Kiss and Spell (Enchanted, Inc.) - By Shanna Swendson Page 0,3

my office after a long “meeting” with a bounce in my step, a glow about me, sparkling eyes, and a flushed face probably gave entirely the wrong impression, especially since my boyfriend worked at the same company. I immediately imagined that she was picturing Owen and me in a janitor’s closet somewhere, and that mental image made my face flush even more, which made me look even guiltier. I wondered if I could get Rod to give me a signed note saying that it really had been a meeting with the Director of Personnel. After all, training did count as a personnel matter.

“No messages,” she said, raising one slanted elven eyebrow.

“Good, thanks,” I said. “We’re making real progress on that magical training program we’re putting together. I mean, Rod and I are putting together. That’ll be our next big launch.” Feeling my face grow warmer and warmer—which was infuriating, since I didn’t have anything to feel embarrassed about—I made a beeline for my private office.

Then I realized that something was odd. Perdita had said only two words to me, which was very much unlike her. In fact, those had been the only two words she’d said to me all day. She hadn’t said anything when she’d arrived that morning, and she’d only nodded an acknowledgment when I’d left for my training session and told her when I’d be back. Normally it was impossible to stop the flood of words from Perdita, and she drove me crazy from offering to do things for me.

I stopped and turned back. “Is everything okay?” I asked.

She shrugged and didn’t quite meet my eyes. “I’m fine,” she said before bending down to focus on the doodle-covered notepad on her desk.

I knew that was the international sign for “no, things are definitely not okay,” but it was also the international sign for “I don’t want to talk about it,” so I decided not to push. “Well, you know my door is always open,” was all I said before I went into my office. I figured she must have had a fight with her sister or been spurned by her latest crush. She’d probably snap out of her mood by the next morning.

One nice thing about spending several hours a day in those training session “meetings” was that I was a lot less bored heading an ancient near-monopoly’s marketing program. I wasn’t any busier, but I had fewer hours to fill. Even with stuff to do, I was tempted to practice magic tricks during breaks between tasks, but since Perdita was a very reliable member of the grapevine, that would be like telling half the company.

She left for the day without a word, which worried me, and I must have still been frowning when Owen came by to pick me up to go home because he asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I think I pissed off Perdita.”

“I would have thought that would be really difficult to do.”

“Yeah, me too. I wonder, did I forget to have her conjure some coffee for me this morning?” Finding magical approximations for coffeehouse concoctions was one of Perdita’s prized specialties and her biggest value to me, other than her ability to send and receive gossip. “I’ll need to be more careful about that. It’s not just about not doing magic around others. I also can’t change my habits.”

“I’m sure it has nothing to do with you,” Owen reassured me as he helped me put on my jacket. “She may have just had a bad day—probably a fight with her mom.” From what Perdita said about her mother, I got the feeling she was a lot like mine, in which case I sympathized.

As we headed out of the office building, a voice on the awning over the entrance said, “Psst, you two!”

We looked up to see Sam the gargoyle, MSI’s head of security. “Hey, Sam, what is it?” I asked.

“Watch yourselves, okay?”

“I don’t need to watch myself,” Owen said. “I’m being watched.” He gave a friendly wave to his unseen surveillance team. Since I’d lost my magical immunity, I couldn’t see them anymore because they tended to veil themselves magically, but Owen knew he was being watched by official and unofficial monitors from various groups who still weren’t convinced he wouldn’t turn evil and try to take over the world with dark magic.

“That’s not what I meant,” Sam snapped with uncharacteristic tension that made me wonder if there was something in the water or perhaps a city-wide spell making usually cheerful people into grouches. It