I sniffed, backing up a step with my arms wrapped around my middle. “He tried to find out if Ku’Sox made that purple line and fell to the bottom of it.”

Newt spun, finding her feet in an instant. “And you let him?”

“He didn’t say it was going to scrape his aura off!” I yelled back. “I got him out, but . . .” My words faltered, and I felt the prick of tears, hating them. It was Al, for God’s sake.

“You got him out?” Newt blinked her black eyes at me, drawing herself up when she saw the ring on my hand. “Oh.” She hesitated. “He gave you . . . Where is the other one?”

Nervous, I held up my other hand to show her my thumb. “He took it off. He took all the pain so I could call you.”

Newt made a harrumph of disagreement. “He took all the pain so it wouldn’t kill you.”

Fidgeting, I came closer. Was she going to help or not? “Newt. Please. The sun.”

Her androgynous face twisting to look more feminine somehow, she squinted up at it. “Indeed,” she said sourly, twitching the hem of her robe off Al. “It’s like breathing in acid.”

The gritty wind gusted against me with a sudden force, and I closed my eyes, feeling the dust suddenly halt and drop away before it could hit me. It was Newt yanking me into a ley line, and with a nauseating twist, the horrid red sky winked out of existence.

My heart thudded once, twice, and still we hadn’t reemerged anywhere. My lungs started to ache, and at the last moment, when I thought she might have forgotten me and I was going to have to scrape another line into existence trying to get out, she yanked me into reality.

Stumbling, I caught myself against the bedpost in Al’s room. The oil lamp beside the bed was lit, making shadows at the edges of the smallish chamber. Browns, golds, and greens mimicked a primeval forest, and plush, sinking textures made it a close, secure space.

“Sorry about that,” Newt murmured, looking matronly as she tucked the cover over Al, already resting in my, or rather, his bed. “It took me a moment to get around the room’s safeguards. I thought one jump right to his bed would be better than sliding into the library and having to drag him.”

“Yes,” I whispered, suitably cowed. Al had told me his old bedchamber was absolutely foolproof, but apparently it wasn’t crazy-proof. I let go of the bedpost, and Newt sat on the bed beside Al, looking like a bedside nurse. I couldn’t see anything but his face, the rest of him lost in the voluptuous coverings.

Giving Al’s cheek a little pat, Newt looked up, her black eyes taking in everything in a single sweep. “This is not Al’s bedroom. It’s far too . . . plush.”