Anne hesitated, her eyes flicking between the guns, and I knew what she was thinking. Life magic is powerful, but it has two weaknesses: it’s touch range only, and it doesn’t have any defences against direct physical attack. Anne is very good at healing, but both she and her patient have to be alive for her to do any healing, and bullets do damage much faster than she can heal it. The last time she’d run up against men with guns it hadn’t gone well for her. “Let me ask you something,” I said to Will. “Say you actually manage to pull this off. What then?”

Will had moved up to the wall of force and now he kicked at it, keeping his gun trained on me. “Not your problem, is it?”

“Is that the only thing you care about?” I said. “Killing me?”

Will shook his head. “You don’t get it, do you? This isn’t about you. This is about every adept who’s ever been fucked over by a mage who wanted something. You’re not the only mage we’re going after. You’re just one more name on the list.”

“And this is how you’re planning to work your way down it? Killing everyone one by one?”

Will shrugged. “It’s all you mages listen to, right? Anyway, it works.”

“No, it doesn’t! Using violence to solve all your problems just means you end up with bigger problems that’ll multiply faster than you can deal with them. Let me put this in terms you’ll understand. You will run out of bullets”—I pointed down at the spent ammo at Will’s feet—“and out of people”—I pointed at Captain America and the Chinese kid—“before you run out of problems.”

Will didn’t even look at me. “I figured you’d say something like that.”

“Rachel’s the next one on your list, isn’t she?”

Captain America glanced at Will. Will stepped back from the wall without answering. “You’ll lose,” I said.

“We beat you,” Will said.

I pointed at the Chinese kid. “You. Your name’s Lee, right?”

The Chinese kid—Lee—drew back a little. He’d been standing well back and looked like he’d been trying to avoid attention. “Uh . . .”

“You found me for Will, right?” I said. “So I guess he’ll be using you to keep looking for me, and then for Rachel too. Well, Rachel is stronger than me. Much stronger, and that’s not counting the guy she hangs out with. If you’re having this much trouble with me, how the hell do you think you can beat her?”

Lee looked around. Captain America gave him a nod. “We’ll be stronger by then,” Lee said. “We’ll have had more practice.”