Liliane was looking at me with a frown. “Ah, sorry, I was thinking. I really don’t know what to tell you, love. You gotta figure it out by yourself. You’ll do great.” Avoid the topic, keep avoiding the topic, please change the topic.

She sighed. “Fine”. I sighed too. “But you’ll still need to report to Josephine, anyway.” I sighed again. I knew. I didn’t mind the report, it was the failure I didn’t want to admit. Ah well, no escaping it. Josephine would understand the delay, but she probably wouldn’t like the latest developments. Having one of her employees trapped in a butterfly net wasn’t good for business. Especially her best employee.

“I’ll report to her after I’ve caught up with the backlog, don’t worry. I’ll make sure to go to her before she thinks of coming down here.”

That was enough for Liliane, and with a look of severe disappointment mixed with a bit of sympathy, she went back to her own desk and the dispatching of the new batch of cases she was working on. I guess she had planned on throwing a couple at me, but since I still wasn’t done with the current one she’d have to think of something else. I felt a little sorry for her.

I turned back to my screen and read all my emails. There wasn’t a lot, but they were long: details of the ongoing cases, news of closed ones, list of new nobles that had come of age in the last three months, that sort of things.

It took me a good two hours to scan it all and absorb the important information. That was as long as I could justify staying here. I had to see Josephine.

With a grunt, I got up and walked slowly back down the corridor and to the elevators. My headache was still there. Painkillers don’t work on fairy godmothers, probably because we have the natural ability to get rid of the pain if we want to. Except if we work in this agency and abide by the rules: if it’s not life or death, don’t magic yourself. I was sure Josephine had implemented it for exactly the situation I was in. Sadist.

The corridor seemed neverending, but I eventually reached its end. I poked the lift button, covered my ears for the ding that would otherwise echo in my brain for half an hour, stepped in, and pressed the button to the 15th floor. The top of the building if you didn't count the roof. Where all the bosses worked.

I tried to get my breathing to steady during the climb, and to calm my heart down, but I never managed to fully remove the anxiety whenever I had to get up here. The floor didn’t feel natural. It wasn’t natural at all, in fact. The building was only supposed to have 10 floors. Someone magicked a few more between 9 and 10 to accommodate the growth of the Agency. Easier than finding a new building I guess.

My skin was tingling by the time the door opened. The whole place was magic. Nothing has been brought in, all of the furniture had been zapped into existence specifically for the bosses’ needs. One of the desks was covered in moss. One of the bosses had twigs instead of fingers, so I supposed it was his.

I plastered a smile on my face and walked up to Josephine, who was grabbing a pumpkin latte directly from the pumpkin. I was responsible for this one, it had been a present for Jo’s birthday. She seemed to like the idea.

“Hi Jo how are you doing?” I asked in what I hoped was a merry tone. She raised an eyebrow at me while I covered the last few steps to the pumpkin. Not convinced, then.

She didn’t smile. “Any progress?” straight to the point. She wouldn’t even offer me a latte.

I took a deep breath and got to it. “Yeah, kinda. There might be a solution.” Before I could start relating the previous night’s events, Jo held a hand up and motioned for me to follow her to her office. She didn’t want any eavesdroppers on this. I couldn’t blame her: this case was too special to be discussed openly.

Once we reached her office and the door was closed, she motioned for me to sit and spill it out. I did. I went over the basics of the case to refresh her mind, then explained what had happened with Gianni.

She was not impressed. Once I had finished, she handed me a glass of water and started pacing around. “How the hell did they know?” Her voice could have competed with a snowstorm. “And who the hell do they think they are, dropping butterfly nets on my employees without permission? I’m gonna turn them into something uncomfortable that no princess will ever want to kiss. How dare they!”

I hid my smile behind the glass, pretending to drink while she came to the inevitable conclusion. “They must be as desperate for a princess as we are for a prince. It makes no sense. Why didn’t they contract us in that case? Why plop you out of the street in a drunken state, for which you’ll pay by the way, instead of calling you? Or us? It makes no fucking sense, Tina!” I winced at the promise of punishment, but it was expected. I was glad her hands were empty. She was mad enough to throw things, and my head was still throbbing. “And the whole queen but not wife thing makes no sense at all. What prince wouldn’t want a wife to be his queen and help him rule the kingdom?”