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“Yeah.” She shoved a couple of chocolate bars aside until she found the
bags of ground white chalk for marking football fields.
The rituals to call Fae had distinctive regional variations, and Tennessee
was notably different from England. The Fae who’d come over with the
European settlers had not caused a pandemic among the local Fae
population of America in the same way the human settlers had. They’d
intermarried with the local Native American Fae and left interesting
pockets of mixed culture. Because Fae lived so much longer than
humans, much of the blending was still fairly new in their terms. Only
one or two generations in most places.
Sometimes, if you were really lucky, you could find a Fae who’d been
alive during the colonial times. When that happened, it was a godsend
to historians of human habitation, like Giancarlo. They had been
coming to the hill every weekend for the last three months.
Holding the bag of chalk loosely in one hand, she dipped the other into
the cool powder and began to refresh their circle. She took it almost all
the way around until it was open on the side closest to the iron fire pit.
She’d close it after they were both inside and ready.
“Hey—I told my prof about Cennetig’s obsession with hotdogs and he
asked about the iron on the grill.” Giancarlo was taping the camera to
the tree. He would spend the actual interview in the chalk circle for
safety. Her contacts were usually pretty well-behaved, but there was no
point in taking a chance.
She shrugged. “Cennetig says it’s like rhubarb.”
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