You’d better run, I thought dryly. Right to the FIB building to wait for me. Glenn had the statue, and I knew Trent would come for it. No one watched their retreat, the ring of reporters trying to get quotes from the much louder drama Oliver was making. All, that is, but the one reporter watching Quen drag Trent through the crowd, her eyebrows raised in speculation.

Over the noise and swirling motion, I found Pierce, standing alone and apart in the sun at the edge of the square, his feet spread wide and his hat pulled low to put his face in shadow. Looking at me from under its brim, he smiled, and it was as if everything else melted away.

“Thank you,” I whispered, feeling my heart pound. He could have saved me with black magic. He could have blown in with spells flashing and outrage as his sword—but he didn’t. He trusted me to save myself—the way I wanted to.

“That woman is a black witch!” Oliver shouted, red-faced as he waved his paper in front of me. “She is coming with me!”

I could have reached out and smacked him, but instead I clasped my hands behind my back, preserving the illusion that I was bound. My gaze went over the crowd, over the strung lines and amplifiers to the fountain, silent and still but still holding water. I needed a focusing object; my spit would be enough.

“Jenks!” I shouted, and the one reporter at the front met my eyes. “Go to ground!”

I flung out a hand, the ever-after in me a ripple of warmth down my arm and to my fingers. “Consimilis calefacio!” I shouted, willing the energy to flow. It was a charm to warm water, utterly innocuous and unable to work on living things with an aura. The fountain, though …

With the force of the university ley line behind the simple spell, the water in the fountain erupted in a thunderous boom of sound. All heads turned, but it wasn’t just the noise that I wanted, and shouts rang out when the water turned to harmless steam. In an instant, the square was lost in fog.

Fear rose, and the officers moved to hold me. They didn’t know I was free, though, and with a few well-placed knees and elbows, they went down. I didn’t want to escape. I wanted my FIB cell. Smiling, I reached out for Oliver.

“You … h-how? “the older man stammered as I grabbed his shirt and yanked him to me.

“Look, Oliver,” I said, just the two of us lost in the fog for a few seconds more. “Either you let me go and come see me at the FIB, or the next thing I vaporize will be your blood. Got it?”

His mouth opened and closed. “You are a demon!” he said, and I saw fear flicker. “That’s a black curse!”