfect, thank you.”

“Are you sure?” he pressed, “I could request a song for you. The band knows all of them. Maybe bring in a DJ if you aren’t feeling the instrumental stuff.”

“No, I like the period feel,” I assured him.

“I could… spike the punch,” he offered, “or the blood, maybe. The vampires would never see it coming.”

“Isn’t there alcohol already?” I pointed out, still laughing a little in each word.

“Oh, yeah,” he drooped. “But then the tea-totallers wouldn’t know what hit them,” he perked up to counter.

“It’s fine,” I soothed. “Don’t sneak booze into the punch. Please.”

“What about the guests?” he persisted, “Is there anyone else you want to see tonight? Have I missed anyone?”

“I can’t think of anyone,” I promised, “I haven’t even met everyone here.”

“The food? Drinks? Did I forget anything you’d like?”

I shook my head. “I haven’t had a chance to try anything, but I’m sure it’s all excellent.”

He pouted for a moment, thinking with his lips pressed together and releasing my hand to give the thought his full attention. “There must be something extra special I could do for you,” he thought aloud, “Something that would make sure you’d never forget tonight.”

I waited, and an unexplained chill went through me.

“I could… tell you about your parents,” he didn’t quite offer with that musical quality of a cautiously sly suggestion.

I scoffed, scorn wrinkling my nose in distaste. “What do I care about them?”

“Not those assholes,” he answered quickly, waving at the air as one swats a small but annoying bug away from one’s face before he recovered into that persuasive tone and expression. “Your, what you might call, ‘real’ parents. Your elven parents.” He placed a soft emphasis on the word and waved that same hand in a flourish, facing the palm up. Floating above it, a holographic image appeared, shockingly like those I’d seen of them in visions and journeys, only in miniature… of my parents.

My mother smiled brightly, love and pride shining in her eyes, her golden hair falling in sheets about her robe-laden shoulders and hiding most of her long, pointed ears. 

My father smiled, too, though his expression was more subdued, with a knowing quality to it that suggested we shared some impish secret. His hair was also long and fell around his shoulders and down his back, but it was darker, shades of brown and gray, I thought, though I could never tell. His features were ever so slightly more rough hewn than Mother’s, and his eyes were darker, too.

The pit fell out of my stomach. I swallowed hard, my breathing coming faster to keep up with my speeding pulse. Seeing them, as rarely as I had, always churned up a storm of emotions in me. Sadness, longing, joy, relief, love, bitterness, all wrapped up in a blanket of pain so deep and fierce that it physically hurt my heart. ‘Ouch,’ I thought ruefully, ‘Right in the family.’

I struggled to speak, and when I did, my voice was thick and strained and quiet. “What do you know about them?” To my surprise and credit, my tone was even, almost calm.

He said a couple of words divided by ‘and’ that sounded elven. He said them in a way that suggested a question, along with a casual familiarity. He said them in a way that suggested… they were names. “Quite a few things,” he finished vaguely with a dismissive shrug.

“You know their names?” I blurted before I could stop myself. My insides quivered and fluttered.

He grinned. “Of course,” he replied airily. “I also know how to contact them.”

I was going to say, ‘So do I,’ when he cut me off.

“Reliably,” he added, “And without the same limitations placed on you.”

I felt my expression tilt into a fearful sort of longing, my palms beginning to sweat into my gloves, but I said nothing.

“I could teach you how,” he didn’t quite offer. “I’d like that, in fact. So would they.” He looked at the image of my parents, gesturing toward them. “They miss their daughter, like I’m sure you miss them. I could give them back to you,” he all but whispered.

“You’re lying,” I accused with a quaver in my voice, my eyes and fists closing hard on themselves. I sounded angry and hurt, and small. And not at all sure of myself.

“Why would I do that?” he asked sweetly.

“I don’t know,” I all but snapped, tearing my gaze away from the image, turning my back on the smiling faces of my parents. They missed me. I folded my arms over my chest, hunching in on myself, suddenly cold. “You must want something from me,” I reasoned aloud, “Something important. And I’d bet you dollars to brimstone, it would be bad for someone. Maybe a lot of people.”

“Oh, I’m offering you temptation and therefore I must be the bad guy, is that it?” he said with no small amount of bitterness. “You raise one little rebellion — that gets stomped into the dirt, by the way — and the victor runs a smear campaign, and suddenly you’re evil for millennia.” He pouted melodramatically.

“What do you want, then?” I asked, sympathy and curiosity softening my tone as I turned my head to look at him over my shoulder, my body following a moment later.

“Aside and apart from seeing you blissfully happy?” he asked sourly.

I rolled my eyes. “Yes.”

He pursed his lips, either pretending to think on it or actually thinking on it. “A favor,” he answered simply and finally.

“That’s it?” I asked, my heart racing with excitement at the prospect as I dared to hope.

“That’s it,” he confirmed with a convivial nod.

I narrowed my eyes, regarding him with suspicion as hope gave way to more practical concerns. “I have some conditions,” I stipulated.

“Such as?”

I gave it some thought. 

Logically, I knew that I couldn’t go through with this. Never mind the fact that it looked too good to be true, I was sure that no matter how carefully I worded my conditions, something bad would come of a deal like this. 

I was also sure that I wouldn’t get a better offer than this, because I’d looked. The last entity I’d approached had asked for a year of my life, and that was in exchange for information — maybe not even good information — and certainly not a way to talk to them. 

They were my parents. I couldn’t back down if it meant getting a chance to know them — really know them. I was damned if I did, but I couldn’t face the rest of my life knowing that I didn’t.

“One favor, meaning one task, to be completed in a month’s time or less, at a time and place of my choosing, and in a manner of my choosing.”

He nodded slowly, considering, his gaze on the ceiling. “That’s all reasonable,” he agreed.

“In doing this favor, I will not be required to harm anyone, myself included, meaning inflict bodily injury up to and including death.” A pause. “Scratch that,” I continued, somewhat animatedly, “This favor must not cause, directly or indirectly, physical or emotional harm to anyone, myself included.”

He nodded some more, his expression pinching gradually. “Anything else?” he ventured, a quizzical eyebrow sneaking up.

“I may refuse any request without coercion or retribution,” I decided.

“That’s all fine,” he said, “I can agree with those terms, assuming that you’ll agree with mine.”

“Let’s hear them.”

“I will give you some of what I offer now, and the rest after you give me the favor you owe me,” he answered, “You will remain in my debt until payment is rendered in full or at such time as I release you from your obligation to me.”

Goosebumps broke out in patches on my arms and legs. I knew what it meant to be in the debt of one of the sidhe, for example, and I didn’t relish the thought of the actual Devil having that kind of power over me. 

I tamped that fear down, however, because a part of me knew that there was no way I could say no. We were talking about my parents. I’d been searching for information on them for years, and I’d run up against nothing but metaphorical brick walls and frustrated expressions on ghosts. This was the only way I was going to learn anything about them in this lifetime, and I knew it. The grin on his face said he knew I knew it.

I closed my eyes, steeling myself, opened my eyes again and set my jaw before I said, “I know this is going to come back to bite me in the ass someday, and I honestly don’t care. I want to make sure it doesn’t bite anyone else’s ass.” I kept my voice level, calm, and hard edges showed around it that I wasn’t aware I could make.

“No promises, of course,” he hedged melodically as he held up his hands, open and relaxed, “But I’ll do what I can to protect the asses of those around you.”

“Their proverbial asses?” I pressed. “Not their literal asses?”

He laughed. “Yes, their allegorical asses rather than either their posteriors or their beasts of burden.”

I couldn’t stifle a grin.

“Are we agreed?” he prompted, offering his hand.

I took a deep breath and gripped his hand firmly, shaking once. “Yes,” I answered, in case I needed to for the sake of clearing ambiguity.

I felt a ‘ping,’ almost like a bell ringing in the distance. I don’t have a better way of describing it. Something happened, and it felt for all the world the way a ‘ding’ sounds.

From thin air, before we’d even broken the handshake, Jerry pulled two thick leather-bound volumes and presented them to me.

“What are these?” I asked, an awed whisper as I took the books, running a hand lovingly over one of the covers.

“Autobiographies, of a sort,” he answered, “Their Akashic records, from the incarnations that intersect with yours.”

“There’s more than one?” I asked, my head snapping up in another sudden wave of excitement.

He smiled as though I’d asked a simple question. “This one, and the previous that you have snippets of memory from, at least,” he answered gently anyway.

Without consciously meaning to, I hugged the tomes to my chest. Then I just stood there for a minute. “I want to sit down and read them right now, but…” I trailed off, casting a torn, longing look toward the ballroom.

“I’ll keep them safe for you until you’re ready to read them,” he assured me. “They aren’t going anywhere.”

Reluctantly, I handed them back over. 

They disappeared the moment they settled into his waiting palm. From behind his back, he produced a crystal. It was glowing a pink that grew brighter and dimmer at seemingly random intervals. He held it out to me. 

I took it carefully, cupping it in the palms of both of my gloved hands.

“Speak,” he said, “They will hear you.”

“Mother?” I asked the glowing pink rock, too nervous to be embarrassed or feel silly. “Father?” My voice shook.

Both of their voices came through the stone, the glow brightening with the volume of the sounds. I recognized them, even never having heard them with my living ears before. I sighed with a relieved smile, my shoulders falling with it and everything. 

They’d said my name. It was a question, full of worry and excitement, just like my unsteady greetings had been. It wasn’t any human name I’d ever been given or chosen myself, either.

“I’m here,” I answered with a tearful smile.

“It’s so good to hear your voice,” my mother said.

“You too,” I agreed.

“Are you well, little one?” my father asked.

“Yes, I’m fine,” I assured him quickly, “Are both of you alright?”

“Of course,” my mother assured me gently. I could hear the warm smile in her voice. I could almost remember how it crinkled the edge of one of her eyes without leaving a single crease, so you’d know when you got that smile, it was just for you.

A silence passed in which I had too many questions all at once and couldn’t choose between them.

My mother saved me from having to when she asked her own question. “Are you...” she began, then trailed off and started over. “Does this mean you’re coming home?”

That hit me with a fresh tangle of emotions that I was still sorting through the shock of when Jerry took the crystal from me and vanished it like he had the books.

“You’ll receive the sending stone, or one like it, when I’ve received my favor,” he promised.

I nodded slowly, not trusting my voice yet.

He smiled down at me enigmatically, and he seemed taller than he had before.

Finally, I’d blinked back and swallowed the tears enough to manage a, “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” he joked, putting a hand to my back and ushering me back toward the comfortably crowded ballroom. “Enjoy the party. We’ll talk later.”

I nodded again, taking a deep breath before the plunge.