The first image is of my grandfather looking disappointed. Chisholm means regular people. “It’s the worst thing in the world. It’s when you start to slip up. You go out of your way to impress them and that’s when you get careless. You forget everyone else and focus on the skeptic.”

Chisholm gives me a menacing grin. “Think you can make him slip up? I want to push this weirdo away from his plan. Make him react. Act impulsively. Put our Witch against the Warlock. He’s fixated on you. I want you to look back at him and ask, ‘Is that all you got?’”

“You mean give him performance anxiety.”

“I guess you could put it that way,” he replies.

25

I DON’T LIKE THE IDEA,” Ailes tells me for the hundredth time when I get back.

Neither do I.

At his insistence, I flew back last night on an FBI jet and slept in a dorm on campus at Quantico. I resisted any kind of official protective custody but agreed to stay on the reservation, at least for the next several days while we try to figure out how serious of a threat the Warlock really is to me.

Sleeping here or back in my apartment, it’s not like it’s going to affect my social life much. Even when I had a boyfriend, work was still my focus. Going through miles of data in the paper jungle isn’t the most exciting kind of law enforcement, but it is preferable to being a beat cop telling junkies they couldn’t loiter in the bus shelters.

Once I knew magic wasn’t for me, it was my goal to join the FBI. Even as a little girl I had a strong sense of right and wrong. The pinstripes and disciplined reputation of the FBI appealed to this little girl who spent half her time as a vagabond. My love of figuring things out lined up perfectly with my image of an agent solving cases. To get there, working as a street cop was a way for me to acquire some practical experience. A lot of the agents I work with—most, in fact—have never had to draw their gun in a dangerous situation. Most of the real work in the FBI involves chasing down leads on the phone and talking to people face-to-face in relaxed settings. As a police officer, I’d sometimes have to draw my gun two or three times a night answering burglary calls or pulling over suspicious vehicles.

Working under this kind of constant tension helps you develop a bit of a relaxed edge with less life-threatening things. I guess that’s why I’m not as afraid now as I maybe should be. I’ve been shoved down stairs, kicked, clawed, and had guns pulled on me. My sense of fear is different than most people’s. And that’s just the dangerous situations I faced in the line of duty.

The closest I ever came to death was in a magic trick. I tell myself that scrape wasn’t why I quit performing. I think I’ve been trying to prove that to myself ever since.