I didn't know why I even bothered to come here anymore. Elle stood behind the counter and Tyler ogled her from the brown couch, as always. The only difference was that the blond girl that followed him around like his own personal backup dancer wasn't clinging to him today. She was on another couch, curled in on herself, acting like she hadn't been crying. I'd discovered her name was Brittney and she and Tyler had been on-again-off-again since freshman year. She made a good pretense of just looking annoyed, but I could feel the weepiness dripping off her like tears out of a soaked handkerchief.

Kyle was with me. He nursed a black coffee and glared darkly at Tyler.

"Remind me why you're here again?" I said.

"I'm keeping an eye on her," he said. "Not that I don't trust you to do it. But, you know." He raised his cup in Tyler's general direction in what looked like the most sarcastic toast I'd ever seen. "You arranged that."

"Elle's dad arranged that," I said. It was a stupid argument and I realized it as soon as the words left my lips. I just couldn't stand the thought of anyone thinking this awkward debacle had been my idea. "If it had been up to me I would have just given her fifty bucks for her buying-Pumpkin-Spice fund and left this whole thing alone."

"You don't like this any more than I do," Kyle said. "What happened?" He nodded toward Tyler, this time more curious than annoyed.

I didn't want to start trying to explain to him how stupid my job was. I was afraid that if I started, I'd never be able to stop. "It's kind of an unethical field," I finally said. That covered all my issues nicely. Well, most of them. "Also, I suck at it," I added, and that was everything.

"At least you've got one thing to be proud of, then." He scoffed as he watched Tyler heave a sigh and smile like a handsome mannequin toward Elle, who was busy telling her customer in a high-pitched, rapid voice how bad the coffee she was about to serve her was. The silver-haired woman looked confused. I watched to see if anything interesting would happen, but the customer just took her coffee and went back to her table, mouthing Wow at her friend as she sat down.

"It's so stupid!" Kyle said. The people at the table next to our window nook turned to frown at him, and he lowered his voice and said, "This is typical Elle. One minute, she's the smartest, most sensible person you've ever met. The next, bam. She's run full steam ahead with one of her stupid ideas and we're stuck at a furry convention wearing Ent costumes because she thought it would be funny and we're about to get literally bitten by a six-foot-four wolf."

I raised my eyebrows. "Traumatic memory?"

"Some of her ideas are awesome, don't get me wrong. No one gets great ideas like Elle. But she gets bad ideas too, and she goes after all of them with exactly the same enthusiasm."

"All enthusiasm, no discretion," I said. It matched what I'd seen of Elle so far. Kyle knew her perfectly, and still hadn't realized how much he liked her.

I was relieved to see Cortney appear behind the counter for her shift. I'd stolen the necklace from the locker room while she was in gym, and while she still looked tired, her face didn't have the gaunt haunted look it had before. Mallory had been harder to help; I'd slid an anonymous note in her locker advising her to claim she'd had a bad reaction to new antidepressants. I hoped she'd followed my advice. It would have been better to just wipe everyone's memories, but even Imogen could't have managed that.

Suddenly, Tyler stood up, vaulting himself off the couch and halfway across the room in a second. The upset blond girl unfolded her arms long enough to sit up straight, then slumped back into the couch as she realized he was headed to the counter where Elle was pulling off her apron. Tyler leaned over the counter and kissed her.

Watching them kiss grossed me out in a way I couldn't explain. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with them individually. They were good-looking people, and the kiss was nothing more than an affectionate peck. But their lips together were wrong. It was like oil and water, or two clashing colors that should never be put side-by-side. Kyle snorted, not even bothering to hide that he felt exactly the same way—though, I thought, probably for different reasons.

I tugged on my ear and turned up the volume on their conversation. "You look amazing," Tyler said. He'd started using a voice with her in the last few days that sounded like he was talking to a baby. The most disturbing part was that Elle didn't seem to mind. She bit her bottom lip and smiled like he was Prince Charming. Which, I realized with a cringing feeling in my gut, he technically was.

"Thanks, babe," she said. Her calling anyone babe was also depressing.

There was nothing about this situation that wasn't depressing, I decided. Brittney agreed. She stared at Tyler and Elle like she wanted to dump her coffee right over their heads.

Tyler tapped Elle on the nose. "You deserve a break. Can I make you something?"

"No," Cortney said, cutting sharply in on their conversation. "Health and safety regulations. Only employees can be behind the counter." She seemed on edge. Hunger could do that to a person, and she'd had about a month's worth in the last few days.

Elle rolled her eyes. "Oh, relax," she said. I remembered this same conversation playing out with Mallory the first time I'd seen her, but with the roles reversed.

"I'll make you an Italian soda," Tyler said. "I'm a quarter Italian, did you know that?" He said it like he expected a gold star or participation trophy. Elle looked like she was about to give him one.

"No way!" she said. "I totally should have guessed. You have that sexy Italian stallion thing going on." She flashed her eyebrows suggestively at him. Kyle stiffened across the table from me. Jealous, tangled emotions fizzled off him in a way that made me thankful I'd never been in love.

Tyler poured club soda and hazelnut syrup and cream together onto ice in a clear plastic cup. He loudly explained each step to Elle like he was on a cooking show. The few people at the tables nearest the counter raised their eyebrows and watched from the corners of their eyes, but they seemed content to mostly ignore him. Kyle fumed.

"What a douche," I muttered, mostly for his benefit.

"Did you know that's the only offensive term related to a woman's body that Elle approves of?" Kyle said. "She says using female terms as slurs is degrading to everyone, since it implies that female bodies are inferior. She also has problems with calling girls 'whores' and 'sluts' because it victimizes and shames women who take ownership over their sexuality. But she says 'douche' is okay. Douches are bad for women's health, so calling someone who's bad for women a douche is accurate. And Tyler is a douche."

I'd never thought about it that way before, but somehow hearing Kyle rattle it off made him weirdly… attractive. "You should use that explanation to pick up girls," I said. "Seriously."

"I probably should," he said. "You think being a male feminist is enough to get me a date?"

"And you just called yourself a male feminist," I said. "If it wouldn't be totally professionally inappropriate, I would ask you out right now."

This got a small smile out of him, if only on one corner of his mouth. "Thanks," he said. "But no offense? Faeries scare me."

Our empathetic gifts made us, as Imogen sometimes put it, "all melodramatic emotions channel, all the time." I liked to think I wasn't as bad as most faeries, since my empathetic gifts were nothing to write home about, but I wasn't about to press that point with someone as in love with Elle as Kyle was.

Tyler and Elle walked back to the couch, Elle holding the drink he'd made her like it was made out of gold. She waved at me from across the room, mouthing a cheery Hi! She'd completely forgotten how angry she was the last time we spoke.

"I'm sorry you have to watch this," I said.

What could she possibly see in him? I reached toward her, but all I could sense was affection mingled with ten kinds of mixed signals from all the mismatched charms. I wished I could get a word of sense out of her that didn't involve her blowing me off or getting mad at my interference.

I couldn't believe some people actually chose this job for a living.

"It's not him that pisses me off," Kyle said. "It's watching her and seeing what she's turned into. I heard about what happened with her stepsisters." His face darkened. "I know they're not her favorite people, but Mal and Cortney didn't deserve that. And the Elle I know would never have done that. She doesn't get along with them, but my Elle has dignity."

I liked the way he said my Elle. It wasn't possessive or even romantic. It was exactly the way I talked about Imogen sometimes when I felt protective of her. I loved that Elle had a friend who felt that way about her. It also made the way she'd abandoned him even worse.

Tyler was lecturing his group about trickle-down economics and his membership in some pretentious-sounding organization for teenagers who planned on being millionaire businesspeople someday. Elle listened intently, probably thinking this information was somehow going to help her use Pumpkin Spice to take over the world. She was the only one listening. Tyler's three other friends all had their phones out, and Brittney alternated between looking longingly at Tyler and sending death glares towards Elle.

"Maybe we'll get your Elle back if we can get those stupid charms off her," I said. I'd tried to magic them away more than once in the last few days, but she was on her guard and grabbed her necklace every time the clasp came loose, put extra fasteners onto the backs of her earrings when she felt them sliding out, and had started checking herself for every single piece every time she had a spare second. It was driving me crazy. The temptation to knock her out and steal the lot was growing, but she'd know that was me, and there was nothing to stop her from going back and getting more.

Maybe my dad had a point about the important of raising Glimmering kids within the culture. It was too difficult to try to acclimate them later. I didn't know who to blame. Her mom, for agreeing to hide her world? Her dad, for keeping her in the dark and then dragging her into a fairy tale without her consent? The Oracle, for allowing the case to go through?

Or me, for going along with the case, telling her about our world, introducing her to the hidden side of the Saturday Market, and then failing to clean up this mess?

Kyle sighed just as Elle yelped from across the room. "What's on the bottom of my cup?" she shrieked.

"Just keep drinking, babe," Tyler said, his voice way too casual.

She proceeded to down the last of the soda in one long loud draw from her straw. She shook the cup, rattling ice around, and peered through the clear lid to the very bottom. "Will you…" she read aloud, then shouted, "Oh my God! Will you go to prom with me! Aw, baby!" Her voice climbed up to the pitch people usually reserved for puppies. "You're so sweet, babe!" And then she vaulted across the half-an-inch between them and started kissing him, again making my stomach do the thing it did whenever I'd eaten things that didn't digest well together. Brittney stood up, her face red, and ran out of the building.

I should have been happy. This was the plan. But since when had happy felt so gross?