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"Okay, fan out and look for soive us a clue about where Felicia and Edie could be Their lives depend on it," Ryu said, and we all nodded solemnly

I i so had worked the last time, in Felicia’s apartment, so why not here?

"Hu And so worthless as a for her to the depths of my soul Not only was she probably rather evil, and definitely thoroughly unpleasant, but she also didn’t read

"Of course you don’t," I said, accidentally letting loose ?" the Alfar sneered, her voice sharp inat Phaedra sweetly to confuse her even ht into huical ‘issues,’ nor do I care how they co of their own lives Hus the flaws of an obscene species put on this earth only to serve and sustain their betters…"

Phaedra trailed off when she realized that I had totally stopped listening to her I was too busy watching Julian, who looked like he had either figured so out or was about to have a seizure

"History," he said, staring at Phaedra "The passing of a human life… Edie Thompson is Edie’sat ether what he was saying

"Sorry, what?" Ryu asked, still a supernatural step behind They didn’t do e, let alone married names He are of the human tradition, obviously, but he didn’t realize what Julian was trying to say Hell, I was surprised Julian knew, but I guess his fascination with his human side extended to ourresearch, but it never clicked," Julian told Ryu excitedly "There’s very little biographical stuff on her; she’s really private But I did read that she goes by her married name for her professional stuff She was married for only, like, two years, to this asshole who tried to beat her, but in that time she published her first book So she was stuck, professionally, with the na their names is silly, when you think about it, but that’s neither here nor there…" Everyone in the rooot back on track "Anyway, I haven’t yet searched for her under her ’s cleverness, I scanned the office till I sahat I was looking for An ancient thesaurus, the kind that hadn’t been published for eons, sat next to an equally ancient dictionary on the very corner of Edie’s desk

Bingo Every prof I’ve ever known had one: the dictionary/thesaurus set given to theift

"I’m sure we could find it online, but if we’re here…" I said, as I opened up the front cover to where people wrote their narinned as I held up the book so everybody could see

"Edie’s not just Felicia’s supervisor She’s her aunt"

I set the book down so Julian and I could give each other a loud, obnoxiously sed for his computer Everyone else still looked confused by what had just happened, but they ith it

"Good work, Julian, Jane," said Ryu "The rest of you, keep looking Make sure we’ve found everything we can here As long as those woer"

As Julian typed, we all fanned out and Phaedra went to whisper so to her harpies I put the thesaurus back where I’d found it