“You do,” I insisted, “you overreacted when you broke the church window, and you overreacted when you almost fried Lee in the university’s philosophy building. But the reason you’re not coming is because you have bad ideas, Pierce, and you act too fast on them.”

Ivy was wide eyed, and even Nick had sat back, pencil almost falling out of his mouth.

“Do tell.” Pierce’s lips were tight, and his brow was furrowed.

“You said to keep quiet to Al about Alcatraz, but the coven wanting my ovaries had a lot to do with convincing him to give me my name back. You nearly dragged me onto that bus that Vivian crashed into a bridge. And what’s with shooting at Al with my gun with my charms in the hopper? What if you had killed him? Who do you think the demons would blame for the death of one of their own? You, the familiar? Or me, the one whose gun was smoking? Now I’m down a splat gun until I can find someone who doesn’t know I’m shunned and will sell me a new one! I can’t trust you in a pinch, and because of that, you’re watching Jenks’s kids. Got it?”

“I can fix the window and I’ll get you a new gun,” he said, and I made my hands into fists, frustrated. He’d saved my life and I owed him, but half my problems this week were because of him.

“The gun isn’t the problem,” I said. “You keep telling me what to do. You don’t ask. You don’t suggest. You tell. And I don’t like it. I have people to help me who I trust won’t overreact and make things so out of control that it takes black magic to fix. You aren’t coming.”

I was out of breath, and I stopped, waiting for his reaction. By the frown on his face, it wasn’t going to be nice. “You don’t want me to help,” he said, voice tight.

“No,” I said, then added more gently, “Not today.”

Pierce clenched his jaw, and without another word, he turned and strode from the kitchen. Jenks’s eyes were wide, and I exhaled when I heard the back door slam. Shaking inside, I turned to Nick. “Did you have something to say about Ivy coming?”

Nick glanced at Ivy, his eyes dropping to her cast, then rising to me.“No, but her being there is going to increase the time to cross the main floor by at least three seconds. I don’t know if the camera sweep can handle that. If you get caught, it’s not my fault.”

Jenks darted up, then down. “I’ll worry about the cameras, rat boy. You worry about not tripping over your big fat wizard feet.”