He manipulated the snarl on a stuffed badger and frowned; he’d been with the show since the first episode and he couldn’t remember them ever needing badgers. There’d been an episode with wolves once and an inadvertent raccoon on a night shoot but never badgers. It smelled funny, too—although that might have been the jar of rubber eyeballs propping it up. “It never looks this fake on the screen.”

“It’s television, Tony. You’ve been in the business long enough to know that nothing is what is seems, it’s all smoke and mirrors.”

“It was all smoke and mirrors,” he muttered, walking over to her desk. “Now it’s smoke and shadows.”

“Very profound if a little obvious.” As he stopped behind her, Arra placed a six of diamonds on a seven of clubs. Four of the monitors showed games in progress.

“Don’t you ever get tired of that?”

She shrugged. “When it happens, I switch to a mah-jongg for a while.”

“Don’t you ever work?”

A snarl cut off her response and he whirled around to see the badger charge toward him—the force of its leap having knocked over the jar of eyeballs which hit the floor and shattered. Dodging away from tooth and claw, Tony’s foot came down on something round that popped wetly. When he glanced at the floor, an eyeball rolled to face him, pupil dilating in the midst of familiar blue. Then he felt claws catch the back of his jeans . . .

“Yes.”

Badger and jar were back on the shelf. He supposed they’d never actually left it. Heart pounding, he clutched at the back of Arra’s chair. “Yes, what?”

“Yes, on occasion, I work.”

“Right.” Straightening, he forced his voice back down to its usual register. “That wasn’t funny.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be.” She spun her chair around to face him, her expression serious. “If you’re going to fight the Shadowlord, you’ll have to know what’s real.”

“You took me by surprise.”

“And he won’t be e-mailing you his intentions. Your ability to see has cost him the element of surprise. It is your greatest weapon.” Gray brows drew in. “It’s pretty much your only weapon,” she added thoughtfully.

“Great.”

“Probably not.” Reaching into her desk drawer, she pulled out a light meter and tossed it to him. “Here, gird yourself with this and get going or you’ll miss the gate.”

“Right.” He bent and pulled a set of sides out of his backpack. “These are from yesterday. They’ll have most of the names we need, you’ll just have to pull the addresses out of the files.”

Arra snorted as her fingers closed around the papers. “Who put you in charge?”

Tony’s snort answered hers. “You did.”

“Any particular reason she can’t keep her knees together until we go to lunch?”