No human could see in this quiet alleyway at night. Nathan was glad that faint moonlight shining through thick storm clouds was all he needed. How funny. He could see at night, but not wide or sharp enough to eliminate his need for glasses. He had worn them since he was eight and believed himself to be fully human. He used to have a normal life, a normal school, a normal family, a normal everything. It was after he learned that his family wasn't his real family that he distanced himself from the humans. He isn't part of them anymore. He lives day-by-day, dead-end job after dead-end job, while his real life takes place in the supernatural world.

Poplars, sycamores tall enough to scratch power lines, and apple trees sprouted from the park's hills, covering the cemetery where Mrs. Turner was buried. On the other side of the alley was a neighborhood full of tiny homes with large families nearby and the Summer Hill Police Department in their midst. No-one except a bunch of self-proclaimed monster slayers left their homes this late. And even if they did, his glamour allowed Jonathan Frost to sneak around unsuspected.

Nathan crouched, reached for his belt, and removed a piece of chalk. Sorcerer Roman might have been a monster, but he taught Nathan about mind magic – the one discipline the Academy didn't teach. He drew a large, beautiful pentagram onto the street with a prong for each element – fire, water, earth, air, and spirit. The use of sigils for summoning was a tradition that went back to King Solomon. He had struck a deal with Seraphiel under which Otherworldly creatures may be allowed to enter the mortal realm, provided they did not leave a clearly defined region. With an outer circle to round the pentagram off, Nathan defined it as clearly as he could.

On previous days, he tried summoning Msr. Turner's ghost from the nearby graveyard to talk to her, but he never learned divination. He was still young, still in his twenties, and much like the humans, he lacked time to master more than one discipline so far. For his divination, he needed to summon someone else. Someone thousands of years older than him with experience in every magical discipline and a name Darcy did not find out.

He placed bread sticks around the circle he had drawn and drew salt lines around it to strengthen the containment circle. One property of Otherworlders was that the more they grew in age and power, the more they lost their humanity, and the more antipathic weaknesses they acquired. Nathan had no aversion to iron yet a few years ago when he had fully human properties. And even now, salted bread was something Titania hated and he was fine with.

Moreover, the restraints the Veil placed on him were laxer than those on his godmother. Titania could easily break free from his ward, but the energy required might constitute a Veil breach.

He looked around, careful that no practitioners were nearby, and whispered "Morgan, Morgan, Morgan."

And just like that, rifts to the Otherworld formed. Fairy dust poured into the circle, coalescing into a tall, female, humanoid shape. The dust formed a pale woman clad in a leaf-green linen shift along with an ankle-long, loose-cut tunic reminiscent of Early Medieval fashion. Flowers and a small tiara decorated her flowing brown hair. Everything about her looked so artificial. So photoshopped, for the lack of a better word. Her ageless face lacked any of the blemishes or rough edges real people had and her smile felt plastered on. Her ears, as pointed as knives, gave away her fae nature.

Even with the salted bread around her circle, Nathan needed to clutch his scarf at all times to control the magic containing her. Titania – or Morgan le Fay, as most knew her - had been summoned. Even the high wizards of the Council could not have accomplished this feat without her explicit cooperation. She stood perfectly still, but if she did the magical equivalent of twitching a muscle, the circle would break, and surrounding towns might get incinerated.

A supernatural's power could grow with people's awareness. Arthur's myth was known to everyone, even if his wicked half-sister's fey nature was less well-known. After bringing him to Avalon, she had settled down under a false name in Summer Queen Mab's Seelie Kingdom, proving that even the brightest Sun cast dark shadows.

Her false smile terrified him. Nathan had no idea what he did to deserve the attention of a being so ancient and powerful, if she kept godchildren other than him, and what her ulterior motives were.

"Hello, changeling," Titania said. "I see you have not caught the Carter child."

"I need another favor."

"What do you wish to pay me with, child? I fear you do not have much."

"I will capture her later. For now, could you let me talk to Mr. Turner's ghost?"

"I will need payment. If you cannot hand me the Carter girl, three of those pendants you collected shall suffice, too."

Nathan opened his coat and showed the chalice, the wand, the white stone, the ring, and the skull he had acquired from other practitioners. After he had pulled out the last three of those, he saw Titania's satisfied smile. Nathan was glad not to have his debt increase further. The Fae were still alien to him. Regardless of his blood, Nathan had been raised as a human all his life. Their rules were informal and not as rigid as the Fae's.

Yet, one thing he understood was the concept of equivalent exchange. Titania was powerful. Whether he wanted to crush the Council, end world hunger, or get rid of all monsters on Earth, his Fairy Godmother could grant him any wish he wanted. But, she needed a favor, and the more hope her wish created, the greater the payment. Were her prices so high because she saw Nathan as an alien? Because she saw him as a human rather than one of her people?

With a flick of Titania's hand, Mrs. Turner's ghost appeared next to Nathan. The plump, old woman's face looked pink and wrinkled. She still wore the cardigan she died in with fresh tobacco from the cigars she chomped during her depressing investigations. The ghost shrieked when she saw the living Nathan before herself.

"What did the Erlking do to you?" Nathan asked.

"I-it was terrible. I was in the water, then in his castle. H-he showed me pictures of his daughters and how alone he felt. The Wild Hunt will change that."

"Anything more?"

"I-it was terrible. I was in the water, then in his castle."

Nathan reached for his belt, then, as Turner repeated her message like a broken record, he strewed salt over the ghost, making her scream.

"You should be more gentle," Titania said. "Torture never reveals an imprint's true heart."

Nathan grunted. That was true. Ghosts were just imprints. And with the right questions, one could get a ghost to speak.

"What's your name?" Nathan asked the ghost.

"No! I won't write my name in your book!" the ghost said and disappeared.

Titania had already explained the power names held. He was not sure why this was the case. Perhaps ancient superstition was right. Perhaps there was a Creator who spoke everything into being with a divine language and gave every entity a unique identity and name. Regardless of why this was the case, names held power. Trying to steal or otherwise figure out other people's names was not unheard of, usually as a means of gaining control over them. Humans tried this more often on Otherworlders than the other way around, however.

"You should thank her for having spoken, child," Titania said.

"Why?"

"Courtesy. It is truly no surprise that you are so lonely."

"None of your business."

"You can barely take care of yourself. Are you calling this a coat? Rain is coming and you might catch a cold in it."

He grunted. "I'm an adult."

"You are still thinking under the logic of mortals. Your life hasn't even started yet unless you choose to accept your rightful place in Seelie."

"So that I can become your slave there?" Nathan asked. "Like my human counterpart whom you abducted?"

Titania's mouth quivered at the corners, turning into the tiniest smile. "Do you believe I liked to learn that Igraine and Gorlois were not my legitimate parents? Would you like to still live with Sorcerer Roman? The man who tried to drown you and the girl you loved because you refused to become his thrall?"

Nathan pulled his scarf tighter. It was the only thing he had that reminded him of Anna - the last tie to the human world that ever meant anything to him.

"You know who saved your life when he did this, child," Titania said.

"My wish was that you should only save Anna."

"Yes, but you never specified that you wanted to drown. Dead men cannot pay."

"Is that everything you care for?" Nathan asked. "Debts and favors."

"It is within the rules of the Veil. We are permitted to interact with humans and those who cannot decide if they want to be humans or parts of us. But if we did so without rules, history would change in ways not approved by the Heavens."

"To hell with the heavens!" Nathan yelled. "And with the Veil! And with you!"

Titania lifted her chin slightly and formed another, even tinier smile than before. "As you wish. Do you have a final question before I go, child?"

"That do the Council's wizards know about the Erlking's book?"

"That, I can only answer once you have a sufficient payment."

Titania knew he couldn't pay. He relied on her for protection. Immediately after she saved him from Roman, he gained the strength and confidence needed to kill him with a gunshot to the chest. The Council didn't believe him when he said he acted in self-defense. They didn't believe that his mentor enthralled people's minds before. After all, by that point, they had banished him from formal education into mentorship because they realized he was a changeling. A being that wasn't human and deserved no human rights. Nathan became a convicted murderer and fled. He lived in exile, much like Alice Carter, and the only reason he could dwell in the Council's territory was Titania's protection.

A golden glow consumed Titania before the Medieval-sorceress-turned-Faerie dissolved in a cloud of fairy dust. Good riddance.

He hated this game. But once he repaid his favors, he would get the choice if he wanted to live in the realm of Seelie or mortals. He'd choose mortals. Immortality was a daunting prospect for him. As a mortal, he could walk the land, search for strong opponents, and fight them until one of them was strong enough to give him a warrior's death. That, at least, sounded like a dignified way to go.