“Any idea what this is about?”  I looked at Dana, a little nervous.  “She didn’t give any clues?”

Dana shrugged.  “No.  But maybe she’s just checking in with us?”

Somehow that seemed unlikely.  I’d gotten the impression that Violet was an important council member and I doubted she’d follow up with every newcomer to town.  Still, if she asked us to come over for lunch one day, we came, even if it meant we had to interrupt our current packing efforts to move to a new place out of the temporary apartment lodging.

Violet’s house was in the fairy side of town, where most of the fairies lived.  It looked large and comfortable, but had living trees as part of the house.  I didn’t fully understand how that worked, but it was a fairy thing, right?  Along with all the flowers and plants in the yard that made me feel like I was walking into some sort of flower garden rather than heading up the pathway to the front door.

Lola seemed as curious as me, but she stopped and tugged on my sleeve when she noticed Bonnie headed in our direction, a confused look on her face.  I looked past Bonnie, however, recognizing Rhys’s car, and my confusion changed briefly to happiness before settling back on wariness.  Why had Violet summoned us all here together?  Did she know what we’d done?  Were we in trouble?

Dana knocked on the front door as Rhys joined us, taking my hand willingly when I offered it to him.

“Come in!”  A voice called from inside the house.

Dana pushed open the door cautiously to find more plants inside, with a set of sliding doors open off to the right.

“Sorry,” Violet appeared in the doors, looking a little out of breath, holding a small child on her hips.  “I was trying to finish an arrangement for the flower shop.  In here,” she explained, motioning around the front room, “is our flower shop.  In there,” she jerked her head behind her, “is our greenhouse.  Our yard isn’t big enough to grow all the plants we’d want, so we grow a lot in here instead.  My husband runs a clinic for supernaturals in the back of the house, but we keep that pretty quiet.  We live upstairs – come on.”

Dana threw a curious look at the door to the back, but willingly followed Violet up the stairs.

“Who is this, by the way?”  Lola was focused on the baby as we got upstairs.

Violet stopped and shifted so we could see the child, who hid his face for a bit and then looked at us, a smile appearing on his face, before he hid it again.  Then he looked back at us again, almost bursting into laughter this time.

“This is Ren, my youngest,” she announced proudly.

“Is he…playing peekaboo with us?”  Bonnie asked curiously.

“Not really, he’s just a happy child but kind of shy with strangers.  He wants to smile at you but doesn’t know you well enough yet, so he’s working up to it.”  She looked down at her kid with so much affection.  “He almost never stops smiling, pretty much just when he’s not feeling well.  He’s such a happy little thing.  He doesn’t talk much yet, but he smiles enough we can usually tell how he’s feeling anyway.”

Lola crouched down a bit and tried to gently poke him, which earned her a giggle and a smile from the tiny fairy.  “Aww, he’s so cute!”

For a little while, we all just appreciated the little fairy who seemed to be quite content just smiling at all of us, then Dana sighed and settled her attention back on Violet.

“I’m assuming you didn’t invite us here just to introduce us to your baby.”

“No,” Violet agreed.  She gently set the baby down, then went to retrieve a plate of hors d’oeuvre.  “Sit,” she suggested in a tone that didn’t sound so much like a suggestion.

She seemed a little surprised when Lola and I both opted to sit on the floor, but there was a strategic reason for that on our end – the little fairy kept crawling back and forth between us, smiling widely as he did, happily waving his arms as he reached one of us, only to head back to the other one so we wouldn’t feel left out.

While we were being entertained by the tiny fairy, Violet got to business.

“It came to my attention that there was a report of a wombat running around town the other night.  Interestingly, that same night, someone in an apartment building reported hearing a woman’s scream that sounded an awful lot like a banshee scream and, the same night, a human child who was kidnapped reappeared at her home with no memory of how she got there.  What was particularly curious was that this human child was a neighbor to a known wombat shifter.”  She leaned forward, her eyes piercing as they roamed over us.

We tried to avoid looking guilty, but Rhys and I both failed at that miserably and Lola didn’t do such a great job, either.

“Okay, look, it was my idea,” Bonnie jumped in.  “We figured out who had taken her and we knew the police wouldn’t listen, plus the kidnapper really just needed psych help, you know?  So we figured out how to deal with the situation ourselves.  We didn’t break any of the rules we agreed to, honest!”  She looked anxious, and I couldn’t blame her.  I hadn’t been concerned until now that what we’d done might get us in trouble with the supernatural authorities.

But…on the other hand, would Violet be inviting us into her house if we were in trouble?  Wouldn’t that be more of an official summons to downtown?

“Why don’t you explain from the beginning?”  Violet suggested.  “I want to understand.”

So Bonnie and Dana, mostly, explained how we’d come to the conclusion that the person responsible wasn’t who the police were looking for, how Rhys had helped identify the woman, and how all of us had lent a hand trying to get the kid back but make sure the woman responsible got actual help.

“I thought she should get help rather than go to prison,” Dana stated stoutly.  “That’s on me.”

“I agreed,” Bonnie murmured.  “I mean, we all kind of did.”  She glanced at Violet nervously.  “Are we in trouble?”  She finally blurted out the question on all of our minds.

Violet didn’t look upset, merely thoughtful.  “I deal with a lot of issues on the council,” she said at last.  “Sometimes I deal with human stuff, too, because we’re also connected to the human authorities in town.  It’s a mixture.  There’ve been times I wanted more information or wanted the ability to look into something with more detail, but I just don’t have the resources available to me at the council.  So…I’ve been thinking of hiring investigators to work for me.  Sometimes council stuff, sometimes city stuff, sometimes supernatural things more generally – sometimes even things from other cities.  Given that my husband is a prominent fairy worldwide and my own role in the council, it’s not uncommon to have people from other places ask for help.  I want people I can trust to look into things for me, discretely.”

It took a moment to process what she was saying.

“You want to hire us?”  Lola asked incredulously.  “As your investigators?”

Violet shrugged.  “You proved you can do what I’ve wanted – think outside the box, take advantage of connections to put the pieces together, be resourceful, think fast on your feet, but at the same time, be ethical.  The fact that you were willing to help the lady instead of just report her is important to me, because it shows you recognized the real problem and tried to fix that, not just the surface issue.  It shows you care about people enough to not just take serious action without thinking through it.”

We were all pretty stunned at this turn of events.

When none of us spoke for a while, still trying to figure out what was going on, Violet seemed to lose some of her confidence.

“I can afford whatever salary you want,” she stated.  “As far as resources, I can try to get whatever you need in terms of technology, transportation, whatever is necessary.  I just want people I can trust, who are capable, and who I know will make good decisions in the field when they have to make them without being able to consult me first.  You’ve all proven you can do that.”

Dana took a deep breath.  “Can we take some time to think about it?  I admit, I was considering a career change and hadn’t decided what yet, and apart from Rhys here, we’re all kind of in that boat, but this is not something we can really decide on a whim.”

“Of course.”  Violet seemed eager to agree since she wasn’t being turned down outright.  “If it helps, I can arrange training in any areas you specifically want – I realize probably none of you really have investigative training specifically, but if you want training in that or anything that you think could be useful, I can arrange for it.”

I was still somewhat distracted by the fairy baby smiling at me and grabbing at my bracelet, a fascinated look in his eyes, but I could see the appeal of what Violet wanted.

She was basically offering us a blank check to do anything we wanted, as long as we helped her.

“What kind of stuff is this, normally?”  I asked hesitantly.  It seemed important to know.  “Like…what kind of stuff would you want us looking into?”

She thought for a minute as she came up with examples.  “We had a situation with an unregistered shifter a few months ago.  They snuck into town and were deliberately causing issues with humans, attacking them – they could shift into a dog.  We weren’t sure initially if they were feral or not.  Now, we have a supernatural patrol that tries to locate anyone going feral, but also trying to find unregistereds when we’re aware of them.  It would have helped, though, if I’d had someone to help look into that and try to figure out who they were.  Yes, the police will investigate, but they have a lot on their plate and sometimes that’s not high priority for them despite the issues they caused in town.  We also had a situation a couple years ago where a vampire was drinking from humans regularly.  They were sloppy, risking revealing themselves to humans – it was a mess.  But we’ve also had some situations where there were some humans suspected of being Hunters, or yesterday a friend of my husband’s asked for help tracking down his estranged son.  Stuff like that.  Sometimes city related, sometimes personal.  I wouldn’t normally expect you to actually capture a feral shifter or anything, just identify who they are and where to find them – then leave the actual dangerous part to the police, if necessary.  Granted,” her eyes flickered to me, “you may have some abilities that could be handy in a confrontation, but what I really want is investigators, not enforcers.”

We talked for a little longer about what would be involved, what kind of expectations she would have, and so on.  When we left, we all kind of glanced at each other and then Bonnie shrugged.

“My place?  Since you guys are in the process of moving?”

Dana nodded, and I looked over to Rhys and then reached for his hand.

“I’m riding with Rhys,” I announced.  No one seemed bothered by that, so I followed him to his car and waited until we were both buckled in.

“Are you okay with this?”  I asked him.  “You’re the only one of us who already has a career.  Do you want to change?”

He took a bit to respond, his face telling me he was conflicted.  “I like what I do,” he said at last.  “But initially I wanted to become a detective.  When I went to the academy, however, they told me I wasn’t smart enough for that.  Or, well, quick enough.”

I frowned again at the thought of anyone telling Rhys he wasn’t bright.  Just because he talked a little slower than most people and liked simple things didn’t mean he wasn’t just as intelligent as everyone else.  “But you are,” I countered.  “You were the one who thought about looking through court records and found out who the kidnapper was.  We would have had no idea who to look for without you, but you thought of that on your own and recognized the important similarities, all on your own.  Don’t believe anyone who says you aren’t smart, Rhys.  You are.”

He turned red with happy embarrassment.  “I – thank you.  That – that means a lot.”

I wished he’d heard it more in his life, not just from me.  “You see things not everyone does, and you think through what you say more than most people – and some people might mistake that for you being slow, but I think it just shows that you think differently.  And different isn’t bad.  It’s pretty impressive, in your case, really.”

He still looked really embarrassed, so I decided to try to take the conversation a little more to neutral ground.

“But does that mean this is kind of what you originally wanted to do?  Investigate things?”

He hesitated, then nodded.  “Yes, that was kind of my dream.  After I heard that Drew wanted to be a police officer, I was hoping to sort of get to see him do it and maybe he’d come talk to me about cases he’s working on, but this would be actually doing that myself.  And with you.  And Bonnie and Dana and Lola, they’re all smart in different ways.  I think this could be good for me, but it is a big change.”

I considered that.  “Then why don’t we talk about having a trial period – doing a case or two for Violet and seeing how it goes?  Making sure we weren’t just lucky this one time?  You can take some time off from work, right?  So don’t officially quit, just take a break while we try it out and see what happens.”

He glanced over at me, a hopeful look on his face.  “So you want to do this, too?  With me?  And, um, all of us?”

“Dana and Lola are my family, Bonnie’s a close friend, and you’re my boyfriend.” I answered instantly.  “I can’t really think of people I’d prefer to work with.  As far as being an investigator, well, I hadn’t decided what I wanted to do, but I did enjoy working with everyone figuring this out, so maybe?  I think I’d want to try it out some and see what happens.  I kind of like the idea of being able to help people in a quasi-official capacity, like, well, we’d be working for a council member, but not police or anything, so we might have more leeway than police would but more authority than a private citizen.”

When we got out of the car at Bonnie’s house, I didn’t even need to talk to them to know how they felt.  Lola looked eager, and Dana and Bonnie had both gotten over their shock to look more intrigued.  Dana, I thought, actually was trying to hold back on her excitement.

This was a career that might work well for her, or at least something she was interested in, and that was what she was looking for.  It worked with Bonnie’s background, too, and Rhys was interested in it, and Lola it was clear was all for it.

I was pretty sure, just looking at us, that we were going to do exactly what Violet wanted.  We were going to become her investigators.

And I was just fine with that.  Somehow, it made sense to me.  Moving to Avenglade had offered me everything I had wanted so far, and the only thing missing was a career – for me, and for those I cared about.  Yet now Avenglade was offering that, too.

It turned out Avenglade really was the place of dreams.