"Was it the sister thing again?" Gemma asked.
I couldn't lie—she was likely to hear Keith's side of the story. "No. It was just some weirdness that happened, and I think it scared him away." I didn't want to delve into the weirdness, and I hoped Keith was gentleman enough not to give details.
They all laughed. "If he thinks you're too weird, then he's never going to find anyone," Marcia declared. "You've got to be the most ordinary person in the world."
"Maybe I'm so ordinary, I'm weird." That was certainly the truth. I wouldn't have been in this weird mess if I hadn't been so ordinary. Little did they know, but my ordinary days were well and truly over.
* * *
Monday moming, I stepped out the front door to find Owen standing on the sidewalk. Owen was physically incapable of looking casual, so I suspected he was waiting for me. "You look better than you did the last time I saw you," I remarked as he fell into step beside me.
"You're the one we've been worried about."
"Me? I'm fine. Not a scratch." And I was fine, more or less. Only one teensy nightmare about being grabbed in the darkness. I wouldn't be walking home alone from anything after dark for the foreseeable future, but other than that I was A-okay.
"But why didn't y'all tell me I might be in danger?"
"We didn't want to scare you." The sheepish look on his face showed that he knew just how stupid that sounded. "It didn't work so well."
"I'm alive to tell the tale, which is the most important thing."
I made a point of keeping my eyes peeled as we walked to the subway station, remembering what Rod had said about what I could do to help Owen.
"Other than being attacked, how was your weekend?"
"Not so bad. And yours?"
"I got some work done." That didn't tell me much, but now I knew from Rod that he liked opera in addition to baseball. He was unfolding like a flower.
The train arrived, and we shoved our way on board. It was particularly crowded this morning. Even standing room was hard to come by. Owen wasn't tall, but he was taller than I was, so he was able to grab an overhead handhold. Then he circled my waist with his arm and held me steady. I could think of worse ways to commute.
This morning we had to part ways at the doorway to R&D, then I went to the tower for my first day on the job as Merlin's assistant. "He wants to see you when you get a chance," Trix said as I topped the escalator.
"I'll be there in a sec." I checked my e-mail and sent a quick response to Rod's note asking how I was, then got a notepad and headed across the reception area to Merlin's office. Before I could knock on the door, he opened it.
"Katie, good morning, please come in." He ushered me in and shut the door behind me. "Have a seat," he said, gesturing toward the sofa. "I'm sorry to hear about your weekend adventure. You aren't suffering any lingering ill effects, I hope?"
I took a seat, and he joined me on the sofa. "Not really," I said. "I'm fine. Just mad."
"As are we all."
"I guess we could take it as a sign that this Idris guy is nervous, if he's desperate enough to try to take me out."
"He does seem to perceive our activities as a threat. I imagine he connected the timing of your arrival here with our increased efforts against him and wanted to find out what, exactly, your role was."
"He'd have been disappointed."
"I strongly doubt that. I understand you declined Mr. Gwaltney's offer of finding less hazardous employment."
"They just got me riled up. He'd better look out now."
He laughed. "That's the way I thought you'd respond. Now, I suppose I should let you know what I expect of you in your new position."
We spent the next half hour going over my duties, which seemed to be pretty much the same kinds of things I'd done in my last job, except with a far nicer boss. I was to read over every document he was given, only to look for hidden spells and illusions rather than for typos and grammatical errors. When necessary, I'd sit in on meetings along with Trix and compare notes with her to see if there was anything going on that shouldn't be. And I'd continue to head the marketing efforts. It sounded like
I should stay pretty busy, which was okay by me.
"And don't hesitate to speak up if you have any ideas," he added. "I'm an old man who's been out of the world for far too long, and we need your fresh perspective."
