“Or I’ll eat you,” Teddy persuaded softly.

They were let into an apartment that reeked of sweat and soda and had so much dust collecting in it the edges of the floors were discolored. “What are you doing here?” Jacob asked. “I have a roommate.”

“Is he here?” Emily asked.

“No. But still.”

“I need your help,” Emily said.

“No,” was his immediate reply.

Teddy huffed. “The Boss was asking nicely. You need to do your duty for the proletariat and your boss by doing what she says.”

Jacob backed up a step, both hands raised. “Hey, hey, none of that. Not in my own house. I saw what you did to that guy on the net, I don’t want to get KOed by little Miss Teddy Bear over here.”

“We don’t want that,” Emily agreed. “We just need your help with one thing. It’s . . . there’s an information broker who knows a lot about, um.” Emily wasn’t keen on lying, but she’d never been in a situation quite like this. “He knows a lot about all the Villains in Eauclaire. And he put that information on a computer, and it was stolen. We need to track it or else we’re all in a lot of trouble.”

Jacob’s shoulders slumped. “You think there’s stuff about me on there?”

“Probably?” Handshake definitely knew about Alea Iacta’s more public stunts, she was sure.

“Come on, I wanted to spend the night being angry at the jerks on Federation of Fables.”

“I’m . . . sorry?” Emily said. “We don’t need much. We just need to know where to go. Where to find someone called Homie.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Ready Teddy

Teddy was ready.

The Boss had been real cool about finding a place to hide away and get changed while they were en route to the place where Homie was hiding from the Boss.

Sure, it had been in a public restroom by some gas station, but Teddy didn’t mind. The place had really interesting smells in it.

So, fully kitted out with her fearsome cartoon bear mask and her yellow sundress with the pockets, Teddy walked next to the Boss while the Boss looked at her phone a bunch.

They’d gotten Alea Iacta to find out where Homie would be by tossing darts at a map on the back of a Thai place pamphlet. That was really cool, and some of the foods on that pamphlet looked real tasty too. Maybe they were like pizza.

Teddy added something to her list of things to do in life. It wasn’t very long yet because she’d started it just recently after seeing the Boss make lists about all sorts of things.

Hers was so short she had it memorized:

1. Make the Boss happy

2. Sleep next to the Boss for a full day

3. Eat a capitalist

4. Eat food from every place to find out which one is the best