"Oh, right,” she said, remembering. “It's a magical pet. But what is it?"
"He's a bugbear," Merlin said proudly. "He's my magical pet, and his name is Blue."
“Are my eyes still purple?” Carter whispered to Fen. She nodded. He went on, “Like I was saying, I’m pretty sure that shade is ‘resigned anticipation of total chaos.’”
She glanced around the lobby. A handmade paper banner caught her eye:
WELCOME TO THE DEFENDERS, CARTER
FINALLY!
The letters were neatly stenciled until halfway throughDEFENDERS.After that they became wobbly and hand-drawn. TheCinCARTERwas smeared, making it look more likeOARTER.
“Aww, that’s sweet.” Fen glanced at Carter to see if he appreciated it too. His eyes—now a very deep blue-green—were suspiciously shiny.
“Yeah.” His voice was thick, and he sniffed hard and said no more.
“Sorry about the Oarter,” said Merlin. “Guess who stepped on the banner when we were making it? Bad bugbear, Blue!”
At the sound of his name, Blue gave a snort, leaped up, and squeezed between Fen and Carter, leaving wide swathes of bright blue hair on their pants. He shambled over to Merlin and rolled over at his feet. Merlin scratched his belly with the toe of his shoe, and Blue ecstatically kicked his legs, sending up a cloud of sky-colored fur.
“I know it’s hard to believe, but Merlin brushed him last night,” came a woman’s crisp voice from behind the front desk. She had dramatically arched eyebrows and black hair pinned up in a coil of braids atop her head. The woman offered Fen her right hand; her left was a prosthetic. “Welcome. I’m Dali Batiste, the office manager. Also Merlin’s mate.”
“I’m Fen Kim. Pleased to meet you.” Fen shook her hand, a little puzzled. There was that mate thing again. Dali didn’t have an Australian accent. It had to be some kind of slang for significant other. She and Merlin were definitely that; they’d exchanged giddily adoring glances.
“Dali does an amazing job of keeping things organized around her,” said Carter. “You wouldn’t believe what a disaster it was before she came. Of course, there’s only so much she can do, given that Merlin works here.”
“Hey!” Merlin said. Fen thought he was annoyed at Carter’s implication that he was a disaster, but he went on, “Dali can organize even worse chaos machines than me and Blue. In the circus—I was raised in a circus,” he added, turning to Fen. “—she once helped stage manage a show that included unplanned appearances by a flying kitten, a pegasus, and Blue, and the audience—which included government inspectors—didn’t notice a thing!”
Fen, who didn’t believe a word of it, glanced at Carter. To her surprise, he was nodding. He said, “Okay, point taken. Dali can overcome anything.”
“Merlin!” Dali said sharply.
Blue had moseyed over to a large, unhappy-looking potted plant. Merlin grabbed the plant just as it tipped over. Several leaves broke off and fluttered to the ground. Blue started to eat them, and Merlin’s attempts to keep them out of his weird pet’s mouth broke off more leaves.
“That plant is doomed in an office with Blue in it,” Fen remarked.
“It’s doomed anyway,” said Carter. “Roland brought it in.”
“He’s not good with plants,” Merlin explained, dragging Blue away from the leaves. “It’s odd. He seems to take very good care of them. But they always die.”
“I can’t imagine why,” said Fen, eyeing Blue.
“Mostly he keeps them in his own office, and Blue doesn’t get in there,” said Dali. “He put this one out here because he thought there might be something bad for plants in his own office, but…”
Three small creatures flew into the lobby and began chasing each other around in mid-air, flapping and buzzing and… meowing?
A grin cracked Fen’s face as she gazed upward. A tiny and very fluffy black cat with black wings and enormous yellow eyes was chasing a spiky green cat with spiky green wings and a gray cat with dragonfly wings. The cats flapped around below the ceiling, tails lashing, meowing fiercely.
Enchanted, Fen held up her hand. “Here, kitty, kitty!”
Dali whistled, then called, “Cloud, go to the nice lady.”
The gray cat swooped down and landed on Fen’s shoulder. Fen scritched the dragonfly-winged cat behind her ears. Cloud purred and nuzzled her as the other two winged cats continued their game. When the little black cat dove lower to avoid a light fixture, Blue abruptly leaped at it, his absurdly tiny dragonfly wings buzzing as if he really expected to take off. He came nowhere near the cat, but he did knock over a table with magazines on it.
Merlin went to pick up the table and the magazines. The green cat swooped low and the wind from its wings blew papers off Dali’s desk. She crouched to pick them up.
Carter turned to Fen. “Never leave anything unattended around here unless it’s in a locked room.”
