"You couldn't open the windows with magic?" I asked.

"I was too tired," she said with dignity. "I had to recharge my magical batteries, so to speak."

"So to speak," I said, my voice dry. "Well, last night, I found out…" and I stopped dead. I simply couldn't speak of it.

"Found out what?" Amelia was exasperated, and I couldn't say as I blamed her.

"Bill, her first lover, was planted in Bon Temps to seduce her and gain her trust," Claudine said. "Last night, he admitted that to her face, and in front of her only other lover, another vampire."

As a synopsis, it was flawless.

"Well… that sucks," Amelia said faintly.

"Yeah," I said. "It does."

"Ouch."

"Yeah."

"I can't kill him for you," Claudine said. "I'd have to take too many steps backward."

"That's okay," I told her. "He's not worth your losing any brownie points."

"Oh, I'm not a brownie," Claudine explained kindly. "I thought you understood. I'm a full-blooded fairy."

Amelia was trying not to laugh, and I glared at her. "Just let it go, witch," I said.

"Yes, telepath."

"So what next?" I asked, in general. I would not talk any more about my broken heart and my demolished self-worth.

"We figure out what happened," the witch said.

"How? Call CSI?"

Claudine looked confused, so I guessed fairies didn't watch television.

"No," Amelia said, with elaborate patience. "We do an ectoplasmic reconstruction."

I was sure that my expression matched Claudine's, now.

"Okay, let me explain," Amelia said, grinning all over. "This is what we do."

Amelia, in seventh heaven at this exhibition of her wonderful witch powers, told Claudine and me at length about the procedure. It was time- and energy-consuming, she said, which was why it wasn't done more often. And you had to gather at least four witches, she estimated, to cover the amount of square footage involved in Jake's murder.

"And I'll need real witches," Amelia said. "Quality workers, not some hedgerow Wiccan." Amelia went off on Wiccans for a good long while. She despised Wiccans (unfairly) as tree-hugging wannabes—that came out of Amelia's thoughts clearly enough. I regretted Amelia's prejudice, as I'd met some impressive Wiccans.

Claudine looked down at me, her expression doubtful. "I'm not sure we ought to be here for this," she said.

"You can go, Claudine." I was ready to experiment with anything, just to take my mind off the big hole in my heart. "I'm going to stay to watch. I have to know what happened here. There are too many mysteries in my life, right now."

"But you have to go to the queen's tonight," Claudine said. "You missed last night. Visiting the queen is a dress-up occasion. I have to take you shopping. You don't want to wear any of your cousin's clothes."

"Not that my butt could get into them," I said.

"Not that your butt should want to," she said, equally harshly. "You can cut that out right now, Sookie Stackhouse."

I looked up at her, letting her see the pain inside me.

"Yeah, I get that," she said, her hand patting me gently on the cheek. "And that sucks big-time. But you have to write it off. He's only one guy."

He'd been the first guy. "My grandmother served him lemonade," I said, and somehow that triggered the tears again.

"Hey," Amelia said. "Fuck him, right?"

I looked at the young witch. She was pretty and tough and off-the-wall nuts, I thought. She was okay. "Yeah," I said. "When can you do the ecto thing?"

She said, "I have to make some phone calls, see who I can get together. Night's always better for magic, of course. When will you go pay your call to the queen?"

I thought for a moment. "Just at full dark," I said. "Maybe about seven."

"Should take about two hours," Amelia said, and Claudine nodded. "Okay, I'll ask them to be here at ten, to have a little wiggle room. You know, it would be great if the queen would pay for this."

"How much do you want to charge?"

"I'd do it for nothing, to have the experience and be able to say I'd done one," Amelia said frankly, "but the others will need some bucks. Say, three hundred apiece, plus materials."

"And you'll need three more witches?"

"I'd like to have three more, though whether I can get the ones I want on this short notice… well, I'll do the best I can. Two might do. And the materials ought to be…" She did some rapid mental calculations. "Somewhere in the ballpark of sixty dollars."

"What will I need to do? I mean, what's my part?"

"Observe. I'll do the heavy lifting."

"I'll ask the queen." I took a deep breath. "If she won't pay for it, I will."

"Okay, then. We're set." She limped out of the bedroom happily, counting off things on her fingers. I heard her go down the stairs.

Claudine said, "I have to treat your arm. And then we need to go find you something to wear."

"I don't want to spend money on a courtesy call to the vampire queen." Especially since I might have to foot the bill for the witches.

"You don't have to. It's my treat."

"You may be my fairy godmother, but you don't have to spend money on me." I had a sudden revelation. "It's you who paid my hospital bill in Clarice."

Claudine shrugged. "Hey, it's money that came in from the strip club, not from my regular job." Claudine co-owned the strip club in Ruston, with Claude, who did all the day-today running of the place. Claudine was a customer service person at a department store. People forgot their complaints once they were confronted with Claudine's smile.

It was true that I didn't mind spending the strip club money as much as I would have hated using up Claudine's personal savings. Not logical, but true.

Claudine had parked her car in the courtyard on the circular drive, and she was sitting in it when I came down the stairs. She'd gotten a first aid kit from the car, and she'd bandaged my arm and helped me into some clothes. My arm was sore but it didn't seem to be infected. I was weak, as if I'd had the flu or some other illness involving high fever and lots of fluids. So I was moving slowly.

I was wearing blue jeans and sandals and a T-shirt, because that was what I had.

"You definitely can't call on the queen in that," she said, gently but decisively. Whether she was very familiar with New Orleans or just had good shopping karma, Claudine drove directly to a store in the Garden District. It was the kind of shop I'd dismiss as being for more sophisticated women with lots more money than I had, if I'd been shopping by myself. Claudine pulled right into the parking lot, and in forty-five minutes we had a dress. It was chiffon, short-sleeved, and it had lots of colors in it: turquoise, copper, brown, ivory. The strappy sandals that I wore with it were brown.

All I needed was a membership to the country club.

Claudine had appropriated the price tag.

"Just wear your hair loose," Claudine advised. "You don't need fancy hair with that dress."

"Yeah, there is a lot going on in it," I said. "Who's Diane von Furstenburg? Isn't it real expensive? Isn't it a little bare for the season?"

"You might be a little cool wearing it in March," Claudine conceded. "But it'll be good to wear every summer for years. You'll look great. And the queen will know you took the time to wear something special to meet her."

"You can't go with me?" I asked, feeling a little wistful. "No, of course, you can't." Vampires buzz around fairies like hummingbirds around sugar water.

"I might not survive," she said, managing to sound embarrassed that such a possibility would keep her from my side.

"Don't worry about it. After all, the worst thing has already happened, right?" I spread my hands. "They used to threaten me, you know? If I didn't do thus and such, they'd take it out on Bill. Hey, guess what? I don't care any more."