Page 102 of A Fae in Finance
“No, shut up!” I said, suddenly so exasperated I couldn’t be nervous. Which had probably been his goal. “I’m trapped in Faerie, Jordan, and I need your advice about going on a quest to find a way home.”
As if he knew I needed him, Doctor Kitten uncurled himself from my side and stepped into my lap. I hunched around him, breathed heavily into the phone, and didn’t speak again. For several seconds, there was silence between us. Then I heard Jordan take a few slow, deep breaths.
“Ah,” Jordan said, his tone even in the way that meant he was suppressing panic. “Well, that would certainly explain why you’ve been completely avoiding us.”
Something in my stomach unclenched.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“How’d that happen?” he asked.
I splayed out on the bed and told him the whole story.
At the end of it, Jordan hummed thoughtfully. I sat up again and leaned back against the headboard.
“I can see why you didn’t tell any of us, but the point of your friends is to lighten your burdens, you moron.” He sighed.
I made a vague noise. I couldn’t speak yet.
“Well, what’s Faerie like, then?” Jordan asked.
“It’s—” I stopped. I hadn’t allowed myself to think about it, really. “It’s different.”
“No way,” he gasped. “Faerie, the pocket dimension populated entirely with magical people and famously separated from the human realm for at least a hundred years, isdifferent?”
“Oh, shut up,” I muttered. But that wasn’t what I wanted to say to him. “It’s like you’d expect,” I tried again. “Everything is slightly brighter. And there’s a colony of vampire nudists, I think, who skybathe on the lawn most days.”
He snorted. “Of course that’s what you notice.”
“I’m mentioning it foryourbenefit,” I snapped. “But what do I do about this quest, Jordan?”
“Are you joking?” he asked. “It seems obvious to me. You… go on the quest.”
“It could be dangerous,” I reminded him. “The Queen is deadly to humans.”
“It sounds like staying in Faerie at your job is also deadly to humans,” he said. “Or, human. You specifically.”
“If I die, will you tell everyone what happened?”
Jordan made an uncomfortable noise. “Don’t die, Miri. I don’t want to have to explain any of this to Thea. Or worse, your mother.”
I sighed. “I’ll do my best.”
“You should tell Thea, too,” he said.
“I don’t know how,” I admitted.
“Just starting is usually the best way.” Jordan sounded sleepy again.
“I have to go to bed,” I said. “I love you.”
“Love you, too, Mir.”
After we hung up, I didn’t go to bed. I logged onto my computer and spent three hours editing the formatting in an Excel model.
In my dream, a thick hairy hand reached out and pulled the ring from my finger. “This is mine,” a voice said, and the world around me cracked and shook.
I shouldn’t have been surprised to wake up to Lene, Gaheris, and Sahir standing over me like three not-very-wise men, Lene shaking me and Gaheris’s flaming hair providing most of the light in the room.
