Page 35 of A Fae in Finance
I sent this document to the Gray Knight, with a quick note requesting any edits within the next few hours.
Then I resumed my email to Levi. And tried my best not to look out the window, at the too-green grass and sunless blue sky.
The Gray Knight sent me a note that saidReceived and revising. She didn’t send any further information.
Around seven p.m., I gave up on work and opened YouTube on my cell phone. I found a humor video from my favorite satirist and clicked on it.
The requisite pre-video advertisement popped up, a retro Elf off the Shelf replay. I couldn’t help it—I let out a laugh. Of all the videos to be showing me right now, I couldn’t believe the algorithm chosethisone. Instead of skipping it, I watched as the too-bright swirling shapes danced behind the industrious elves in the foreground.
In 2017, an advertisement for a kitschy brand called Elf off the Shelf went viral on YouTube. The premise was simple. Some guy with CGI and a great props budget had photoshopped Santa’s helpers into a thirty-three-second clip advertising higher-quality and less-expensive household goods.
People loved Elf off the Shelf. Until the founder, Oboe Micknickelstein, showed up on theTodayshow standing three foot six and claiming his pointy ears were real.
And that was how Humanity, capitalH, discovered that the supernatural really existed.
Everyone was enraged. Some people claimed it was insensitive, racist, or absurd. Others felt this was a hoax propagated by their political enemies to “normalize weirdos.” And a third group was immediately convinced that elves existed, they’d been right all along, and industrialization was a horrifying blight corrupting a once-pure species. Then a reactionary group called the third group infantilizing, and the discourse degenerated from there.
Doctor Kitten, hearing the familiar opening notes of the web video, came to my side and pawed at my leg. I hefted him under the ribs and slid him into my lap, much like a slab of pudding. He twisted in my lap to sit facing the phone screen. I scratched under his chin.
As it always did, his weight on my legs calmed me slightly. I hadn’t realized how hard my heart was pounding.
“We will get out of this,” I told him. “We’ll get home.”
I stared down at the inky black area on his head, where it went pink at the delicate skin of his left ear. I supposed it didn’t matter to him if we got home or not.
We’d barely started the video when the first knock came. The pounding on my door was almost unsurprising. Doctor Kitten looked up at me, as if to sayThis is a you problem. Then he hopped off my lap, landed with an unbecoming thump on the floor, and launched himself into my bed.
“Coming,” I said, sparing one glance back at the Doctor, who had curled into a cat’s equivalent of a Fibonacci circle and tucked his eyes under his own back paws. Sahir opened the door before I could cross the room.
His suit was torn, and in addition to the cat scratches from earlier he now had a black eye.
“Holy cow,” I said as I stepped into the hall, closing the door behind me. “Did you fall down the stairs?”
“Your colleagues accosted me on a smoke break, actually,” he said, showing me his wrist, which had a circular burn mark on it.
My intestinal system did a weird thing. It felt like my kidneys tried to jump through my esophagus at the exact second my stomach made a determined dive at my left foot.
I stumbled, having been successfully unbalanced by my stomach, and Sahir grabbed my arm.
“Mywhodidwhat?”
“The short smart one and the tall stupid one were outside when I left the office and demanded your return.”
“My return?” I asked, shock making my face blank. And then, “Did they get fired?” A few faeries passing by turned to look at me with unabashed curiosity. “Sorry,” I said out of habit. “I didn’t mean to be so loud.”
“Fired for fisticuffs?” Sahir snorted derisively. “Has the madness afflicted you? The attack was honest and returned in equal measure. Then I left them, for I had business to attend to here.”
Sahir started walking down the hall and motioned for me to go with him; still in shock, I let my feet follow his. He kept his gaze forward, clearly ignoring my horror.
Around us the other faeries had formed a sort of herd. I felt like the middle penguin in a waddling flock, but a generally unhappy middle penguin full of ennui.
Sahir maneuvered us to the edge of the group, his right arm outstretched. People seemed to recognize him, or maybe nobody wanted to touch me—they parted when we got too close. He opened the cafeteria door and gestured several others through. He and I followed last.
The cafeteria was much fuller than it had been at breakfast or lunch, almost every seat taken. I stopped, startled by the cacophony of howls and hoots and clicks, and the forest of curling horns and inhuman heads and even a few tucked wingtips.
Sahir took my hand, pulling me along in a gesture so seamless that it felt almost natural. His hand was warm on mine, the calluses on his fingertips brushing my knuckles. My eyes slid shut at the raw-silk feel of his thumb rubbing a circle into the back of my hand. I blinked until the jelly of my knees solidified, and followed him toward the serving area.
“You should know, Miriam,” he said slowly, as though he wasn’t sure he wanted to share whatever came next. “I swore your health on my life. It was all that would appease them.”
