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.It seemed clear that our foe hadsent us to some distant land where we wouldn t bother him.I mighthave been a prince, but therewere numerous places out there Iwasn t even aware of.Arthurianexplorers had trouble goingbeyond Merlinia, which was whywhatever territories awaited thereremained largely a mystery.Icould only hope the people hereunderstood the common tongue,because otherwise we d be inhuge trouble. Love, this doesn t look likeany place even beyond Merlinianborders, Dini whispered in my mind. And there s somethingelse, something that troubles megreatly.I feel odd, not rightsomehow. I knew what he meant.Even theair in this peculiar area smelleddifferent.I didn t let it unsettleme, and I tried not to think aboutwhat it might mean.As we got up,I tried to figure out where to gofrom here.For the moment, itdidn t seem like anyone hadnoticed my mate and meappearing out of thin air, whichwas definitely a point in our favor.However, other than that,we had very few things to help usin our unfortunate predicament.As I scanned the park, though,my eyes fell on a group of peopledressed in a manner similar toDineiro and me.They seemed tobe celebrating since there werejugglers and all sorts of showmenaround.Perhaps they were puttingon a show.Either way, seeingthem made me think that we mightnot be so far away from ourhomeland after all.I felt Dineiro s relief at the more-familiar sight, and weimmediately headed our way.I dintended to mingle with the groupand perhaps try to figure out ifthey could give us someinformation without making itobscenely obvious how out ofplace we were.However, beforeI could go through with my plan,we were intercepted by a stockyman wearing a monk s outfit. Finally! he shouted at us,sounding pissed. I thought theagency wasn t going to pullthrough this time. Thank the Gods, I couldunderstand him, or at least, thewords he spoke, because I had noidea what he was talking about.He was glaring at us now andseemingly awaiting a response,and I assumed he d confused uswith someone else, perhaps aperson he d been waiting for. Let s play along, I told mymate. It can t hurt. I ll do my best, Dineiropromised.I smiled at the stranger,summoning all the courtly manners that had been engrainedwithin me. You have our deepestapologies.We will endeavor tomend our transgression. Instantly, the man lit up. Oh.Ithink it was worth the wait.I lovehow you re already so used to therole.A knight, right? Which oneare you, Mark or Joseph? Joseph, I replied with asmile, and yes, a knight. And what of your shierfriend? The stranger gave mymate a curious look. I am a very powerful mage, Dineiro replied without missing abeat. My abilities are waybeyond the comprehension ofnormal mortals. If anything, our apparentemployer seemed even morethrilled. Excellent.Love the hairand the contacts.Very nice touch.Now come on.Follow me.Yourcostumes are awesome, but I llneed to see how well you do withthe people. Costumes.Of course.Weweren t anywhere near ourhomeland.For them, this was only an artful display, more surreal tothem than Victor Frankenstein sdimension had been to me.What could we do? Wefollowed after the stocky man andhoped that no one would think toquestion our presence too closely.If they did& Well, my swordcertainly wasn t a prop, and if itneed be, I would defend my mateuntil my last breath.As if ushered by my ominousthoughts, our employer suddenlysaid, Oh, you do have thepaperwork with you, right? I mean& We trust your agency, butit s better to be completelyclear. I nearly panicked, but my mateintervened.He grabbed the otherman s arm and beamed brightly. Oh, I m sure it won t be aproblem.My& friend and I are soeager to begin.Perhaps we cansettle things at the end of the day. Honestly, I wouldn t haveexpected such a thing to work, butI felt the wave of lovesurrounding us and pooling intoour unexpected boss. Uh-huh, he replied, sounding a littledazed. I m sorry, but if you llexcuse me, I have a phone call tomake.It s my wife s birthday, andit completely slipped my mind. The stocky so-called monk fled,leaving us to our devices.Iarched a brow at my lover. Wow.I didn t know you coulddo that. Dineiro laughed nervously. Ididn t either.But, hey, it worked,didn t it? Grinning, I watched as ouremployer attempted to fix his faux pas with his wife.He might notknow it, but his soul had beentouched by the essence of lovetoday. That it did, baby.That itdid. Chapter Nine:In Which Dini andKirril Find an UnlikelyAllyAs it turned out, the party ofperformers we d suddenly beenhired with proved to be quitehelpful.On occasion, theyshowed some skepticismregarding my mate and me, but adiscreet nudge from my powersmade them become much nicer. Bit by bit, we managed to piecetogether the fact that we were in acity called Los Angeles, in acountry by the name of USA.Beyond that, everything else wasa mystery, but I suspectedStiltskin s spell must have sent usto yet another dimension, perhapsone that held very littleresemblance to my own world.As far as I could tell, though,there was some sort of linkbetween my world and this one,because we had no troublecommunicating with our supposed coworkers.I d have felt guilty about usingmy abilities to manipulate people,but I found that I wasn t actuallyinducing emotion, but rathermaking them more aware of whatthey felt.There was an astoundingpotential for love in all of them,but it seemed like they pushed itaside for all sorts of reasons.Forgetfulness, random arguments,a desire to advance in theirchosen profession or in studies,all of them created distractionsthat separated them from their loved ones.If I could become abridge helping people cometogether once more, I was happy.Oddly enough, the humans seemedto be drawn to me, and soonenough, Kirril and I drew quite acrowd.Naturally, I hadn t forgotten ourneed to find a way back.In fact,with every person I approached, Itried to find out something new,as did Kirril.Unfortunately, thesemen and women were clearlyhumans, and even more magic-less than my mate.Nothing they said gave me any real assistance,beyond assuring me that, indeed, Iwas a long away from home.And then, something strangehappened.A few hours after ourarrival in this strange land, Iexperienced a peculiar sensation,as if I was being watched.Andno, it had nothing to do with thepeople crowding around me andKirril.It seemed darker, moresecretive somehow. I feel it, too, my mate told methrough our bond. Can you tellwho it s coming from? I discreetly turned away fromthe woman I d been talking to,nudging her to approach the fiancshe d had a fallout with.As Ilooked around, my gaze fell on atall, dark-haired stranger leaningon the trunk of a tree and justwatching the performers withoutgetting involved.In fact, he waswatching me and Kirril inparticular, and his expressionunsettled me.A smaller manstood by his side, holding whatseemed to be a treat of sorts.The stranger didn t say anything, but he didn t have to.When hemade a gesture for me to come tohim, I excused myself anddecided to comply.Kirril wasright by my side, and I recognizedthe tension in his body as himgetting ready for a possibleconflict.The stranger scompanion placed a hand on hisshoulder and kissed his cheek.There seemed to be a silentexchange between them, butneither of the two lost sight ofKirril and me.Nevertheless, it seemed that whatever the smaller man hadsaid had calmed the waters alittle
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