“Turn over,” she said, and arms made strong from battling waves manhandled me onto my stomach. There must have been something in that handkerchief, because I couldn’t resist. My arms jerked up behind me, and I froze, tears starting from the pain. Please don’t dislocate them, please, I thought, going passive in her grip.

With a satisfied harrumph, she slipped a ring of charmed silver around my wrist and zipped it tight. I groaned when the ever-after washed out of me. It hurt like an old ache, even if the line was nasty, and I tried to breathe through my nose. My circle fell, but I didn’t think Oliver was going to hit me with his flaming ball of puking death. Not with Brooke sitting on me.

“My God,” Oliver whispered over the sound of the witch retching in the corner. “Did you feel what came out of her? She could have leveled the house!”

I wheezed when Brooke got up off me, and Oliver’s sensible shoes scuffed into view. “Her aura is blacker than any I’ve ever seen,” he added scornfully, and I grunted when Brooke’s foot wedged under my ribs, and she rolled me over. Three faces peered down at me, Brooke, Oliver, and the youngest, gawky guy, again conscious and holding his head. A faint sparkling sifted from the high windows, and I closed my eyes. Jax. Nick knew what had happened here and done nothing to help. Same old Nick.

“Oliver, get Amanda unspelled, will you?” Brooke said as she held her wrist. “And check on Wyatt while you’re at it. I don’t know why you use your ley-line skills. You’re not good with them.”

“Because you insisted on doing this too close to the ocean for my charms to work,” he snarled.

“What does it matter? We’ve got her.”

Interesting, I thought as I finally got that wad out of my mouth.

“Barely,” Oliver said, and Brooke arched her eyebrows and nudged me in the ribs. “I didn’t like this, and I still don’t,” he added. “We could have gotten a demon instead.”

“Don’t be silly, she’s not a demon. She’s just a witch,” Brooke said. “A stupid one at that, who thinks she is in control and clearly isn’t. Besides, it’s not illegal to summon demons.”

“It should be.” Oliver was still breathing hard from the exertion, and starting to sweat.

“I think the media made her out to be more than she is.” Brooke peered at me like I was a bug. “She didn’t do one spell. She had the opportunity and the motive.”

“It was a demon name that wizard used to summon her,” Oliver protested, examining the eyes of the witch I’d knocked out before then clapping him on the back in support.

“We only have his say-so that it was a demon name,” Brooke said. “He could have lied, trying to pay us off with a wooden coin painted gold.”

From out of my sight, Amanda rasped between her gagging, “Oliver. Some help, please?”