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Now I remembered what Rod had said about precogs.
"The offer came along just at the time I needed it," I said.
"And you came along at just the time we needed you. It worked out for everybody."
His smile was warm and genuine, which made him less intimidating to me. "I must apologize for the rather abrupt way in which we've introduced you to our company, and I hope to rectify that with you this morning. First of all, I've been remiss in not introducing myself. My name in modern English is Ambrose Mervyn, and I'm the chief executive officer of Magic, Spells, and Illusions, Inc. I held that position a very long time ago, then retired. Recently, I came out of retirement to take up my old position and help steer the company through some challenging times."
"I guess the economy sucked even for magical people," I said with a knowing nod, even as I tried to figure out what he might have meant in making a point of saying that his name was the modern English version.
"Yes, I suppose it has," he said, sounding like he'd just realized that. Now I wondered what he'd really meant.
"As a result, I'm getting reacquainted with the company, just at the same time you're learning about it. Things have changed a great deal since my day." His voice grew distant and wistful. I imagined he had a vacation house in Vermont that he'd had to abandon. "The company's grown considerably and moved its operations to the New World, which is something of an adjustment for me." Strike the vacation house in Vermont, move it to the Cotswolds. But this operation didn't look recent. It had been in New York for at least a century, from the looks of things. I decided not to think too much about it, for it was enough to give me a headache.
"My role has changed as well," he continued. "In my day, we weren't quite so businesslike. Our focus was more on what they call research and development now."
Which explained his apparent fondness for Owen. He knew and understood what Owen did, while personnel would be a foreign concept to him. How old was he anyway?
"As a result, I'm not sure how many of your questions I'll be able to answer, but feel free to ask them at any time. In the meantime, I'd like to learn more about you."
"What would you like to know?"
"Just tell me about yourself."
"Okay, well, I'm from Texas, which you already knew, since we talked about it during the interview." I wondered for a second if I should explain where Texas was, but he was bound to know that much, even if he wasn't American. At least, he could look it up. "I lived in a small town, way out in the middle of nowhere. My family runs a business there for farmers, selling farm supplies like seed, fertilizer, and food for the farm animals." He smiled, and it looked like he truly understood what I was talking about.
"I worked in the store from the time I was little bitty, and as my folks didn't have much of a head for business, no matter how much they knew about farming, I ended up more or less running the place. Then I went to college to study business so I'd really know what I was doing, and I came back home to get things in order. All my friends from school came up to New York. It was something they'd been planning for a while. They figured that it was the best time to do something like that, before they got settled in anywhere else. But I knew my folks needed me."
"You're a very dutiful daughter," he said with a solemn nod.
"Sort of. Last year, one of my friends got married, so they had an empty spot in their apartment. I came up for the wedding, and they talked me into moving here for good. My parents weren't crazy about that, but I had the systems all in place to run the store. It just felt like my last chance to get out of there and really make something of myself, so I did it. And, here I am."
"I imagine it was an adjustment for you."
"Oh, in a big way. It would have been, no matter what, but then there were all those weird things I kept seeing. To tell you the truth, I just thought that was New York, but nobody else seemed to notice, so I figured I was still a small-town hick."
"No, you have a very special perspective on the world. Don't lose that perspective, Katie. Now, how do you like New York?"
"I love it. I get homesick sometimes, but here I feel alive. There's so much going on, it makes my life seem fuller, somehow. I feel like I'm getting more living into each day than I ever could have back home."
"You don't find it frightening and noisy?"
"Noisy yes, but not really frightening."
He gave me a smile that reminded me of Owen in his more bashful mode and said softly, "Sometimes I find it frightening. It's been difficult for me to adjust, even with the spells Owen prepared for me."
"You just need someone to show you around, get you settled in. That's what my friends did for me."
He nodded. "That is a very wise suggestion, Katie Chandler."
I didn't know if it would count as sucking up to the boss, but I took a deep breath and said, "If you like, I could show you around some. Maybe we could go out to lunch one day and walk around."
He looked genuinely pleased. "Yes, I would like that. Now, we have an appointment for lunch. You need to meet the rest of the executive staff."
I got the impression that it hadn't just been the usual recruitment talk when they told me that I was important. At my last job I'd been introduced to my coworkers, and that was it. But here I'd been introduced to everyone but my coworkers. Maybe it had something to do with me learning about how magic worked and what the company did. If I was going to help them figure out what was for real, I'd need that.
It was still odd.
He stood and extended a hand to help me up, then tucked my arm through his and escorted me out of the office. We went back down the spiral escalator—he seemed pleased when I complimented him about it—and down more stairs and more hallways until we were back at the big conference room where they'd interviewed me.
