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“Yes, you should definitely do that. I wouldn’t want you to end up with back problems. You’re too valuable to me.”
I felt sick smiling at him, and even sicker at the thought that I’d facilitated any of his evil, even if it had been in the service of stopping him for good.
I hurried back to my office because I didn’t want to be there when the raid happened. Would the raid happen? Had I done enough? The only other thing I could think of was calling Minerva or Rod. If they were supposedly working for the Collegium—or for Roger—then I might have a legitimate reason to call them from the office, and the call might get through.
I scrolled through the menu of recent calls on my phone, looking for the time I’d called Minerva to arrange the session with Roger. Finding it, I hit the “recall” button and held my breath, hoping it would go through.
It seemed to take forever, perhaps because the call was traveling such a distance, or perhaps because of perception. Every second was stretching out to hours for me today. I couldn’t help but gasp when I heard ringing. It was going through.
Or was it? I didn’t recognize the voice that answered. “Please state the purpose of your unscheduled call,” it said.
“Setting an appointment with an outside consultant,” I said briskly, hoping my voice didn’t tremble too badly.
“One moment.”
I silently prayed that the “one moment” meant the call was being put through, not that it was being checked with my supervisor. After another seemingly eternal wait, I heard ringing again.
“Why, Katie, this is a surprise,” Minerva’s voice said, and I sagged with relief when I heard it. “Let me guess, your friend needs another consultation. I don’t think it’s going to help much.”
“It could make a big difference if it happens NOW,” I said, putting all the emphasis I could on the word. She was a psychic, so I hoped she detected all the vibes around it.
“I’ll have to check my schedule and get back to you,” she said, and her voice sounded so light and casual that I wasn’t sure if she’d picked up on the message or if she was just doing a really good job of playing it so cool that nobody listening in would suspect a thing. “Would sometime in the next half hour be good?”
Okay, that sounded like she’d picked up on it. “That would be fine, but much later than that would be too late because there are other plans.”
“Just hang tight, and I’ll get back to you.”
I disconnected the call, put the phone down, and rubbed my sweaty palms against my skirt. Now, should I stay up here and wait for the raid, or should I go down and revive some frogs to give us more troops on the inside? If I timed this wrong, it could go very badly.
My phone rang, making me jump, and I saw Minerva’s number. “This afternoon is good, probably in about ten minutes,” she said.
That meant it was time. I found the copies I’d made of the internal key spell and put them in my jacket pocket, then opened my desk drawer to find the small case of toiletries the company provided, since we weren’t allowed to bring in anything of our own. I pocketed the tube of lip balm—I wasn’t kissing frogs bare-lipped—and headed straight to Trish’s office. “Grab your lip balm, it’s frog-kissing time,” I told her softly.
She opened her drawer and pulled out her tube, which she brandished defiantly. Together, we headed for the elevators down to the spa. As we rode in the glass elevator, I couldn’t help but look up in the atrium toward the level where our offices were. How would I know that the raid had happened or that it was successful?
We reached the frog pond, and Trish eyed the frogs warily. “So, we just, um, kiss them?”
“It doesn’t have to be on the lips,” I said, popping open my lip balm and giving myself a couple of coats.
With a shrug, she did the same. I bent to pick up the first frog that came to me, hoping that, even in frog form, Owen would recognize me and come straight to me. I bent to kiss it on the head, squeezing my eyes shut so I wouldn’t have to look at what I was kissing.
Actually, it didn’t feel too bad—at least, not until the magic kicked in and the frog began to vibrate. I dropped it quickly, and it hung in mid-air, a glowing nimbus surrounding it.
“Oh, my God,” Trish breathed.
“Yes, it works, now hurry, because someone’s bound to notice it soon.”
With a shrug, she picked up a frog and, grimacing, gave it a quick peck, with a similar result.
I grabbed the next frog and kissed it. As I released it, I saw that the first former frog had solidified into human form. It was Philip. “Katie! How can I thank you?” he said, coming toward me with his arms extended.
“You can grab a frog and get to kissing. I want to get as many freed as possible before they catch us.” He blinked in surprise, then seemed to notice his surroundings. Upon realizing that he wasn’t in friendly territory, he went to work.
As each frog returned to human form, we put him to work with us—and most of them were men, though Sylvia Meredith was among the first wave of frogs. A couple of frogs turned out to apparently be genuine frogs. They just squirmed out of our hands after being kissed.
But still, there was no sign of Owen. He should have been the newest frog, the one retaining the most of his human instincts. I’d have thought that he’d have come straight to me, especially once there was all the magic in the air from so many spells breaking, all at once.
When we had a critical mass of former frogs helping save the others, I took charge of setting up a defensive perimeter with some of the people. “They’ll come after us,” I warned. “Be prepared to shield yourself and fight back.” They didn’t need a lot of urging, not after what had happened to them. I didn’t know who these people were and whether I would have sided with them or even associated with them in other circumstances, but for now, we were all allies.
