“Begging your pardon,” the brownie said. He fluttered into the room on a veined rainbow of insectoid wings before alighting in front of Isis. “I require a moment of Ms. Wright’s time.”

Isis stared at him, the hair on her neck prickling. “Is it…important?” she asked.

“A mere trifle, a matter of laundry. It seems one of your shirts was damaged in the wash and I’ll need to arrange a replacement.” Ari’s eyes, however, told a different story. Intense and focused, they broadcast that this was VERY important, and that Isis needed to drop what she was doing and come NOW.

“Excuse me please,” she said, following Ari out.

“Of course. Remember, they owe you a better shirt than the one they ruined, and it comes out of their own pay!”

Once Ari had led Isis to the small–and at this hour, deserted–laundry that was part of the dormitory, he rounded on her with all his prior affect of meekness dropped away.

“Your payment,” he said, “is late.”

Isis took out her smartphone, and checked the balance in her banking app. It was still healthy, though not nearly as healthy as it had been when Isaac had left her everything he owned, and there was a pending transfer in the amount of Ari’s weekly bribe. She held it out as proof. “No it’s not, see?”

Ari batted the phone aside. “The check may be in the mail, but the rent is due now,” he said. “We agreed that the payment was to be in gold, Wright. I ought to have leprechauns sniffing around, yet there’s not one to be seen.”

“Look,” Isis said. “It takes time to convert the money into gold, if you’ll just be patient…”

“Patient!” Ari spat on the floor. “Girl, I am patient every moment of every day as these magical dullards born with a silver foot in their mouth dance around and order me to plumb their toilets. I’ve got none left to spare for you unless you make it worth my while.”

Isis reached into her pocket, where the reassuring weight of a gold coin waited, patiently, for an emergency. She had only a handful, and didn’t want to waste them.

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