Dragon Justice. Laura Anne Gilman

sense of movement was comforting, like mental white noise. All was right with the world, or at least our small corner of it, and I’d learned enough to cherish the moment.

      Far stumbled to a halt in his report and risked looking at me. I kept my face still, not sure if I should be frowning or giving an approving nod.

      “All right. Good job, you two.” Venec nodded his own approval, making Far sag a little in relief. “Farshad, write up the report and file it. Lou will invoice and close the file. And then go get some lunch. You look paler than normal.”

      Far grinned at that, accepting the usual joke—he was about as pale as a thundercloud—and beat a hasty retreat.

      “You’re wrong,” Venec said out loud. “He’ll make it.”

      Big Dog was still a better judge of people than I could ever hope to be, so I didn’t argue. But the truth was, we’d gone through seven new-hired PUPs in the past nine months, hire-to-fire. One of them, rather spectacularly, had only made it a week before giving notice. Venec had hired all of them; occasionally, even he was wrong.

      * * *

      I was amazed, sometimes, when I came into the office in the morning and there were so many people here. We’d started out with five PUPs. We had nine in the field right now, plus our office manager, Lou, and her cousin’s daughter Nisa, who helped out in the back office part-time while she went to school. And Venec and Stosser, of course. Thirteen people. Crazy, right?

      “If he’s doing so well, you’ll take me off babysitting duty?” I asked, hopeful but not really expecting a positive response. “Seriously, Venec, I’m better in the lab than I am riding herd. Pietr is way better, and so is Sharon.”

      “Objection noted,” he said calmly. “Again.”

      “Ben…” I wasn’t whining. I wasn’t begging, either. The fact that I was using his first name, though, was a warning sign to both of us. Usually I didn’t slip in the office. I tested my walls: half-up, so anyone could reach me, but enough that I shouldn’t be leaking anything through the Merge. Just like the rest of the magic we worked with, we’d gotten it down to a science. Everything was totally under control—except the sparks that flared through both our cores when we touched, that is. We just made damn sure not to touch anymore.

      Which, by the way, sucked. He was nice to touch, toned and muscular, with just enough flesh under the skin to feel good. Months after my hand last touched him, the feel remained.

      From the flicker in his gaze, he remembered, too. “You go where you’re needed, and right now we need you riding herd as well as being brilliant. Now put some food in your stomach, too. I can hear it growling from here.”

      Benjamin Venec could be a right proper and deeply irritating bastard when he wanted to be. He was also the boss. And he was right, damn it.

      I saluted sloppily and turned on my three-inch boot heel, a flounce of which I was justifiably proud. I did not slam the door shut behind me. That would have been rude.

      By the time I’d stalked down the hallway to the break room, the soothing green-and-cream decor had done its job, and my brain had stopped fizzing at me. Calmer now, I was able to see his point: it wasn’t about teaching the newbies but working with them. The things we did on a regular basis required everyone to be comfortable with each other, on a level most people aren’t ready for—lonejack or Council, we’re trained one-on-one, not classroom-style, and group-work takes some getting used to.

      So, by putting me in the training rotation, the newbies got used to me being in their personal space, both physical and magical. And vice versa—I might be used to working in a group, but I still needed to learn each individual’s signature.

      The fact that I hated teaching, would much rather have been in the office working up a new cantrip or spell, didn’t matter. Venec was pushing me, making me get out of my comfort zone, and making sure I stayed a viable member of the team.

      Making sure I did the best job possible by challenging me in the area of my least competence.

      Knowing that you’re being manipulated isn’t always a bad thing: you can either fight it or let it do its job. Since its job was to ensure that I could do my job, I let it go.

      The smell of something warm and meat-filled came through the doorway, drawing me into the break room, my stomach even louder now. The need for more coffee was officially secondary to the need for food.

      I noted there was someone else in the break room even as that person greeted me with a wave and “heya, dandelion.” I returned the wave, going straight for the fridge.

      “Hey, yourself,” I said, grabbing a packet of chocolate pudding and an anonymous wrapped sandwich, then turning to face my coworker. “You close your ticket?”

      Nicky shook his head mournfully. “Held over by popular demand. Seems our client wasn’t quite forthcoming on all that was stolen.”

      I snorted in a way that would have made my mentor shake his head in genteel dismay. “Surprise. Not.”

      After the ki-rin disaster we’d somehow gotten a few more jobs, but then came the Tricks case, that damned prankster, and the horse-trading Venec had indulged in to satisfy his sense of fair play. In the aftermath, there had been a month of utter silence when we’d figured it was all over, nobody would trust us to find a missing gerbil. I’d even started browsing the want ads, not that there was anything there I was qualified for, much less interested in.

      Then, all of a sudden, it was like the floodgates opened. Okay, a steady trickle through the gates. The Eastern Council hadn’t given us their gold seal of approval yet, but the rank-and-file Council were bringing us their troubles.

      The problem was, most of them held the “above the rules” attitude that had made Ian Stosser decide there was a need for us in the Cosa Nostradamus to begin with. It’s tough to solve a supernatural crime. It’s almost impossible when the client doesn’t give over all the gory details at the start.

      Nicky had gotten one of those.

      I’d gotten pretty good at holding back exasperated sighs. “At some point, they’re going to have to realize that we’re not going to judge them. Right?”

      Nick snorted in response, and I flopped down on the sofa next to him, swinging my feet up into his lap and unwrapping the sandwich. “Okay, maybe not.”

      Nick shoved my feet back onto the ground and went back to marking something in his notebook. Since current messed with electronics something fierce, most Talent couldn’t use recorders or cameras, so we all carried notebooks around like twentieth-century beat cops. I’d added a sketchbook to my kit, but Nick couldn’t draw a straight line if you gave him a ruler. I know, I’d tried.

      “Just be glad you weren’t here when the smoke detector went off again,” he said.

      I groaned. “What’s that, the third time this month?”

      “Yeah. Scared the crap out of Nisa.”

      “Poor kid. She so doesn’t deserve to be stuck here with us.”

      Nicky just snickered.

      “I didn’t see anything on the board—I wonder if I could get tomorrow off,” I said, biting into my lunch. Ham and cheese. Not bad. Time off would be nice. I’d gotten an invite to go sailing from a woman I’d met the week before, and I wanted to take her up on it before she decided I wasn’t interested. Despite the Merge, I was trying to keep some semblance of a normal social life, even if very few of my hookups ended up with an actual hookup these days.

      “Doubtful,” Nick said, not looking up. “Stosser took a new client into the back office about ten minutes ago. Got your name all over it.”

      “Oh, gods above and below.” I took another bite, that news suggesting that lunch might be abbreviated. “Can’t someone else handle it?”

      “Fatae.”

      That