Confident in that, I felt able to relax without looking over my shoulder for the skinny guy. Not that I couldn’t take him, but he had been a bit of a drag on my life.
Crimping my style. The money from the shoot came in. I put most of it in savings, but did buy myself ice cream, a new tank top, and the makings for cayenne brownies. The fairy was still hanging around off and on, but restricting its pranks to occasionally tugging on my hair. I threatened it with the cayenne for that and it fled, giggling.

In other words, life was actually good, and I was almost able to forget the fire giants. Maybe they were just giving me space.

Maybe they were plotting the best way to court me. You can guess who showed up when I baked the brownies, though.

On the doorstep, looking younger than normal, and looking just a bit pathetic. “They’re not quite done yet.”

He laughed. “Can I come in?”

“You look like you got picked on at school.” I glanced around, noting that Ros was wandering past on the far side of the street. She rolled her eyes. “Did your nephew toss you in a pond again?”

“No,” he said a little shortly, but he did follow me inside.

“Careful. We aren’t really supposed to let adult males in here.”

“Not a problem.” And when I looked around again, he was a red-haired teenaged girl.

“That’s even freakier.” I knew it wasn’t an illusion, either. I was sure I would have felt that, sensed it, seen through it a little. Right now, he was a red-haired girl of about my age.

“Thank you,” she said, curtseying as if to accept a compliment.

I started to laugh. Kanesha came down the stairs. “Who’s this?”

“Laura,” I introduced without hesitation. First female L name that came to mind. I was hoping to clue her in without being obvious. Or at least so obvious that it revealed things to anyone else. “I think she somehow smelled the kitchen from the street.”

Laura twitched her nose. “I did.”

Kanesha laughed. “Are they done yet?”

“They’re the evil ones,” I warned.

“I know.”

Which was how, a few minutes later, the three of us ended up sitting in the kitchen munching on cayenne brownies and cheering ourselves up. Mostly.