Try to bear it with patience, Oberon. I’ll buy you a steak when we’re finished. <No fooling?> No fooling. You did a great job alerting me to the gnomes, so you can have a filet wrapped in bacon if you want. <Just one? I smelled five gnomes. Doesn’t that mean I should get five filets?> I smiled and bound myself to the form of a great horned owl. It was one of four animal shapes I could take, and ideal for surreptitiously observing skulduggery on a late-autumn night. I don’t think the gnome-filet exchange rate is one-to-one. <Don’t get cheap on me now, Atticus,> Oberon said as I took wing.
