Within a minute, I had her restored to her parents. Mom and Dad were a nice young couple visiting from Ohio. Caught up in the idyllic mood, listening to the band and watching the antics of the many children, they hadn’t even noticed their daughter’s fleeting absence. It had been so brief, I couldn’t blame them. It was easy to let your guard down on a beautiful evening in Pemkowet.

“Listen.” Lowering my voice, I nodded toward the public restroom, a squat cinder-block building rendered charming by virtue of a colorful Seurat painting replicated on its walls. While tourists emptied their bladders inside, nineteenth-century Parisians strolled and lounged on the island of La Grande Jatte. “This may sound strange, but I strongly recommend you take Shawna to the bathroom and turn her dress inside out.”

Ohio Mom blinked at me. “I beg your pardon?”

I laid one hand on Shawna’s head, stroking the wispy brown hair escaping from her ponytail. “It’s just a precaution. But your daughter caught a fairy’s attention. Better to be safe than sorry.”

Ohio Mom turned pale. Ohio Dad laughed. “Relax, hon. It’s just a publicity stunt.” He winked at me. “Fairies, huh?”

Tourists, gah!

“It’s not a publicity stunt.” I couldn’t keep a hint of irritation from my voice. “Trust me, you don’t want to wake up in the morning and find nothing but a milkweed pod lying on Shawna’s pillow.”

Which could very well have happened if little Shawna had taken the doll. That was all the fairy would have needed to make a changeling. Oh, we would have tracked her down eventually—I would have known what had happened as soon as I saw the missing persons report, which was how I came by my special role in the department in the first place—but it would have resulted in some seriously bad publicity.

Plus, there’s no telling how it might have affected the kid. People who get abducted by fairies come back . . . changed.

It took a bit of convincing, but Ohio Mom decided to humor me. I went back to rejoin Jen.

“Errant fairy,” I explained briefly.

She nodded. “Did you get them to turn the kid’s dress inside out?”

“Eventually.”

Jen made a face. “Tourists.”

“Yep.”

It wasn’t entirely their fault. The Pemkowet Visitors Bureau actively cultivates paranormal tourism. They don’t offer any guarantees—most visitors never catch more than a fleeting glimpse of a member of the eldritch community, or they fail to recognize those of us who pass for human—but the PVB isn’t exactly candid about the potential dangers, either.