AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I perked up immediately. “Hiring me?” Currently missing dream artifact aside, jobs had been…absent lately. So what if this was a child? Work was work.
The girl finished off the bar and put the wrapper on the desk. She stared at me with solemn eyes. “I want you to find my pet.”
“Your pet?”
She nodded. “My pet.”
“I usually don’t search for pets.” Not that I was against it in principle, of course. It was just that pets didn’t look as nice as artifacts on an artifact hunter’s resume. “Did you ask your parents?”
Her gaze fell to the side, and she squirmed. “No.”
“Why not?”
She murmured something that sounded lyrical and lovely.
I leaned forward, tilting my head to hear her better. “Say that again?”
“They don’t know about the pet,” she muttered in English.
Sneaky. But then my mother didn’t know about my Fae hound pet either, so it wasn’t as if I could throw stones. Who would throw stones at a child, anyway?
“Maybe you should tell them, and they’ll help you?”
“I can’t!” she exclaimed.
Anyone could see where this was going. “You found your pet outside your rooms, didn’t you?”
I heard a rhythmic thumping, and I looked under the desk. Her small booted foot was hitting the leg of the chair in a nervous pattern.
“Let me guess,” I said as I straightened and put on my most conspiratorial expression. Nobody liked a prissy, stick-up-their-butt possible employee. “You’ve been sneaking out without anyone noticing, and if you tell the adults, they’ll stop you from getting out, and they’ll probably take your pet away too.”
My mind went back to some of the bloodthirsty, scary Fae creatures I had encountered along the way, and I suppressed a shiver. I was with the adults on this one.
Lila nodded enthusiastically, excited now that I totally got her. “They would! I sneaked out today to come see you.”
That brought up another excellent question—how did this girl even know about me? “Why me?”
“I heard you’re good at finding stuff.”
I sat up straight, my chest puffing a little, an idiotic smile curving my lips. “You did?”
She nodded again. “I heard the adults mention you.”
Oh, my God. I was famous! Famous!
Mentally, I punched the air. The office exploded into glittering confetti. From its position on the wall, the flying cat left the poster and bounced around my desk, leaving a rainbow trail in its wake. Wait until I told Marta.
“Are you going to find my pet?” Lila asked, bringing me back to reality.
If I didn’t, she’d probably try to find it herself, and who knew what kind of mess she’d end up in. Most Fae needed a pre-made portal to come to the surface, but this little girl could already make her own. That meant a lot of power, which meant a lot of trouble—for herself and others in her way.
But Maddie Dover, artifact hunter extraordinaire, was well versed in finding and getting out of trouble.
“I’ll help.” The girl let out a squeal of happiness, but I lifted my hand in warning. “But if I can’t find it today, you’ll confess to your parents.”
“Yes!”
Hmm. Suspect. Fae couldn’t lie, but I had an inkling this Fae girl would not admit defeat so easily. Perhaps in her mind, she meant it because she was convinced she’d find her pet before that. Advantages to being a child, I supposed.
