Between Perfection And Truth

	Rachel knew the occupant of apartment 3G, and better than she ought to. Officially, they should've shopped each other to their respective Courts ages ago. But at times like these, she could really use a Seelie contact.
	Rachel halted at the door and just stood there. Anyone who didn't know Tasha's supernatural senses would ring the doorbell, or maybe knock in defiance of the doorbell, so this was a signal of sorts. If Tasha had Seelie business going on then she'd simply pretend not to notice Rachel.
	But, quickly enough, Tasha opened the door. "Rachel, good to see you." Without a word of invitation she stood aside.
	"Good to see you, too." And then Rachel entered uninvited. This was a social pattern the Seelie and Unseelie Courts developed as a counter to Sluagh Court agents who could kill and replace someone, but couldn't enter a home uninvited. It sometimes confused humans — and Rachel thought of it that way despite being human herself.
	Tasha, however, was not human, even if she was in a human guise. Invisible were her wings and talons. Her skin was on the light side of brown, but dark enough to be called "dark-skinned" in such an upscale neighborhood of New Santiago. Her hair was black and curly, carefully slicked and arranged into a faux-casual halo. She could pass well enough for Eastern European. She looked like she was in her 40s or 50s — even if Rachel knew Tasha had two more digits in her past. She was wearing a black shimmery cocktail dress, entirely too dressed-up for playing video games on a lazy saturday.
	Which is what it looked like she'd been doing. The living room was dominated by a computer desk, and the screen showed a paused scene deep in some dingy warehouse, with a wired controller laid faux-carelessly on the chair. In contrast to the game, the room was bright and airy, with a large potted plant in each corner for color.
	Rachel stood at military ease before the computer desk, as if waiting in Tasha's office. A gesture of deference. They were, after all, enemies.
	Tasha swept the door closed, and the way she stalked into the room had nothing to do with emotion and everything to do with physical comfort. She moved the controller to the desk, between mouse and keyboard, and flounced languidly sideways across the chair. She flexed her feet, seemingly bare human feet, and then broke the illusion. She had three talons per foot, each the size of Rachel's hand, and prodigious wings, feathered as black as her hair. "To what do I owe the honor?"
	"I believe the Goblin Court is moving against both of us. A squad of trolls —"
	"Trolls?" Tasha interrupted.
	"Blood trolls and night trolls. They recently hit an Unseelie safehouse, our agents followed them, and last night they set up in Jacaranda Park. My assignment is to figure out why. But I think you and I both know their target."
	The Seelie Court had a Pocket up a tree in the park, collecting ideas familiar to the humans there, which were used to create Roles for Seelie agents inserted into human society. It was quite the expenditure for something of no strategic value, but it had served the Seelie court well since before Rachel was born, long since paying for itself. There was something to be said for reliability.
	"And we can't evacuate without being spotted by Unseelie agents watching for trolls."
	"Just so."
	"Very well, we'll have to hit them before they can tip our hand. Do I owe you another for this information?" Tasha was a lilitu, and true to stereotype, she tallied her debts very precisely.
	"Yes, but I'm calling it in, along with another. Maybe three total, you'll be the judge." Precisely and scrupulously — Tasha could be trusted to only charge two if it wasn't worth three. "There's someone nosing around after me, she looks human enough, but she's got a magical edge of some kind. Something strange, not of the Courts. If I use any of my tricks then she'll never let go. I need someone to mess with her mind — nothing permanent, just so she knows someone who's not me got into her head."
	"Mmm, so she leaves the "boring human" alone and goes on a wild goose chase."
	"Exactly."
	"That's definitely a three, I don't exactly know a leannán." A watery little smile. A dark in-joke. Rachel knew very well Tasha used to be close friends with a leannán, until a conflict the two agents failed to de-escalate left over half a dozen on both sides dead.
	Rachel just nodded gravely.
	"Very well, it will be done within a fortnight."
	Rachel bowed. If Tasha were human then thanks would be appropriate, but in both Seelie and Unseelie cultures, thanks would cheapen the payment — or even suggest she'd put one over on Tasha. Instead she simply said "Excellent." and let her bow say the rest.

		★	★	★

	Rachel went for a jog around Jacaranda Park. A reasonably normal thing for a human to do that afternoon. Not being innately magical, and having trained the talent from childhood, she could smell different types of glamour, and jogging gave her the perfect excuse for a lot of inhaling through the nose. So she jogged and sniffed from the west end to the east end and back. She finished with a big chug of water and an honest visit to the bathrooms at the west end.
	However, all of this painted a nice narrative for her handler. "Primary report," she wrote, "smells like Goblin force is still holed up among the trees by the boathouse. Also smelled Seelie magic outside the west bathrooms, less than an hour old. No such smell inside. Suspect Goblin and Seelie forces skirmishing. Suggest our recon be wary of spotting by Seelie forces. Follow-up planned for tonight." She had smelled the Goblin magic, but of course smelled no such thing as the Seelie force. Maybe the Seelie force wasn't on the scene yet, or maybe they were maintaining glamour silence to stay hidden. But if the other Unseelie recon were extra careful of being spotted, then they were less likely to spot the Seelie force.
	She also caught the occasional whiff of strange magic, the same unfamiliar smell her stalker her was using, the same smell virtually every time she left her apartment these days. But she'd already reported that.
	After a shower, the rest of her afternoon was taken up by day job stuff. The Unseelie Court pays its agents well, at least in human money, but via a day job as cover. Rachel was supposedly a software engineer, although most of what she did while remoted in from home was answering Unseelie fae's ill-founded questions about humans, automatically turned into bug tickets and back.
	Sure enough, an hour before sunset when she was getting ready to go check on the park again, her handler messaged her. "Goblin and Seelie forces skirmished. Assignment complete. Await further orders." Perfect.
	With her evening freed up, Rachel decided to go out for an early dinner. No magic. A nice black crop top and maxi skirt, contrasting with her paleness. A relaxing waste of her stalker's time.
	But on her way through the crowded lobby, Rachel caught a whiff of that strange magic, except indoors this time. She made a show of having forgot something, crossed between occupied tables a few times getting water from the drinking fountain, a snack from one of the vending machines, and more water. She localized the smell to a couple laughing and talking over drinks at a table.
	He was slender, attractive enough, vaguely European, hair as black as Rachel's but skin more moderate, with attention only for her. She looked less-definable; androgynous and compactly-built, perhaps male but for heteronormative assumptions, half Asian and half can't say, with attention alternately scanning the room and refocusing on him. "She" could easily be a sidhe, hermaphroditic fae who twist truth and lies until you meet yourself coming and going.