Married pixy, I told myself, forcing my eyes back to the shelf of ceramic animals. Fifty-four kids. Beautiful wife, sweet as sugar, who would kill me in my sleep while apologizing for it.

Where did he go!” he bellowed, gloved hands clenching. “I had him in a snare that would take Alexander the Great a lifetime to untwist, and he did it in a week!” Al took a step, pinwheeling as his booted heel found an ice cube.

Your hair is a tangled mess,"he said, thinking he liked it that way, like a lion's mane.

That’s my girl,” she said, her eyes holding a shared pain as she saw my confusion. “Al, where are you going to put her? Not in your room. She’d pull a line through you and kill you when you hog the blankets. I’ll take the waif in. I promise I’ll bring this one up properly.

Shut up," I hissed. Ticked that he was taller than me, I stepped up onto a nearby coffee table. "I'm not in a cage anymore," I said, keeping enough presence of mind not to poke him in the chest with a finger. His face went startled, then cloric. "The only thing between your head and my foot becoming real close and personal right now is my questionable professionalism. And if you ever threaten me again, I'll slam you halfway across the room before you can say number-two pencil. Got it, you tall freak of nature?

She was only a year old, but elves grew up fast. Not like witches, who Jenks swore were not able to be on their own until they were thirty. Ahem.

The car was full of unhappy people heading west. It was the Great American Family Road Trip, all right. Whaaa-hoo!