Page 68 of Office of the Lost

Well, maybe I am.He snorted.And maybe they deserved it.

“Enough.”

Aspin had started to speak again, but a sharp look from the Queen of Fae silenced him.

“Your brother deserves some answers.And so do you.”She drained the glass and set it down on the sad little table.

Crispin braced himself.Was his father a warthog?Had he been adopted from some gods-forsaken world that no one wanted to talk about?Oh gods, am I actually… human?

“Crispin is my one true heir.”

Nowthathe hadn’t expected.

Aspin was on his feet.“What?Him?When I’ve been at your side, loyal as a fire dragon, while he?—”

“Sit down, Aspin.”Her voice cut through the rant and all but took the legs out from under her pompous older son.

Crispin stared at the two of them.

Minkis had stopped nibbling to stare with him, seeming suddenly fascinated by the larger beings around him.

“You… you can’t be serious.”It was disconcerting to actually agree with his brother, for once.“You’ve never had one good thing to say about me.And Aspin’s older than me.”

“Aspin’s not like us.”

Us.That one word knocked the wind out of him.The Queen of the Fae, Her Great Mabness.“How in Hades’ dark halls am I like you?”

“We are both the servants of Order.”Her eyes bore into his, as if to see whether he understood the true import of what she was telling him.

And suddenly it became clear.“I’m… I’m like Leo.”

She snorted in the most lady-like and yet derisive way possible.“Hardly.Leo is a servant of Chaos.”

“But I don’t have a real father, do I?”

She shook her head.“No more than I did.Nor a mother, in truth.”

Aspin looked from Crispin to his mother, and back again.“I don’t understand.”

“She didn’t birth me.She… created me.”Suddenly everything made sense.The arms-length treatment he’d received all through his childhood.His attraction to the Red Door.His exile to the Office of the Lost.His love of all things straight and clean and organized.“I’m… Order personified.Aren’t I?And so are you.”

A smile spread across her face.“Now you see it.”

“And my father…”

“Was from behind The Door.”

A horrid thought crossed his mind.“Is Leo my?—”

“Oh sordid heavens no.There are as many manifestations of Chaos as there are of Order.”

Crispin heaved a sigh of relief.For a moment there, he’d been afraid he’d slept with his own father.Which… just no.“But why?What are we, really?”Being so like his mother was profoundly disturbing.All of his life he’d consoled himself that he was nothing like her.

“You are Acorn Man.Belong with Chaos Man.”

Crispin stared at his squirrel companion.Minkis’s poor grasp of English grammar belied the truth and deep insight of what he’d just said.

Unconcerned, Minkis went back to rummaging in the nut bowl for hidden treasure.

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