*

I had plenty of my own work, which would have been easier if I worked in a department that believed in work. Even when there weren’t official departmental parties, everyone went up and down the halls, visiting with each other. I knew you had to be somewhat outgoing to be good at sales, but this was ridiculous. I resorted to having Perdita veil me and tell people I was out when they wandered by to chat.

Life gradually settled down into something that passed for normal, relatively speaking. Though, the way things were going lately, it wasn’t that much weirder inside the walls of the magical corporation than it was outside. City officials were having press conferences and talking about task forces to look into the unusual crime wave. Those of us in on the secret didn’t feel like we had much of an advantage.

I was used to being targeted by the bad guys, but now I was in less danger than the average person because those awful influence spells didn’t work on me. While I had the occasional scary moment, I was never forced to commit a crime. All I had to do was get out of the way the moment I felt magic at work and hope that someone with a Spellworks protection charm was nearby. Even some of the MSI employees had started carrying those charms.

Owen’s workload and obsessive tendencies meant he was working crazy hours, and I didn’t even see him going to and from work anymore. The times I ran into him at work, he looked tired, distracted, and more rumpled than he usually let himself be in a business setting. Given the current crisis, I was afraid I’d sound petty and selfish if I insisted on him paying attention to me. When your boyfriend’s trying to save the world, it’s no time to whine, “But what about us? What about me?” no matter how much you miss him.

A week after I’d come back to work, I got a phone call at the office from him. “So, you’re still alive,” I quipped, trying to keep my voice from sounding too bitterly sarcastic. Supportive, not snarky, I reminded myself.

“Sorry, I’ve been busy.”

“I know. But I miss you.”

“Then maybe you’ll want to see me now. Can you come by? I’ve got something I want to show you.”

“It wouldn’t involve something splashy with dragons, would it?”

“Dragons in the office? Even I’m not that crazy. But I can show you something that will give you the picture.”

“I can’t wait. I’ll be there in a moment.”

I was heading down the hallway toward the department exit when Hartwell stepped out of the conference room and shouted in a magically amplified voice that rang throughout the entire department, “All hands! Conference room! Now!” I sprinted toward the exit, hoping to avoid yet another party. I got caught by a burst of streamers flying from the conference room, but nobody called me back.

When I got to Owen’s lab, Owen and his assistant, Jake, were leaning over something on the lab table. Owen looked frazzled enough that I felt bad for resenting his recent distance. He pulled a metallic green streamer out of my hair. “Let me guess, another sales department party?”

“Yeah, but I narrowly escaped.” I gestured toward the streamer he held. “They only winged me.”

“How come we don’t get parties?” Jake asked.

Owen looked at him with one eyebrow raised. “Can you imagine this department at a party?”

Jake nodded knowingly. “Yeah, now that I think about it, I guess it would be a bunch of people lined up along the walls, looking uncomfortable. But I think they’d like it if you showed movies. They wouldn’t be forced to talk to each other.”

“I’ll consider it, if we ever get to a point when we’re not so busy. We can celebrate once we’ve beaten the bad guys.” Then he turned to me and said, “And you’re not here to talk about parties.”

“In a sense, I am. A really, really big party. What have you got for me?”

“You said you wanted dragons.”

“I said I wanted something splashy to show off.”

“And what’s splashier than dragons? Wait right here.” Grinning ear-to-ear, he ran into his office.

I turned to Jake. “What’s he up to?”

Jake, also grinning, said, “Just wait. You have to see this.”

I wasn’t sure quite what I expected Owen to come back with—maybe a giant old magical tome, or perhaps a miniature dragon. Instead, he held a small white cat with a spattering of big, black spots on her body. It was his cat, Eluned, who’d been dubbed Loony by Rod.

“I didn’t realize it was Take Your Cat to Work Day,” I said.