Free Dane by Dane

pressure, so we are all back in ElseWorld now. No one here knows the circumstances of my sweet baby Evangeline‟s blood, and we shall endeavor to keep it that way. I will keep her safe and hope my dearest darling comes to us. Evangeline will need him to protect her. I fear for her if anyone discovers what she is.
    But Fantine‟s “dearest darling” had never come for them, and they‟d had no word from him either. Instead, they‟d lived in exile on the other side of the gate, unable to get permission to return or to communicate with this world. The treaty of 1850 negotiated by the satyr of Tuscany had established immigration quotas for interworld passage.
    Then the Great Sickness had changed things. Traversing the gate from ElseWorld to EarthWorld had become all but impossible, except for diplomatic or business purposes sanctioned by the Council.
    Over the following two decades, Fantine‟s hope had slowly dwindled and been replaced by bitterness. She had dedicated the remainder of her life to keeping the truth of Eva‟s blood secret and to schooling her on one goal. When Eva grew up, she was to somehow make her way back to Rome and wed a wealthy human as her mother had not managed to.
    And Eva had learned this lesson well. When her mother died four months ago, she had immediately applied for a visa to come here. In view of the growing need for her particular skill, and her professing herself to be fey and passing the test of this, thanks to Odette‟s powders, a visa had been quickly granted.
    “Why wouldn‟t she say who my father was?”Eva wondered aloud.
    “And how could you not have known? You were her greatest confidante.”
    Odette shook her head, tsking. “She a Marital Broker like you, always around men. Too many of them come and go from her bed for me to keep track. I tell her if she gonna act like a Grande Horizontale, then at least get paid like one. But, no, she was in love with love, your mother.
    Happy to have her clients between her legs, while she found wives for them among the humans.”

    Odette scooped a heap of finely ground powder from the mortar into the teacup. Then she tilted the teapot and filled the cup with steaming water. Fantine and she had worked together to discover the ingredients for this brew through trial and error, and Eva had drunk many a strange concoction during her youth in order to help them determine exactly the right balance.
    Odette absently stirred it now with a small silver spoon, waiting for it to dissolve. “My poor sweet Fantine. The years go by and she tired of every single one of them gentlemen—human or Else—long before they tire of her. Was always happy to bid them farewell the minute she got them married off. Never listened to their pleas to keep them as lovers after they wed, so I didn‟t worry. How was I to know one among them would break her heart and leave her with a bambina one day? A good lesson for you.”
    Eva grimaced. “I know, I know.”
    “That‟s good, then.”Odette plumped the pillows. “Sit up now, mademoiselle.”
    Setting the journal aside, Eva pushed herself upright, hugging her knees. By the time the cup was handed to her, its contents had cooled, and she swallowed them quickly and without argument. Having taken this brew nearly every morning all of her life, she was accustomed to its bitter taste and to its more fortunate effect of disguising the fact that she was satyr. Not only that, it rendered her scent so close to that of a fey‟s as to be indistinguishable, even to the Trackers. They‟d detected nothing when she‟d been sent to them for species verification. They had declared her to be predominantly fey—the offspring of a fey mother and a human father as she‟d claimed. And so she and her maid and servant, Pinot, had been granted passage into this world.
    This brew had allowed her to come here. Allowed her to remain here undetected. Its essential ingredient was the small pit of an olive found only in particular