* * *

The subway disaster the day before changed the subway platform dynamics the next morning. Commuters who normally tried to pretend that nobody else actually existed were swapping war stories of the previous day's adventures. The week before, I'd felt like an outsider because I reacted to things no one else seemed to see. Today, I felt like an outsider in a different way. Or maybe I was the ultimate insider because I'd known something no one else did. Yeah, that was it. For once in my life I was the person in the know. I had to fight back a smile as I eavesdropped on conversations about sitting for an hour in the subway tunnel. It was like finding a great deal at the Neiman Marcus outlet and feeling smugly superior that there were people out there wearing the same thing who'd paid the full price. I'd felt guilty about Marcia being stuck, but I didn't owe these people anything.

The access to insider information made me feel somewhat better about heading to the dreary verification office. My specific office might be miserable, but there were definite benefits to working for a company like this.

Kim was already in the office when I arrived. She glared at me before returning to whatever it was she was working on. Since our job didn't appear to require extra work while we were in the office, I wondered what she was up to. There had to be something in place to keep people from writing tell-all books about a magical company. Not that anyone would believe anything she wrote. She could possibly hit the best-seller list if she sold it as a novel, though.

I went to the kitchen area and put my lunch in the refrigerator, poured coffee into the cup I'd brought from home, and added cream and sugar before returning to my desk and getting Owen's books out of the drawer. I'd just started reading about the use of magic during Arthur's reign when Gregor arrived. He grunted at us and went to his desk. Angie, Gary, and Rowena drifted in a few minutes later, along with two other people I hadn't met the day before. They didn't seem to notice that there was a new person in the office, and I didn't feel perky enough to initiate the introductions. The ones I'd met already thought I was an apple polisher, and I didn't want to add to my reputation.

Unfortunately, my reputation got added to without me doing anything. "Katie, good call on that meeting yesterday," Gregor called from his desk.

The others all turned to look at me, and none of them looked happy. I was particularly glad that Kim couldn't use magic, whether or not it was kosher to do harm with an MSI spell. "Thank you," I said to Gregor before burying my head in the book. I decided to put off my talk with Rod, for fear I'd look even more like I was coming in to shake things up, no matter how badly they needed to be shaken.

Fortunately, calls for verification started coming in, and the staff was sent off to various parts of the company, which meant I had fewer people glaring at me. Gregor didn't send me to shadow anyone, for which I was grateful. I wasn't sure I wanted much one-on-one time with these people. Finally, he called my name. "You can go out on your own today, given how well you handled yourself yesterday," he said grudgingly. Angie looked up from changing her nail polish to a hot-pink shade and rolled her eyes. "We need you to take a sales call. Head down to the sales department."

I put a slip of paper in my book to mark my place and hurried out of the office. I wasn't sure how I'd find Sales, but my memory was better than I thought, for I found myself there without any false turns.

Once inside the suite, I called out, "Hi, did anyone call for verification?"

A tall elf who looked incongruous wearing a business suit stuck his head out of his office door and said, "Be with you in a sec." It looked like Tolkien's version of elves was the accurate one. That was nice to know. I liked the idea of tall, elegant creatures far more than I liked the short, cute little things that appear in animated Christmas specials or Keebler commercials.

He reappeared a few seconds later and stuck a hand out at me. "Hi, Selwyn Momingbloom, MSI Outside Sales." After shaking my hand, he gave me a business card.

"Katie Chandler, Verification," I said, but I didn't have a business card to give him.

It was somewhat disconcerting to see an elf acting like a high-end car salesman.

Legolas wasn't supposed to sell cars.

"Okay, Katie, shall we?" He ushered me toward the door, which flew open at our approach. "We're doing a check on one of our retail outlets. I need you to let me know what the place really looks like, in case they've got merchandise hidden."

"What should I look for?"

"You tell me what you see, and I'll decide if it should or shouldn't be there." We reached the lobby, where Selwyn called out to the security guard/butler, "Hughes, we're gonna need transport."