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“Maggs,” a voice called. I barely resisted the urge to grumble.

It would be nice if there was just one day at the studio where a dozen people didn’t need me to fix something. But, I reminded myself, this was what the execs paid me the mediocre bucks for. And I couldn’t complain too much since they were pretty lax with my hours.

“Yes, Steve?” I asked, hearing his hooves clomp faster to try to catch up to me as I made my way toward the waiting room to tell that human with her camera to get where she was going or get out.

I liked Steve. Really, I did. But he was the most demanding of all our hosts. I figured it had something to do with the endless grind-until-you-win self-improvement books he was constantly reading and peddling to his listeners. The jury was out if it would actually make one more successful in corporate America, since Steve had quit his corporate job almost six months ago. It was a fact that none of his listeners knew about. But those books certainly made him confident enough to make all the demands he wanted of me and the studio in general.

“I have a little problem.”

“I’m all ear—I’m listening,” I corrected, remembering the horror story I heard about someone who said ‘I’m all ears’ around some lingering magic and ended up sprouting six new earlobes down the side of their head and neck.

I was happy with just my two ears, thank you very much.

“Well, it’s about the chair in my booth.”

The two-thousand-dollar chair he’d made the execs order under the threat of going to a new studio and no longer promoting us to his listeners?

“Does it need to be repaired?”

“Well, no. Actually, I need a new one. This one doesn’t have enough room for my tail. It keeps getting caught. I’m starting to get a burn from it.”

And if he didn’t get a new one, he might threaten to sue.

“I will talk to the bosses.”

“Not to be pushy, but when?”

“Well, I have a meeting with them tomorrow afternoon.”

“Great. I will have a list of options on your desk first thing in the morning.”

“Sounds good.”

“Thanks, Maggie. You’re the best.”

“That’s what they tell me.”

When I made it to the waiting room, the human with the camera had either found her way into a podcast booth or had hightailed it out of here.

The fae were still standing around, looking timeless and hauntingly gorgeous.

“Can I nudge someone along for you guys?” I asked, collecting some packages that had piled up on the front desk.

The answer came in silence as they ignored my existence.

I never really understood why the fae could be so cold toward humans. I mean, they were the ones who were kind of known for drugging and taking humans as servants. And switching their children with ours. What did we do to them? Build with too much iron?

“Well, give a shout if you change your mind,” I said, juggling my paperwork and three boxes.

I closed myself into my office, setting my phone on my desk and clicking over to the studio’s podcast platform to listen to the newest episode of one of my favorite podcasts.

Dead Air was a podcast hosted by, I kid you not, the ghost of a glitter-gel-pen sorority girl who was murdered on her twenty-first birthday and the tough-as-nails former detective who’d never been able to solve her case and was now cursed to be haunted by her for the rest of his life.

The two of them covered ongoing and past true crime cases. And there was just something so charming about her early aughts bubblegum personality and his moody, seasoned, often grim demeanor.

There was a surprising depth between the two of them since neither could figure out her case and they were both tormented by that uncertainty even as they tried to help ensure other families and detectives didn’t suffer the same fates.

I loved them.