Kiss and Spell

She glanced around, like she was making sure no one was nearby to eavesdrop, then leaned forward and opened her lower desk drawer. With another glance around and then a big gulp, she pulled a piece of paper out from under a stack of manila envelopes. “This,” she said, shoving the paper at me like it was on fire. Then she screwed her eyes shut, as though she expected me to hit her once I saw it.

It was a flyer photocopied onto colored paper, the kind of thing political groups hand out around Union Square. “ARE WIZARDS OPPRESSING ELVES?” the flyer asked in huge block capitals. Underneath, it listed the evidence in bullet points, with each line in a different font. I cringed at the first one, which claimed that wizards had stolen and then destroyed the Knot of Arnhold, the ancient magical brooch treasured by the elves.

Actually, I’d been the one to destroy it, though I hadn’t been a wizard at the time. And, technically, we hadn’t stolen it from the elves. Their own leader had stolen it to use it in a scheme, then it was stolen from him and sold, and then we’d stolen it. It was a complicated story, but it had been necessary for saving the world because the Knot had been united with a nasty gem that probably would have led to World War III if I hadn’t thrown it on the electric third rail of a train track during a massive scuffle. The fact that I got magical powers out of the bargain was beside the point. I wasn’t named in the flyer, but Owen was, I noted, and his heritage was highlighted. I wondered if that explained the attack on us.

There were other gripes, including an accusation that wizards were abducting elves who dared to speak out. The flyer concluded with a call for elves to disassociate themselves from wizards, stand up for themselves, and fight back. It looked like Sylvester, the Elf Lord, was still up to his old tricks and using propaganda to do what he hadn’t been able to do with enchanted jewelry. “Thanks for showing me this, Perdita,” I said.

She cautiously opened one eye. “It’s not true, is it?”

“Parts of it are,” I admitted, “but they rather severely missed the point. There’s a lot more to it than that.” She opened her other eye, but she didn’t seem to relax much. I asked, “Are the elves taking this seriously?”

“Some are. A couple of my friends quit this week. My mom is griping at me about finding a new job.” Then she gasped and hurried to add, “Not that I would. I like it here. But, yeah, even some of those who didn’t like the Elf Lord before are starting to listen.” She twirled a red ringlet around her finger before whispering, “To be honest, I feel kind of like a rat for showing that to you. I mean, I’m turning against my own people.”

“Not all your own people,” I reassured her. “There are free elves who don’t want you to be ruled by a lord of any kind, and they’re the ones working with us to keep your people from being even more under Sylvester’s control.”

“I’m not sure my family would see it that way.”

“Don’t worry, they won’t know where we got this. There are a lot of elves working here.” At least, there had been. If this flyer represented elven sentiment, that might change soon. I stood. “Mind if I take this?”

“Please do.”

“Thank you again for trusting me.” I started to leave the office, then turned back. “Could you hand me an envelope?” She did, and I sealed the flyer up in it. There were a number of elves working in the sales department, where my office was. It was safest not to let anyone see me carrying it from my office, lest they suspect Perdita of bringing it to me.

I headed straight up to the boss’s office, where, as usual, he was waiting for me. It’s a little disconcerting to have a boss who manages to anticipate your every move, but when your boss is Merlin—yeah, that one—it comes with the territory. You even get used to it. On the upside, I never have to wait for him to see me.

“I take it you have a concern, Miss Chandler?” he said by way of greeting as he gestured me to a seat in front of his desk.

I handed him the envelope. “Apparently, this sort of thing is going around the elven community,” I told him.

I watched his face as he removed the flyer from the envelope and read it, but his expression gave nothing away. He murmured a soft, “Hmmm,” as he laid it on his desk.

“Is that what last night was about?” I asked.

Instead of answering me, Merlin picked up his phone and called Sam, Owen, and Rod to come to his office. He made one more call to Earl, the young elf who’d been instrumental in letting us know what Sylvester had been up to with the Knot.