“A handwritten note is unusual,” I admitted. “It is kind of charming, though. It’s sweet.”

“It was hand-delivered, by someone else. It’s like he’s avoiding me, or something. Hasn’t he heard of text messaging? Or maybe this nifty new invention called the telephone? I always have my cell with me, so he has no excuse for not being able to reach me directly. And what’s with inviting all my friends? What kind of date is that?”

“It’s a date where you’re getting no action,” Marcia said drily. “And let’s face it, that’s the real problem. He hasn’t slept with you yet.”

Gemma actually blushed, which may have been a first. “Well, there is that. But it’s not the only issue. He’s started to be ‘busy.’” She made air quotes with her fingers.

In adherence to the universal law that the person you’re talking about will show up while you’re talking about him, the buzzer from downstairs sounded. Gemma got up and ran to the intercom. I felt that Philip was lucky the intercom only worked from our end when someone pushed the button. He’d have probably keeled over if he’d heard this conversation. Gemma pushed the intercom button and said, “We’ll be right down.”

“I’ll come up to meet you,” Philip’s voice replied, scratchy over the speaker.

“You don’t have to do that,” Gemma insisted, then released the button and turned to us. “Well, come on. If I have to have chaperones for my date, you may as well be the ones. Then you can tell me if I’m imagining things.”

We all collected purses and coats and trooped downstairs. I had to admit that this arrangement was a little odd. Even Owen, as shy as he was, hadn’t come up with anything like this for a date. Though, come to think of it, we hadn’t yet had a real date, so I couldn’t compare.

When we got downstairs, Philip presented a red rose to Gemma with a bow. Then he bowed to the rest of us. “Ladies, thank you for joining us today. Now, I believe public transportation will be the most effective way of reaching our destination.” He offered his arm gallantly to Gemma, and the rest of us fell in behind them as we walked to the subway station.

We hung back just enough to be able to talk about them. “Okay, I’ve gotta admit, this is kind of on the weird side,” Marcia said. “The note was one thing, but bringing us along?”

“Maybe you were onto something when you said she wasn’t going to get any action on this date,” Connie mused. “It’s like we’re chaperoning them.”

I almost shouted, “That’s it!” before I turned it into a cough. Depending on how long he’d been a frog, he may have come from a time when men and women were seldom allowed to be alone together before they were married. I couldn’t recall if he’d ever let himself be alone with Gemma when they weren’t out in public. But that would have been hard to explain without getting into the magic thing. Instead, I said, “Well, he is kind of old-fashioned. If he’s not ready to get that involved, then he might be coming up with ways to put the brakes on while still seeing her.”

“That makes sense,” Marcia said, but then we had to stop talking about Gemma and Philip because we were almost at the subway station and too close to them to take the risk of them overhearing us.

I tried to watch Philip and Gemma for clues, but I didn’t notice anything particularly odd, other than the fact that Philip probably would have looked more at home wearing an Ascot tie and spats. Gap khakis were just wrong on him. He definitely acted interested in Gemma. He never took his eyes off her, he appeared to listen to everything she said, and he was incredibly attentive in every little gesture toward her. Unfortunately, she didn’t seem to notice that and acted more and more put out toward him. It looked like she was in danger of losing a great guy simply because they were from different eras and had different ideas of what made a good courtship. If anyone needed the help of a fairy godmother, it was them.

But if I protested the interference of a fairy godmother, I knew Gemma would reject it outright, if she even let herself believe in such a thing. Meanwhile, I didn’t exactly have a lot of time to be meddling in my friends’ relationships, not when my enemies were at large and, come to think of it, I had the distinct impression that I was being watched.

Two

If it had been summertime, I’d have suspected that a bumblebee was hovering nearby. There was definitely a buzzing sound, like tiny wings flapping at high speed. Since it was below freezing, I could be fairly certain that it wasn’t any kind of insect that was stalking me. I immediately went through my mental catalog of magical creatures. The problem was that my exposure to magical creatures was still pretty limited, and besides, Idris seemed to have a fondness for creating new ones.