LITMIR.BIZ

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some instinctive part of me knew that this being’s name was Lorien, and that she was my faerie guardian.

      “It took you long enough,” she said with a grin.

      “Hmm?” I mumbled dazedly, still staring at her in wonder as bright little spots of color began to dance across my field of vision.

      “Sydney? Hellooo!” She waved both hands in front of me, but my body felt too relaxed to bother with a response, so I just smiled.

      “Snap out of it!” she demanded, multihued sparks flying from her fingers as she darted toward me and snapped them in my face.

      “Ow!” I exclaimed, my hand coming up to cover my nose against a sudden onslaught of prickling explosions. It felt like I’d snorted Poprocks and soda.

      “Ooh, sorry about that Sydney,” she breathed contritely. “Let me see.”

      I cautiously lowered my hand and went a little cross-eyed as she zoomed in closer to my nose and sprinkled a fine, silvery dust over the skin. I let out a violent sneeze, reaching up too late to cover my mouth. I searched for Lorien with a rueful expression, but she had darted out of the way before the blast hit her, and stood watching me again from the pillow.

      “Faerie magic,” she explained apologetically. “Sometimes it makes humans a little loopy. I wanted to snap you out of it before it made you too spacey to talk. Is your nose okay?”

      “Yeah, it’s fine,” I sniffed, rubbing my fingertips over the tip. “It didn’t really hurt, just gave me a shock. What was that anyway?”

      “Fire dust.” She shrugged in chagrin.

      I stopped rubbing my nose and sat up straighter against the headboard, pulling the comforter against my nakedness. “I can’t believe you’re real!”

      “Hmph,” she rolled her eyes at me. “You almost believed more times than I can count. I can’t believe all it took was that hunk of a half-faerie, Agent Sparrow, telling you faeries were real to push you over the edge.”

      I blinked at her and then laughed in disbelief. “Do you mean to tell me that all I had to do to be able to see you was to believe in you?”

      “That’s the way it generally works,” she said dryly. “Even your popular fairy tales will tell you that much.”

      “Unreal.” I chuckled, shaking my head in amazement.

      She floated closer and looked me in the eye, sounding offended when she spoke. “You talk to me every day, Sydney. You’ve heard me when I was trying to lead you away from danger—remember last month when you took the long way to the office, even though you were in a hurry, and you just missed that horrible accident on the interstate? You even guessed my name—although I suppose it could have remained in your mind from childhood.”

      “I knew I remembered faeries from when I was little!” I cried triumphantly.

      “Big whoop,” Lorien muttered. “Children are natural believers. But no matter what I did, you couldn’t bring your adult self to believe I was real until you heard it from that half-sidhe.” She shook her translucent wings out in an indignant gesture.

      “Actually, I think it was watching the djinn get sucked into the lamp that did it for me,” I pointed out wryly. “If I hadn’t seen that, I don’t think Sparrow telling me faeries were real would have had nearly the same impact.”

      Lorien snorted. “Well, at least I’ll win my bet with Eleanor.”

      “Who?” I shot her a confused look.

      “Never you mind,” she said with a pleased expression, “Just a friendly wager between sprites.”

      “Sprites?” I repeated questioningly.

      “Yes, sprites,” she replied in exasperation. “That’s what we…what I am.”

      I kneaded my forehead. “I thought you were a faerie.”

      “A sprite is a type of faerie.” She scoffed. “But I’m not here to give you a lesson on the faerie races. What we need to be discussing is this rather nasty situation you’ve gotten yourself into with Balthus. I tried to warn you about him, you know…several times, in fact!”

      I sighed in frustration. “I knew something wasn’t right with him. There was a kind of prickle in my spine when he said certain things to me, but I didn’t want to believe it.”

      She nodded at me reprovingly. “You, of all people, should know better than to ignore that sort of intuition, Sydney.”

      “Yeah,” I grumbled. “I remember feeling it the day of that accident, when I decided to get out of the turning lane for the interstate. I wish I’d…” My thought was interrupted by a violent sneeze.

      “Shhh…Hush Sydney!” Lorien admonished in alarm, a sparkling red cloud of faerie dust drifting behind her as she flitted away from my nose and back to her perch above the pillow.

      I sent her a watery glare.

      “No more wishes for you,” she announced, returning my glower.

      “I doubt there’s a death djinn hiding in the closet,” I sniffed crossly.

      “It doesn’t matter! There might not be one for ten miles or there might be one ten feet away! The point is—you won’t know until it’s too late. You need to remove that word from your vocabulary until we figure out how to get this situation under control.” She shook one tiny forefinger at me, her wings buzzing in agitation.

      I pursed my lips sullenly and nodded in grudging agreement. I knew she was right, but being told what to do always activated my stubborn streak.

      “I still don’t think it was a fair contract,” I grumped.

      “Fair? Hello—death djinn! Since when has anyone trying to gain possession of someone’s immortal soul ever played fair?”

      She zoomed to the foot of the bed and looked back at me with a grin. “It’s not all bad though; just look at this place!” she exclaimed, trailing iridescent green fairy dust around the room.

      “It is pretty cool,” I admitted.

      “Oh, it’s better than that!” she teased. “And you’ve not only wished yourself into physical luxury, but you did a pretty decent job of wishing yourself into an equally satisfactory mental state,” she giggled.

      “What does that mean?” I demanded, pushing myself upright again and fighting the bed’s cushy invitation of softness.

      She clasped her hands behind her back, her expression mischievous as she recited my forgotten words to Balthus, “I wish I could forget about my problems, even if only for a night.”

      I stared at her blankly. “What did I forget?”

      Lorien bit her lip. “You spent a wish on forgetting it. Far be it from me to force the memory back on you.”

      “But what if it’s important?” I argued with a pleading look.

      Her gaze softened. “It’s nothing you need to think about tonight, I promise. And the way you worded the wish means tonight is probably the only reprieve you’ll get from it.”

      A weight settled in the pit of my stomach and an inexplicable wave of depression moved through me.

      “It’s no good worrying about it now,” she said with a sad smile. “You made two rather clever wishes, I thought. You mortals have a nasty habit of creating pandemonium when given the freedom to make three wishes come true. But you’ve done amazingly well so far.”

      “Well, I guess I could have done worse than to lose a memory and gain a penthouse,” I muttered.

      “That’s the spirit,” she agreed merrily. “Just remember not to make any more wishes.”

      I frowned at the remnants of red dust on the

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