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“Why haven’t you said anything?”
“Like I said, it seems so trivial. And besides, I’m on at least my third assignment since coming to work for MSI, and I haven’t even worked there a whole year.”
“What is it that you hate, aside from the boredom?”
I had to think about that. The boredom was so mind-numbing that it was hard to get beyond it to see anything else. “Mostly, I don’t think I’m getting to use my abilities. You recruited me because I’m immune to magic, and that has nothing to do with my current job. Anyone of any level of magical or nonmagical ability could do my job. I have the skills for it because the only job I could find when I moved to New York was as an administrative assistant in a marketing department. It’s like, oh, I don’t know, say that they put you to work just setting wards. That’s something you’re good at that you’ve had a lot of practice with, but it wastes your real skill, which is translating ancient texts and ferreting out the parts of the old spells that might be useful.”
“I see your point. You are being wasted. Maybe you should talk to Sam about something in security. A magical immune might come in handy, and you definitely have experience in dealing with bad guys and solving crimes.”
“Security? Really? I’m not really the security type, am I?”
“Let’s see, in the time you’ve been with the company, you’ve caught intruders, revealed a spy, and helped bring down the bad guys while evading the opposition. Sounds like security work to me.”
“That could actually be kind of cool,” I said thoughtfully. “But you don’t think I’ll seem ungrateful to reject a job Merlin created for me?”
“The needs of the company keep changing.” I felt his shoulder shrug where my head rested on it. We were both quiet for a moment, listening to make sure our enemies hadn’t found us. Then he said, “I have to say I’m relieved. I thought you were unhappy that we weren’t spending enough time together. I know I can get obsessive when I’m working on a project.”
I wrapped my arms around him and hugged him. “Yes, I know you can get obsessive, which is why I try to find ways of working around it, like sneaking in early in the morning to bring you breakfast. If you weren’t obsessive, you wouldn’t be you, and I happen to like you a lot.”
“We will take that vacation, I swear,” he said.
“Yeah, I’ve heard that one before.” But I was smiling when he kissed me. A tunnel under a Central Park bridge late in the evening wasn’t a bad place for a makeout session—that is, if there weren’t multiple factions out to get us. As if to remind us that we probably ought to be a little more focused on our surroundings, Owen’s phone rang before things could get too heated.
It was Rod. “Are you two okay?” he asked.
“For now,” Owen replied. “What happened back there?”
“I wish I could have found a way to record it because Katie would’ve enjoyed seeing it.”
I stood on my tiptoes to speak into Owen’s phone. “Oh, do tell!”
“Mimi made a huge fuss about her missing brooch, so they eventually brought in one of the NYPD officers working event security to take her statement. They couldn’t take her too seriously when she was griping about missing a brooch that she was still wearing. She insisted that it was a different brooch, and the way she could tell the difference was that the real one made her feel better. Once the officer heard about her earlier meltdown, there was talk about calling Bellevue, but one of the museum trustees was there and talked them into just letting her lie down for a while. They may have given her a little something to help her relax.”
“So we won’t have to worry about Mimi coming after us for a while,” I concluded with some relief. “What about the others?”
“Thor and Granny are with me. Sylvester finally woke up, and he and his group, including Earl, just left. I’m not sure how much time you have before they reach you. Sam’s tailing them and we’re trying to stay in range so we can help if you need us.”
“Thanks for the warning. We should be on the move.”
“I hope you’ve got a plan because you’re eventually going to have a lot of people after you.”
“The boss is working on a new protective case, and when he gets it to us, we should be okay. We just have to hold out until then.”
“Maybe instead of following the elves, we should meet up with you.”
“No, sorry, I’d rather not tell you where we are. It’s not that I don’t trust you.”
“It’s that you don’t trust us around the Eye. Don’t worry, I get it, but I’m not sure Katie’s grandmother does. She’s not happy.”
“I’ll deal with her later,” I said.
“Are you sure you don’t need help? I don’t like the idea of you two out there alone, defenseless, with who knows what coming after you.”
“Who’s defenseless?” Owen said indignantly.
“Magic can’t hurt you, but I can think of a lot of other things that could.”
“Still, the fewer people who might be affected around me, the fewer I’ll have to deal with. Or do you want me to have to hit you?”
