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"Maybe you ought to take it" I noticed he said "you" and not "we," even after I’d clarified ht be welcome

"I don’t have any vacation time accrued yet"

"I’m sure we could make an exception Call it hazard pay or co my comp time immediately I knew I couldn’t concentrate on work Owen had his head buried in a stack ofout so shon I discovered that he had an impressive collection of paperback spy thrillers, so I settled on the sofa and read while he worked

Late that afternoon, he brought iving you the fairy sedative now," he said "We’ll need Ari awake and functioning in case you have to prove you have her It’ll be a few hourscareful"

"Apologies in advance if I do or say anything particularly bitchy," I said after drinking the potion "I’m not in the best of moods, myself, and with her influence I could be awful"

He gave h to warm my heart, since smiles of any kind had been rare lately "I’m sure I can cope with it," he said

By the tie, my headache orse than ever It felt like so at my skull from the inside, and coot to the tunnel first, so that Owen could get his dragons settled down They were overjoyed to see hiame of fetch before they’d stand still Merlin, Rod, Sam, Rocky, and Rollo soon showed up Sa and said, "I’ve had s at the store Anyone we’re fairly sure is part of their outfit has a tail on theot a lot of ground covered"

Owen nodded "Good I don’t knohat else he ht, so I wanted to be prepared"

Ethan and Philip arrived next Ethan was in full lawyer mode, suit, briefcase, and all Owen directed the," he said

Rod rubbed his palether "I’ll use a selective illusion All of us should see everything, while they should only see their own side of the rooe it, and I can drop it in one direction either way"

"And none of it ork onhonest," Ethan said Normally, that was ic stripped away so we could get Ari out of h She’d thoroughly awakened from the sedative, and she was really pissed off I had to bite s that caons off to the sides of the room, then waved a hand, and they disappeared "We’re all set now," he said

Merlin pulled out a pocket watch and checked it "Mr Idris should be here at any moment"

"He’s here now," a voice said from the darkness Phelan Idris stepped forward out of the shadows, along with a few of his henchical battle we’d fought a couple of o They still looked more like they were on their way to a science fiction convention to meet up with a bunch of other people who’d seen The Matrix a few tooedge of ain, our side didn’t look all that inti unless you knehat they were capable of Merlin looked like a little old ly good-looking version of the boy next door Sam and his people could have starred in their own Disney cartoon

"Let’s make this happen," Idris said "What is it you want? That is, if you really do have Ari"

"Oh, we’ve got her, all right," I said, rubbing my teues has taken custody of Miss Chandler’s friend," Merlin said "We would like you to secure her return"

Idris’s eyes grew to the size of dinner plates "What?" he squeaked, his voice going up about an octave "Whoa, I had nothing to do with that! Ito take back his co one of Katie’s friends, but it was just a conversation, you know? I didn’t think she’d do anything about it"