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Ryu frowned "Actually, no," he said "There are relatively few halflings on our radar, at theto do with Conleth And Conleth is too old to be hitting his power now He’s probably around your age, but we don’t know very much about him"

"What do you know?"

"There was a laboratory blown up in Dorchester, killing a bunch of humans, shortly after our trip to the Compound It appeared to be an entirely nonsupernatural affair, so we left it alone Not least because I was still dealing with the fallout from what happened with Ji with an ifrit male, were murdered by soether that it had so to do with that human laboratory"

"Why would Conleth just show up and attack a laboratory?"

"No," Ryu said, his expression dark "He didn’t attack it He escaped the laboratory"

"Escaped?" I blanched

"Yes"

"So, he hat? A test subject?"

"Yes"

"Holy shit," I breathed "No wonder he’s pissed off"

" ‘Pissed off’ is an understate was he in there?" I asked, horrified by what I was hearing

"We think for his entire life We’re almost certain that the ifrit--the one as murdered--fathered a child with a human woman He wasn’t around when the child was born, and the baby must have come to the attention of human authorities under circumstances that were probably unpleasant Conleth ended up in that laboratory"

"How could a baby just disappear like that?" I couldn’t iine what Conleth’s life must have been like I still felt betrayed by my mother’s abandon a life spent as soed "If the baby was born with his powers intact, shooting flaiven birth to the Antichrist And the father probably wasn’t even aware he had a child But, you’re right, somebody should have known of the existence of this laboratory We have people at every level of huovernment We are part of their medical community, their military, their university system How a research lab with connections to all of these institutions could have existed without our knowledge is overnment? Really?" I wasn’t surprised that supes were part of the university system Some of my more eccentric professors now made perfect sense But I couldn’t quite picture any of ues or the Oval Office

"Of course, Jane And noe have people in the private sector Ever since the Roswell debacle, the overnment involvement with the ‘paranor the laboratory froht I was getting a heady dose of "too"Yeah, Roswell That was one of us, obviously You don’t believe in aliens, do you?"

"I didn’t believe in vao, either, Ryu You can cuton humans from, like, everywhere?"

"Yes"

"And who do these spies report to?"

Ryu paused, looking away from me "Traditionally, the monarch’s second-in-co Alfar traditions "So you’re telling e of all the information that is passed on to the Alfar"

"Yes But before you get all crazy with conspiracy theories--"

"Ryu, co So everything they know is filtered through hierate, or even make up whatever he wants"

"Yes, any spys, Jane But that doesn’t mean Jarl does Remember, he is one of us He needs to keep us all safe for his own benefit, ashe has the same priorities that you have What if he doesn’t? I still think we don’t know everything about why Jis, and I still think the real reason, whatever it is, involves Jarl"