The rest of the dinner passed by much faster. Amelie really liked all the Elves from Prost. They joked around like they had known each other forever. And in terms of her lifetime, they probably had.

She learned that the black guy's name was Damien and he was almost two hundred years old. He was the oldest of the group, and they all considered themselves to still be young adults.

It eventually came out that she had been struggling to learn magic with Adrien and the responding chorus of offers to help turned her red with joy.

The group finally meandered out of the bar around midnight. Amelie knew they could have stayed longer, and wondered if they all had day jobs to report to in the morning like she had.

Damien grabbed Amelie's arm and she held back to walk with him.

"I'm heading into Prost for a few days," he said. He held open the door for her and the cold Boston air startled her awake. "Is it okay with you if I explain your situation to a Guardian whom I trust? I will only tell him our suspicions of your heritage." He looked down at her expectantly.

Let the government know that there was an unknown Elf in their territory? She was really unsure whether that was the smartest move. In human politics, usually alerting the government of unanswered questions lead them to start snooping around for answers. She wasn't sure if she was ready for a foreign government to poke its nose in her life, bring her in for questioning, possibly do the same to her human family. What if they harmed her dad in some way? He had no idea what she was. He couldn't possibly.

"I always find that coming clean with the truth as soon as possible is the best method," Damien said, seeing her torn expression.

She bit her lip. Could she trust this government she knew nothing about?

Just then she felt a hand on her back and looked up to find Adrien standing beside her, sturdy and strong.

"What are you guys talking about?" he asked politely, his face void of the friendly emotions.

Damien shuffled on his feet, feeling Adrien's confrontational vibe. "We were discussing whether I should mention Amelie's situation to one of the Guardians when I go to Prost tomorrow."

"No," Adrien replied and started pulling Amelie away.

"Technically it's my job to report this, Adrien. You know that," Damien replied.

"You promised that she would stay hidden if she were here. That we would protect her," said Adrien. "She's not ready. Couldn't you see how uncomfortable she was. The answer is no."

"But Adrien" said Cassie. The rest of the group had gone silent, clearly having overheard the conversation. "She is okay. We know she must be Elven, she has felt your magic!" She looked at Amelie, "don't you want to know about your past? Where you come from? Who your family is? What if they are looking for you?"

She could have another family?

"The answer is no. What if there is a security leak and another Realm finds out about her before they figure out who she is? What if Taeneth found out? You know I trust Prost another Realm could harm her. Harm her family." Adrien put his arm around Amelie's shoulder and pulled her tightly into his side.

Amelie was overwhelmed with the thought of this decision, she had barely been able to follow along with the conversation, let alone form an opinion to voice. She did not even know the names of all the Realms, how could she determine what their governments were like. What they valued as societies. She was glad Adrien was there to help her determine the best course of action, even if he had not asked her opinion first.

He knew her better than almost anyone, or at least he once had.

"I agree," she said softly. "I don't want my family involved in this. Can you give it another month, Damien?"

Damien pulled his lips in thin and then let go a great sigh. "Yes, one more month."

She forced her lips to curve into a weak, close-mouthed smile.

"But I am going to have to tell them. It's my job."

"Understood," she said, and nodded once.

They all said their goodbyes and started off in different directions of home. Amelie pulled out her phone to check some email while she walked to the T and heard Adrien's now familiar step come up behind her again.

"Fancy a midnight stroll?" He asked. His head was cocked to the side and his hands were tucked into his front pockets, shyly.

"As long as this stroll goes in the direction of my apartment, yes." She replied cheekily.

He chuckled and hooked his arm in hers. "Of course it does."

They walked three steps in silence before she allowed the questions start bubbling up to the surface.

"Will you tell me about the Realms? I imagine they're all incredibly different, like countries are, but I would really appreciate a crash course," she babbled.

He took a few steps in silence and then responded, "Why don't I tell you our creation story? Then at least you'll have an idea of what we all originated from."

"I would love that," she said.

"Well, each of the Realms has a different iteration of this story by now, especially after such a long separation, but inter-Realm communication has always been simpler than human communication and has gone almost unbroken in the fifty millennia since we have been split."

"Hang on," Amelie interrupted, "You have to know fifty thousand years of cultural traditions, wars, and history in class?"

"Not exactly," he replied, "We only developed a ubiquitously used writing system something like thirty thousand years ago. Humans were still cavemen at that time, so, yeah, I'd say I had to learn a lot more history in class that human schools teach. The longer lifespan also means that many of my teachers were alive for historical events four hundred years ago. Many of the Prost elders were probably around when colonists first landed at Plymouth Rock.

"This just means the details are still important to them so they had to be important to us."

Amelie snickered at the thought of any of her high school history teachers desperately trying to convince the class that the minute details of the Boston Tea Party or the War of 1812 were of any importance to them.

"Anyway, all of the Realms worship the same God in one way or another. There are different sects of the religion, but overall everyone worships Caumlen, the Elf who originally shrunk and hid the Realms

"About one million years ago, our historians estimate, Homo Elviensis walked the Earth with Homo Sapiens and Homo Neandertaalensis. Our species, Homo Elviensis migrated out of Africa and Europe and into Asia before the other two species. There, we crossed through Asia into another whole continent in between Asia and North America, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. This continent was called Laire.

"We made our home on Laire for fifty thousand years, living in relative peace. It was during those fifty thousand years that we evolved to access magic. Some Elves had more power than others, but we all eventually possessed the ability to harness magic.

"No other creature in Laire could harness magic as we could so we started to call ourselves Gods of the Earth. Then, one day, a group of Sapiens migrated into our lands from Asia. They had fought with the Neanderthals in the past fifty thousand years and had learned to attack and physically harm others.

"We had spent the time accessing magic and had not had any competition among species. The Elves were slaughtered. It was a complete massacre. Though we had magic, we had no knowledge of defense strategies or how to use the magic for violence. We had developed into a peaceful species.

"The Sapiens had camped out in our continent and we had no means by which to drive them back. The Elves were terrified because if they had made it this far who was to say other Sapiens would not follow them. We would be wiped out just like the Homo Neandertaalensis

"Then, when all hope seemed lost, a hero emerged to save the Elves. An Elf named Caumlen from a land near the Asian border had been known to be magically unmatched. He managed to harness the magic from each Elf in the land to hide Laire from the human world. He folded the world, and inside the loop, hid Laire."

He pulled on the string of his hoodie to elongate it in front of them. Then he took two spots, about five inches apart, between his fingers and made them into a loop.

"If this is the human world," he pointed to the part that was still straight, "then this is where we imagine the Realms to live," he said and pointed to the open loop

"But, it was magically unstable for such a large fold to exist in the world, so Laire needed to be split into the six Realms: Prost, Taeneth, Sawth, Moore, Phyten, and Banche. Thus the Realms were created.

"Each realm was places on the Earth in a location that corresponded with its natural climate and plant life. Prost, was the most northern area of Laire so it has always needed to live a similar distance from the equator, either far north or far south. The problem is, that occasionally, when Realms more for one reason or another, the climate can get messed up.

"Boston is on the latitude line of about 42 degrees, and Barcelona is on the latitude line of about 41 degrees. One would think that their climates would be similar, but that is not at all the case. Barcelona's average temperature is usually about twenty-five degrees higher than Boston's.

"Thus, the Rentrés were created. We search for new lands for our Realm to hide in, should the need arise, and follow Caumlen's lead to protect and hide the Realms from Sapiens. Or as they are now known, humans."

Amelie was almost stunned into silence. But, quickly another question bubbled to the surface. "How many Rentrés does each Realm have?" she asked.

"It depends on the Realm to be honest. In Moore we have quite a lot, although we work in tours, like the American army. We spend a few years out in the human word and then can return home and work a desk job, or choose to remain in the human world. It is much easier for us to travel home than human soldiers you're thinking of though. Some Rentrés are permitted to live in the Elven Realms and work in the human world. So they go home to their families every night."

"What do you do?" she asked, turning to look up at him so she could meet his eyes.

"Some of both. My parents live in Moore and if I were stationed in Lancaster, the closest human settlement to Moore, then I would be able to go home more often, but it's a bit more difficult from Boston. Elves can only dive relatively short distances. I'd say like a five miles. It would be exhausting to Dive all the way to Lancaster from here, and would honestly take hours. Instead I take the train to go home to visit.

"Damien and Phoebe both have partners who live in Prost that they live with. I think Cassie lives in an apartment in the human world though. Brooks lives down the hall from me here in Boston."

He paused and they walked a few silent paces, arms still linked. "Would you like to come with me the next time I'm home? I'm sure my parents would love to meet you."

Amelie gasped and squeezed the arm Adrien had linked with hers. "I would love to come with you." She had been desperately trying to imagine what the Elf Realms looked like and had practiced the conversation where she asked him to take her at least ten times. She tried not get too excited about him asking her to meet his parents. In his culture, meeting someone's parents might be as simple as asking someone to join you and a friend for coffee. She had no idea and needed to assume the worst and be surprised with the best, as always.

She felt her face turning red from her train of thought and searched desperately for a way to change the topic. She picked the first question that popped into her mind.

"What happened to the Sapiens trapped on Laire when it was hidden?"

"They were contained to a small portion of land to occupy them during their short lives. The Elves and Sapiens tried to breed, but the offspring were grotesque and deformed. There are stories of the child of the two species. It was called an evil Spriggan.

"Our scientists believe that it came from fifty thousand years of breeding separately, that we had spectated into a new species from humans. So we could no longer make children that could survive. The kids were apparently green-skinned, with slimy seaweed-like hair and gigantic pot bellies. At the time, I'm sure the Ancient Elves were horrified and thought the creatures were cursed. It is now the kind of creature you tell your children about to scare them into staying in their beds at night."

She shuddered, thinking of Elven moms scaring small children with stories of what happened if you bred with the humans.

"Are Elves all still afraid of humans?"

"Some are, yes. When I first saw you come up to me all those years ago in that alley, I was terrified of you," he said.

"Really?"

"Really. Those ribbons you had in your hair were obviously there to be later used as a weapon for strangling your victims."

She burst out laughing and threw her head up towards the star-glittered sky. When she lowered her head again she saw Adrien staring directly at her.

He reached out and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, caressing her cheekbone song the way. She hitched her breath and felt goosebumps raise up on her arms.

"Looks like it's time to say goodnight." He said, his voice as smooth as butter.

She looked up and realized they had made it to her apartment building. "Right,"she said, breathlessly. She looked down at their arms and awkwardly unhooked them.

"Will I see you tomorrow?" Adrien asked, shuffling his feet.

"No, I have plans with Maggie and Charlotte tomorrow night. Wednesday work for you?"

"Wednesday sounds good."

"Okay... goodnight, Adrien."

"Goodnight Amelie," he said, and the goosebumps once again rose up on her skin.