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I got as close to him as I dared, then hissed, "What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm serenading my maiden fair, the one whose gentle kiss saved my life." He was back in Shakespearean surfer mode.Advertisement

"Well, knock it off. I don't want to be serenaded."

"My humble offering doesn't please you?"

"It embarrasses me." It should have embarrassed him, but once you've sat naked in Central Park, everything else is only minor humiliation. Then I got an idea. "You know, absence makes the heart grow fonder."

Within a heartbeat his guitar was back in its case and he was gone. I should have thought of that sooner. With a great sense of relief, I headed home.

Thus began my second week at MSI. This week was a little more ordinary than the last one had been—or as ordinary as things were likely to get at a magical company.

There weren't any intruders—at least, not that I spotted—and I wasn't called upon to help check out any new, potentially dangerous spells. I met with Mr. Hartwell a few times to talk about marketing, but I didn't see Merlin at all.

Presumably, Owen and his team were still testing the spell and trying to find a counterspell, for he went back to looking pale and tired most of the time. After another week with apparently no good news, he developed a worried crease in his forehead. We still rode to work together most mornings, but that was all I saw of him.

I got in the habit of regularly eating lunch with Ari and occasionally with Isabel, and through them I got a better orientation about life in the magical world. During the next couple of weeks I also got a better sense of what my job really was all about. I went on sales calls, always checking for any of Idris's spells that might have been hidden away and making sure that the shop owners were on board with our marketing messages. I also sat in on a few meetings and fine-tuned my ideas for a more effective way to do real-time, live verification.

Settling into my job made it easier for me at home. Things went back to normal with my friends, except for the fact that I wasn't being set up with a different guy every weekend. Gemma swore she was working on Project Boyfriend but hadn't found the right guy for me yet. I enjoyed the break and the chance to spend more quality time with my friends. Gemma was still dating Philip the Frog, and for her, sticking with the same guy for more than a week meant she was getting serious. My own frog guy, Jeff, hadn't shown up again, but I worried about what might be in store when he decided he'd been absent long enough for my heart to grow really fond of him.

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By my fourth week on the job, I couldn't imagine working anywhere else. The strange old building felt like home, and there didn't seem to be anything odd about working with people who had wings. I'd learned to have my hands ready if someone offered me a cup of coffee, and I'd been spoiled by having whatever I wanted for lunch delivered instantly.

That Thursday morning, I got a verification call from the sales department. I entered the department to find Selwyn, the elf I'd gone with on my first call, waiting for me.

"Hey, Katie, babe," he said, pointing his fingers at me like guns. "Ready for some action? I've got a few accounts I need to check on." He dropped his voice to a stage whisper and added, "Not to mention looking out for a few other things, wink-wink, nudge-nudge."

"How are sales?" I asked as we made our way to the building exit.

"We aren't seeing a lot of inroads from our so-called competition, but then the competition isn't selling anything that would affect what we sell. That marketing stuff seems to be working, though. Our sales are up, and that's made most of our distributors more eager to work with us and less eager to take risks by carrying anything less than kosher."

We stepped outside and climbed onto the flying carpet. I now almost felt comfortable riding these things. I felt far more comfortable with anyone but Selwyn driving, however. He was the worst kind of show-off, and I think I only encouraged him by looking nervous.

"So we're doing okay?" I asked, trying to mask my flying anxiety.

"Looks like it. They've only caught a few people using those spells, and they don't appear to be as effective as they're advertised to be. Word gets around about things like that." I'd been keeping an eye on the news, looking for signs of inexplicable crime sprees, but it just seemed to be normal New York crime levels. Maybe things weren't as bad as we'd feared, but then I doubted they'd have brought Merlin back for something so easy to solve.

We reached our first stop, a music shop in the East Village. I wondered if this was where Jake had bought that spell. It was a seedy place I wouldn't have gone into by myself, and I doubted they'd sell the kind of mainstream music I liked anyway. pqdm.com