Changeling on the Job: A Changeling Wars Novella by A.G. Stewart Page B

worlds freely. I can. He isn’t a Changeling. I am. I’ll never reach my potential and I’ll never grow strong if I don’t push myself.”
    “Or you could die,” my hound said as I folded up the map.
    “Come on.” I opened the door and she jumped inside. “We’re heading back to the house.”
    Her tail began to thump against the seat cushions. “Where you will promptly order me a television.”
    “No,” I said slowly. “Where we are going to set traps, hunker down, and wait for Maarten Daelus to come after us.”
    Her tail stilled. “My ideas tend to be better than yours,” she said.
    I ducked inside and shut the door behind me. The windows began to fog immediately. “If by ‘better’ you mean ‘leading to my quick and painful death,’ then yes.”
    She gave a small shrug but said nothing else.
    It was a quick drive back to my cozy, two-bedroom townhome, and Anwynn stayed wonderfully silent through the whole ride. But as soon as we parked in the driveway and I opened the door, she pushed past me, her tail thumping against the vase of sticks, knocking it over and scattering the contents across the tile entryway.
    “There,” she said, “I fixed it for you. You said you wanted to set traps.” She sat in the entryway as I closed the door.
    I picked my way across the fallen reeds and set the vase back upright. “You know,” I said, “that’s actually not a bad idea.” It might slow Maarten down, at the very least.
    “What did I say about my ideas?” Anwynn said, her tail beginning to swish against the tile. “Something about them being better than yours, as I recall.”
    I stepped onto the carpet, knelt, and pressed a hand to it. I transformed the carpet surrounding the entryway into a number of knee-high spikes. Anwynn, her ears against her head, leapt over them and made her way to the living room.
    She was on the couch, whirling in a circle, by the time I followed. I went to the windows, transforming them to metal. “I thought we’d agreed you’d use the blanket in the corner to sit on,” I grumped. My couch was beige, and Anwynn was black with an undercoat the same color and texture as steel wool.
    She was not a non-shedding, hypoallergenic sort of creature.
    “You told me, when I moved in, to make myself at home,” Anwynn said. “I’ve taken that directive to supersede any directive that followed. Besides, you seem to have things well in hand. What could I possibly do to help?”
    “Well, you could offer .”
    Anwynn barked out a laugh and pressed a paw to the television remote. “You clearly have no idea how the relationship between a Sidhe and her bonded follower works.”
    I hadn’t lived with a roommate since freshman year of college. As I recall, we’d finally decided to just draw a line down the middle of our tiny room, marking the border like two feuding countries. And then there’d been my ex-husband, Owen. That hadn’t ended well, either. Maybe I just wasn’t cut out for this living-with-someone-else thing.
    Not that I had a choice. I needed Anwynn, and she needed me. For now, anyways.
    The television flickered on. “…and this just in: a Melanie Baker has just been abducted from her home in Kenton. Police say the criminal is driving a green ’89 Honda Accord. Consider the suspect armed and dangerous. If you should see the vehicle, please call the police to report it. Passers-by say they saw someone placing an unconscious Ms. Baker into the back of the car.”
    I whirled toward the television, reaching into my pocket to check for the vial of unicorn water. “He’s got another victim. Now all he needs is the kelpie heart.”
    The anchor on the television glanced at his papers. “Ms. Baker is an employee of the Multnomah County Jail. There is some speculation that this abduction may be related to her job.”
    I blinked. A connection began to form in my mind.
    Something thudded against the garage door.
    In an instant, Anwynn went from relaxed on the couch to standing