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"This is that really hot guy you knoho’s hosting it, right?" Marcia asked

"Yeah, he’s Owen’s best friend"

"And what’s his job again?"

"He’s head of Personnel"

"Oh" There was so about the way she said it thatthe invitation on to her boyfriend, Jeff

The next ht have to take it off once I got to the office, but if there was any chance ht be diic was in use aroundwith a cup of take-out coffee "Let uess, this is your own special blend," I said as I took the cup from hi the locket"

"Yes I thought it ht come in handy"

"That’s not the purpose I intended it for, but it works, I suppose"

I took a sip of the coffee It tasted like plain old coffee to ar I couldn’t detect whatever drug or potion he’d put in it "So, this is the dose that’s really going to do it, huh?" I asked

"You probably won’t notice the effects until late today We’ll give it a test this afternoon, then I’ll give you a final dose before we leave work Tonight I thought you could take a look at the subway ads, and then we could have dinner at my place and watch for TV ads That is, if you don’t have other plans?"

"No, nothing else planned"

"Great Then tomorroe can visit Tian to tingle froh, there were the Spellworks ads I still saw them the same way I had all week, so I h I knee needed me to do this, I couldn’t help but feel relieved that I still hadthe last tiedup with a plan B, since he’d been opposed to this in the first place But I kneas iet, and this was the quickest and easiest way to go about getting it

When we approached the MSI office building, the necklace began to vibrate I realized I wouldn’t be able to wear it at work at all By the time I decided to take it off, it was alrab it and break the chain, just to get it off my neck, but Owen stepped in and unfastened it for me "Sorry about that," he said "I may need to rethink this There may be a better approach But for now, it would probably be best if you avoid wearing it around the office Power is so a that it will drive you crazy" He handed it toin my hand, so I quickly dropped it into ot to Owen’s lab and then both of us stopped short One of the largest bouquets of flowers I’d ever seen sat in the middle of one of the lab tables, the piles of papers shoved aside

"I wonder if those are for you or for me," Owen said

Fifteen

I stepped forward and dug through the foliage to find a card There was one with my name on it, but the inside said , with ned

"They’re apparently for me," I said, "but it looks like I have a secret adlance to gauge his reaction, but he just frowned I kneas physically incapable of playing it cool in a situation like this, so that was a good sign he hadn’t sent the flowers If he’d been involved at all, he’d have been blushing furiously and unable to look at me

He half closed his eyes and walked around the table, holding his hands out Then he shook his head "There’s no in, and I don’t detect any hidden spells" He sneezed violently "However, there does appear to be so, sickeningly sweet scent of the stargazer lilies in the arrangement I tended to think of those as funeral flowers "Yeah, the lilies are going to make me queasy if we keep them in here Maybe that was the dastardly plan of whoever sent theet rid of them"

"Please"

He waved a hand, mumbled a feords, and the flowers vanished Then he set about putting the piles of papers that had been rearranged back into place "I wonder who sent those," he mused out loud as he worked "It wouldn’t have been any of your friends, would it?"