"I believe that if I were to make a choice, I would have to choose Aisling's belly to kiss, but that is only because she is my bon ami, heinl If she was not, then I would choose your belly above all others."

Tiffany seemed to accept that, sitting back against the seat, looking around with pleasure. Jim sat with its head hanging out the window, as usual. "Where is it we are going to on this long and pleasant drive?"

I met Rene's gaze in the mirror and mentally shrugged. It looked like I was saddled with a virgin while I hermit-hunted. "I'm going to a shop on the Andrassy lit. It's the last address my uncle had for the hermit. Supposedly, he picks up his mail there, but Uncle Damian's last letter two weeks ago warning of my arrival went unanswered."

"A hermit? You seek a hermit?" Tiffany smiled brightly as I nodded. "This is excellent! Virgins, as you know, are most helpful when it comes to hermits."

"Really?" I said, unable to keep from asking. "I thought it was unicorns that couldn't resist a virgin."

"Unicorns, hermits, sprites—both water and forest— and werefolk of all forms. You will find that employing a professional virgin will increase your Guardian productivity many times. It will give you quite the cachet amongst other Guardians, as well."

"Employ? No, I—"

"My rates are quite reasonable," Tiffany continued, just as if I hadn't spoken. "I have many good testimonies and, of course, my portfolio, which has splendid pictures of me in many happy poses. You will be most pleased with my excellent services."

"But I don't have a budget for a virgin," I protested, my mind squirreling desperately for a way to extract myself from her clutches. "I couldn't possibly afford your services, as wonderful as I'm sure they are."

"Perhaps your uncle will allow you one if you explain to him the situation," Rene offered as we drove through the city toward a popular street in the center.

I groaned. "Not you, too, Rene."

He smiled at me in the mirror. "It seems to me that you cannot have too much help, hein?"

"That's a matter of opinion—"

Jim pulled in its head long enough to shoot me a weary look. "Give it up, Ash. You need help, and Tiffany here is offering it. You'd be a fool to turn her down because you're a tightwad."

"I am not a tight—"

"Jim speaks correctly," Rene interrupted with a nod. "You need help. Me, I am the driver tres bon, tres extraordinaire, but I am not knowing Budapest as well as Paris. So if this young lady of the smooth white belly offers to help you find the lost hermit, you should not spurn up your nose at her."

"Turn your nose up," I corrected him, giving in with a little reluctance and a whole lot of misgivings. I knew when I was bested, and to be honest, both Jim and Rene had a point. I didn't know the city at all, and if Tiffany really did have some sort of hermit-attracting powers, she could come in handy. "All right, you can help, but I can't ray you more than a hundred and fifty bucks. That was supposed to be my mad money, but I guess nothing defines mad quite so much as buying a professional virgin."

"It is acceptable," Tiffany said, doing her little happy hand-clapping thing. "Now, let us plan how to find this hermit. He will be in the nearby forests, yes? A cave, perhaps? There are many caves in Hungary, many around the city."

"I don't know exactly where he is," I answered. "My uncle seemed to think he'd be camping out in a forest or something like that, but who knows with hermits? Uncle Damian said this guy was a bit flighty, not wanting to give his real name or any identifying information. And he paid in gold. Not gold ingots or anything like that—he paid in gold coins stamped with some strange symbols. I didn't have time to look them up, but they seemed very strange, not at all like the sorts of things I've seen in theurgical books."

"Do not worry. We will find this hermit," Rene said, gaily blowing his horn and flipping off a discourteous driver. "It is a challenge, and we are par excellence when it comes to challenges, are we not?"

I thought of the last challenge I'd issued—to Drake, of all people—and its subsequent outcome. Although I had intended for him to beat me, I had hoped that he'd recognize my generous act in saving face for him and eliminate the punishment I was due by his sept, but he hadn't. Back home in Oregon the fact that his entire clan had a say in how I was to be punished for failing the challenge hadn't worried me, but it was another matter now that I was here, about to be mixed up in dragon politics.

As much as my frugal nature resented being put in a position where I had to hire Tiffany, I admitted two hours later that she had been a very useful translator. I had planned on pressing Rene into that position, since my skills with the language were obviously faulty, but it turned out that he was needed to keep Jim in line while Tiffany and I went on a wild-goose chase that led us from the Pest side (west of the Danube) to the Buda side of the city, finally ending in a tiny, dusty antique shop.

"Well, that was an utter waste of two hours," I said as we emerged from the dark shop. I wiped a few cobwebs off my arm where it had brushed against a faded, battered trunk. "We're no better off than when we started."

"That is not true. We have spread much joy. I have smiled at seventeen people. And you know that the hermit is definitely in a park outside the limits of the city."

"A fact that would be more helpful if there weren't gazillions of parks around Budapest," I groused, then immediately felt bad. It wasn't Tiffany's fault that the hermit was evidently so paranoid he shuffled his mail through six different points, all of which knew only the next forwarding address. "I'm sorry, Tiffany. My bad mood is no reflection on you. You were a great help translating for me. It would have taken a lot longer without you."

She looked pleased as we walked down the busy street toward a car park Rene had found hidden behind an office building that still bore on its walls the shadows of communist slogans that had been ripped off during Hungary's bloodless revolution. We had seen many such buildings during our unintentional tour of the city, taking us from stately, ornately decorated buildings that counted rime by the century to modern, brightly lit shops whose neon lights promised everything from discos to Internet access.

"I am very good with people. It is my eyes. They see kindness within, and it spills out to light their lives with happy thoughts. Now you have seen how I do it, you, too, must share your happiness with others."