Emma, who probably wasn't older than twenty-six or twenty-seven, had long black hair and a round, plump face. She was wearing a long cardigan sweater open in the front, some kind of casual black dress (one of those knitted ones), and had a big floppy bag hanging off her arm.
Every time I saw her I had the impression of someone who somehow managed to end up neatly dressed and put together while throwing clothes and makeup in the air and standing under them waiting for them to come down and do their job.
As she came in, her gaze landed on me.
"Okay, that answers my question," she said.
She dropped her bag on the kitchen table, then rubbed her forehead with two fingers.
"I've been fielding calls from seven networks and one ministry for the past hour!"
"Then stop answering them," Llewellyn said. "Tea?"
She gave him a long, level look.
After a second, she must have decided that particular conversation wasn't worth it, because she agreed to the tea and redirected her attention to Lumos, who'd come to greet her, tail wagging. She crouched down to stroke him, her tone shifting into a gentle coo.
"Hi, lovely boy. Aren't you the gentlest thing. Yes, yes, I see you. You're such a sweetheart."
That's when she noticed Penguin.
"Oh," she said, sounding startled. "Well, hello."
Penguin let out a pleased chirp, and his tiny feet went flap flap on the floor as he moved closer, letting out little puffs of icy mist.
Emma blinked, then visibly melted.
"Awww. Who's this perfect little man?! Oh, look at him. Oh, he's so adorable. You lovely thing! Can I pet him?" She looked up at Llewellyn and me, probably unsure whose he was. Penguin let out another chirp and inched closer expectantly, clearly giving full permission. Emma just went, "Awww" again, and reached out to scratch under his chin.
"He's Penguin," I said, trying not to laugh. "He's with me."
Emma's gaze came to rest on me. "You named him Penguin?"
Ah, not this again.
Llewellyn, who was turning the kettle on, snorted.
"He chose that himself," I said. "Anyway." I cleared my throat. "Am I getting fired, arrested, fined, or—?"
Emma got up, petting both Penguin and Lumos one last time, before waving a hand at me.
"No one's going to touch you. The System assigned you. What are they going to do? Sue you when the System can pay all your legal expenses? Put you in a cell so the System can teleport you out of it? They're just angry they can't touch him either."
She gestured toward Llewellyn, who was still standing guard by the kettle, then she sat down with a sigh, slumping forward slightly and turning her head toward me, elbows on the table and fingers entwined.
"Do you know how much effort it takes to make him look sympathetic? He has a seven-year reputation for being a human glacier. And then you walk into a press ambush and declare war on the Internet!"
When she put it like that—
"I didn't do it on purpose," I mumbled.
"I know," she said. She looked tired, but thankfully not really upset.
"How is Leon?" Llewellyn asked.
"Ah, he's fine," Emma relaxed slightly. "He's—Wait, no. Don't change the subject," she said, heckles rising. "That won't work this time."
Llewellyn managed to look both displeased and amused at once as he tipped the kettle, filling her mug.
"Leon is my son," Emma explained to me. "He's two years old. I left him at home with his dad."
Oh, right. The first time Emma had spoken up for Llewellyn to the press, she'd been visibly pregnant.
"I told Llewellyn he should say something publicly—" I said, sipping my own tea before it went completely cold. It was already inching into disgusting territory. "—to distance himself from me."
"What?" Emma said distractedly, accepting her mug with a 'thanks' and eyeing Llewellyn's tea selection. She seemed to register what I'd said then and she looked up at me. "Hell no."
Huh?
"This is the best PR I've had to work with in years!"
What? She'd literally just been complaining!
"Me hydro-blasting a journalist?"
"Not that." She opened her chosen tea bag, something mango-flavored. She smelled it for a moment, looking happy, before adding it to her mug. "Okay, hear me out. As I see it, PR-wise, you could do two things with him. Well, no—three. One, polishing him into a brand; two, damage control; three, establishing a deterrent. Can you imagine the first?" She scoffed. "I tried the first year. Whenever I came up with a proposal, he teleported out of the room."
I snorted. I could picture it perfectly.
"No, that doesn't work." Emma blew on her tea. "He hates giving statements. So my strategy is often restricted to number two, damage control. That's fine, I can do that, but it's defensive and doesn't help him in the long run. You just handed me number three; we're not going to waste it. I want the vultures in the press to feel that there are consequences if they push him too far. Llewellyn may not clap back, but someone in his corner will. That sort of thing."
I was reminded of how good she was at her stuff. Though I supposed she had to be. She wasn't just PR-ing, she was adapting to the un-PR-able.
"You want me to play the bad cop," I said, relaxing back in the chair. That wasn't too bad. I could do that.
"Absolutely not," Llewellyn said, just as Emma said, "No, of course not."
What? I looked at them, now confused.
"I'm not saying you should do this," Emma said. "In fact, please don't do it. That would be a hassle. I'm saying it happened, and it might deter some people. That helps you," she said in Llewellyn's direction, "whether you like it or not."
Llewellyn clearly wasn't happy about it, but didn't say anything.
"We should also consider—" Emma added, a bit more tentatively. "I mean, I know I'm not your PR manager," she said to me, sounding frustrated. "But there's a new hashtag campaign that just picked up and, from what I saw before coming here, it looks like it's tipping toward attacking you, not Llewellyn."
Ah, shit.
"#EndTheKnotsNow?" I asked.
"That's the one," Emma said, blowing on her tea.
Not surprising, but still.
Goddamnit.
"Have you spoken with Niamh yet?" I asked.
"Yes," Emma said. "Not sure what they're planning, I'm the client, they don't give me specifics. But I don't think you should work until this dies down."
"Not you too. I can't be in and out of the team whenever it suits me!" I said.
"That might be the case," Emma said, "but I can't have you going around quoting random people's posts at the cameras."
"I wouldn't," I said.
Though to be fair, I probably would.
"I remember your emails," Emma said. "I have them saved."
"You should know we use templates for those."
"Not for the additional notes."
…Okay, I could see her point.
I hoped Altan was still keen on working extra shifts because he was about to get a lot of them.
There was suddenly some loud barking coming from the next room. Llewellyn frowned.
"I'll be back," he said, before going to check.
I took a sip.
"How did you end up working with him?" I asked Emma, before she could start asking me any questions. I could see she was gearing herself up to.
Besides, I'd always wanted to ask. Llewellyn wasn't the kind of person to hire a PR manager.
"Oh," Emma said. "I always forget this isn't public knowledge. I was caught in a Distorted Realm, up north." She took a sip of her tea. "I was heavily pregnant at the time, and he came to check on me afterward. Unfortunately, that's when the press showed up. I'd just started working in PR at the time, I was as junior as one could be! I wasn't even working in Baekhaven. We were not dealing with anything even remotely comparable to this, and I was just responsible for printing or emailing press releases. But Llewellyn looked very distressed. Quite a few people had died, including a child, and… Well, he'd just saved my baby. I wanted to repay him somehow. So, I pulled myself together and stepped in front of the press, and told them that I was his PR manager and that they'd have to deal with me. And somehow it worked! Then, the System showed up and offered me a contract. And here we are."
This wasn't too dissimilar to what I'd suspected.
"Mind you, looking back that was an insane career move," Emma said, with a sudden grin. "It's not like as a new mom I was going to be considered for a promotion. And now look at me!" She seemed pleased with herself.
Of course she had every right to be. I don't think there was a single PR professional in the whole world more well-known than her right now. And that was despite the fact that she tried to keep a low profile and only stepped in when absolutely necessary.
Llewellyn came back before she could ask me anything in return—though she probably already knew the big picture from Llewellyn anyway.
"What happened?" I asked.
Llewellyn looked amused. "Penguin wanted to add more water to Lumos' bowl and turned into a fish. Lumos saw him flopping around on the floor and started barking. That's how I found them."
I snorted. I'd seen Penguin turn into a fish only once. It was probably not a very practical form without a body of water to splash into.
"So, what's the plan?" Llewellyn asked, sitting down again.
"Not as defined as I'd like," Emma said. "Stay off the internet," she told me. "Don't feed it. Don't read it. And avoid the press. I'll mop up as much as I can. We'll go from there. Anything else I should know? Are you two actually dating? It would be smart to tell me."
I almost dropped my mug.
Llewellyn's ears went red. "That's no one's business," he said, sounding annoyed, but also a bit flustered.
"Not a denial, I see," Emma said. "That can either complicate things or smooth them out." She took a sip. "Have you answered the Gala invitation? You should—and add him as your plus one."
"What gala?" I asked, alarmed.
"Queen Seolene's Charity Gala, of course," Emma said.
"That's months away," Llewellyn said. "And I'm not going."
"You can't refuse the queen!" Emma said. "Do we need to have this conversation every year?"
"I did in fact refuse last year," Llewellyn said. "So, you should know that I definitely can."
"That's precisely why you can't do it again!" Emma said, exasperated. "Look. She's on your side. We need to make sure she stays there. Bring him." She tipped her head toward me. "That would be a good move."
I was damned if I was going to go to a royal gala.
What would I even do there? Go to war against the entirety of Innishae's press?
"No," I said.
Emma raised both eyebrows at me.
"Not a chance. I'm not going to a gala."
I mean, I'm not even going to the corner store if I can help it.
Llewellyn leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, looking vindicated.
Emma let out a low sound that sounded suspiciously like a growl. "You're both allergic to basic self-preservation. Do you know how many people would kill for this kind of access? The queen's inner circle—"
"Great," Llewellyn said. "Let them have it."
Seconded, as far as I was concerned.
Emma massaged her temples. "Just think about it, alright? That's all I'm asking." She stood, brushing nonexistent crumbs from her skirt and picking up her bag. "I'll see myself out. I can't let any more calls get to voicemail."
Lumos came trotting in then, with Penguin riding on top of him. Looked like they'd heard she was leaving and wanted to say goodbye.
Emma obliged with warm, cooing noises.
As Llewellyn walked her to the door, I scooped up Penguin and plopped him on the table, then lifted Lumos onto my lap for a double head scratch. They both seemed very pleased and snuggled closer. Ah, good. Maybe I was a bit pleased too.
Llewellyn came back, finding us like that. The corner of his mouth twitched.
"Go and take a nap," he said, retrieving Lumos from me. "I'll wake you up when it's time to leave."