So was the bathroom in the hallway, but I grabbed the shower curtain with pastel colored fish on it and yanked it back. Bathtub also empty.

Opening the door to my bedroom, I was relieved to find everything in there the way I liked it and had left it—blinds and curtains closed. The room was a good twenty degrees cooler than any other place in my apartment, and I couldn't wait to face plant in my bed and snuggle with the super comfy chenille bedspread.

After I showered.

There was a smaller, second bedroom on the other side of the kitchen that faced Coliseum Street, and had another balcony accessed from it. People loved their balconies around these parts. I entered the kitchen, and my gaze immediately went to the open cabinet door where I kept my cereal boxes.

All twelve of them.

I liked my variety when it came to cereal.

Dropping my backpack in the chair near the bistro table by the large window that overlooked the courtyard below, I walked around the island and stopped in front of the cabinet.

On the counter, the box of Lucky Charms—how ironic—was tipped to the side, the plastic wrapper split open and the top of the box resting against the rim of a huge blue and purple bowl.

Having really no idea of what I was going to see, I slowly approached the bowl.  A surprised laugh bubbled up my throat and I clapped my hand over my mouth to squelch it.

Lying in my bowl was a houseguest I wasn't quite sure how I ended up with but couldn't seem to get rid of. Tiny arms and legs were sprawled across a bed of cereal. Not a single marshmallow was in sight, and I'd bet all the money in my savings account that the best part of the cereal was in the distended belly of the brownie passed out in my cereal bowl.

Could brownies get intoxicated from sugar?

I had no idea.

Two and a half years ago, I stopped a fae from luring a small girl away from her family, and ended up chasing the sick bastard into Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1 where I was able to send him back to the Otherworld. But as I was in the process of leaving, I got distracted by the rumored tomb of Marie Laveau, and that was where I found the little brownie.

Brownies were a rarity in the mortal realm. Frankly, from what I'd heard, they hated it here, supposedly preferring the forests of their realms, and honestly, there was no hiding what they were.

The gossamer wings kind of stood out.

Myths always portrayed them as being wingless, but they had them. They were also tiny, little things about the size of a Barbie doll. The brownie had been injured, suffering a tear in his frail wings and a broken leg. The moment he stared up at me with those big, pale blue eyes, I knew I couldn't just leave him there, hiding behind a vase with dried out flowers in it, standing among crusty Mardi Gras' beads.  So I picked him up and put him in my backpack.

I'd taken the brownie home with me.

I knew—God, I knew—it was my duty to finish the job. No creature of the Otherworld was allowed to survive in our world, but I couldn't bring myself to do it, even though I knew I'd be in a world of trouble, maybe even kicked out of the Order. But I'd taken him home, created a leg splint out of popsicle sticks, and wrapped his wing with gauze while he sat there, a forlorn and pouty look on his cute face. I don't even know why I did it. I hated anything from the Otherworld—no matter their size or what breed they were—but for some reason, I took care of the little brownie.

And he'd stayed.

Probably because he discovered the Internet, the TV, and my Amazon Prime.

So yeah, I knew exactly how I ended up with the brownie, and just didn't understand why I had a weak spot for the little douche I'd named Tink.

I snorted.

Tink hated that nickname once I played the movie Peter Pan for him.

Peering into the bowl, I shook my head. He was shirtless, and cereal was stuck to his pale white wings, but at least he had pants on. Tink was wearing a pair of Ken doll trousers. Black ones with satiny stripes running down the sides.

I poked him in the belly.

He jerked away, arms flying as he sat up, snapping at my finger with wicked sharp teeth, coming dangerously close to making contact.

"Bite me," I warned, "and I will bury you alive in a shoebox."

His mouth dropped open as he popped out of the bowl, hovering above it. Pieces of cereal flew across the counter as his wings moved soundlessly. "Where have you been? You didn't come home. I thought you were dead, and no one knows about me, and I would just be left here. Forgotten. I'd starve, Ivy. Starve."

I folded my arms across my chest. "Doesn't look like you were starving. Looks like you were pretending to be a chipmunk and storing food for the winter by eating all of it."

"I had to eat to get through the stress of being abandoned!" he shouted, raising a hand and shaking a fist the size of a thumbnail at me. "I didn't know where you were, and you don't engage in any bow-chick-a-wow-wee so you always come home."

My lips turned down at the corners.

Tink flew up until he was eye level with me, clasping his hands together over his belly as he gave me those big eyes. "I ate so much sugar. So. Much."

Shaking my head, I turned and started picking the cereal up off the counter and tossing it into the bowl. "I don't even want to know what your blood sugar levels are."

"We don't have blood in our veins." He buzzed to my shoulder and sat down. His small fingers gripped my earlobe. "We have magic," he whispered in my ear.

I shrugged him off with a laugh. "You do not have magic in your veins, Tink."