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She threw her arms around me in a crushing hug. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!” she gushed. “And don’t worry about money. I’ll take care of that.”
    She released me from the hug before I got too squirmy, but she grabbed hold of my hand and dragged me to my feet.
    “Let’s go now!” she said. “The Knights will expect us to be in here forever with all the clothes I brought in. That’ll give us a major head start.” She grabbed her messenger bag and put it over her shoulder bandoleer-style. Then she disappeared from sight, although I still felt her hand on my arm. I blinked in surprise, although Ethan, the magical prodigy, had an invisibility spell, too.
    I’d just agreed to go with her, but I found my feet reluctant to move as she tugged me toward the dressing room exit. “Won’t the Knights sense the magic and know that we’re sneaking past?”
    I could hear the grin in her voice even though I couldn’t see her. “One advantage to me constantly using glamour is that people get used to sensing magic around me all the time. They won’t be able to sense what direction it’s coming from, and once we’re far enough past that they don’t sense it anymore, they’ll just think I dropped the glamour for a little while.”
    I had the distinct impression this wasn’t the first time Al had pulled this particular stunt. I also suddenly realized her decision to bring about a million outfits into the dressing room was most likely a sign that this whole escapade was premeditated. She’d crafted an excuse to give us plenty of time before the Knights realized we were missing, apparently sure that she was going to get her way.
    Maybe the constant annoying buzz of Al’s magic was messing with my
    powers of reasoning, because I didn’t figure all this out until she’d dragged me out of the dressing room and we were sneaking past the Knights. I wanted to give Al another piece of my mind, but I wasn’t going to do it in front of our bodyguards while we were in the process of sneaking past them. That would guarantee I’d get in trouble with my dad. I couldn’t imagine how pissed he would be that I’d even considered going along with Al’s crazy scheme. I’d just have to wait until we were out of earshot before telling Al in no uncertain terms that I’d changed my mind, that we were going back into the dressing room so that no one ever knew we’d left.
    Al, her hand still on my arm, half-dragged me out of the store. She must have used more illusion magic to keep the Knights from noticing that the door opened and closed with our exit, because neither one looked up.
    Despite my resolution to put a stop to this the moment we were out of earshot of the Knights, I found myself meekly following along as Al led us down the street and around the first corner. I opened my mouth to voice my objection, but at that same moment, she dropped the invisibility spell and gave me another hug.
    “Thanks so much for doing this,” she gushed again. “It’ll be an exciting little adventure, won’t it?” She sucked her lower lip again, looking so excited and hopeful that I found myself incapable of letting her down.
    “Exciting,” I repeated dully. “Yeah, that’s one word for it.”
    What the hell was I thinking?
    But when Al hailed a cab to take us to the Southern Gate, I raised no objection.
    ____
    We had to abandon the cab when we reached the Southern Gate, because we couldn’t pass through without passports. Al exchanged some euros for pounds, then we ducked into the ladies room, where she cast her invisibility spell again. Al held my hand so we could stay together, and we headed for the border crossing, dodging tourists and business people, slipping through gaps and under turnstiles whenever we could. I kept thinking that someone would sense her magic and stop us, but we didn’t run into any Fae—most of the Fae border control agents were stationed at the other end of the Gatehouse, where the border to