Tara had summoned dead things to walk, ridden lightning; she knew the seventy-seven names of Professor Halcyon. There were ways to deal with this damn Crier, full of smug certainty. She could seize Jones’s mind. Wouldn’t be that hard—tell a story to bring the woman in, lower her defenses so Tara’s Craft could take hold. She’d done it before.

As it had been done to her.

So easy.

Tara cursed the teachers who gave her options that were always easy, but never right.

“Report the gargoyles,” she said. “Hold off on the rest, the miracle, and I’ll give you an exclusive like you won’t believe.”

“When?”

“Two days,” she said. “Sooner, I hope. I need to make arrangements.”

Jones’s face betrayed little. “Deal. But this better be big.”

“Trust me.”

18

18

Tara did not look at the moon while she stormed the three blocks to her apartment. The moon didn’t seem to care. She slammed her front door open with a Crafty glance, and mailbox ditto. Bad form, she reprimanded herself as she marched upstairs, flipping from envelope to envelope. Ms. Kevarian would be disappointed. The weak-willed gratified themselves with needless displays of power. The shadows that stalked Tara, the deep drums her footfalls became, the tarnish that spread from her touch on the banister—these seemed impressive but were at heart only a child’s tantrum strained through sorcery.

She allowed herself the tantrum’s comfort. Ms. Kevarian wasn’t here.

You shouldn’t be either, chattered the contemptible voice in the back of her head. You should have stayed with her.

And left Alt Coulumb to weather this storm on its own? No. She’d chosen this path. She’d walk it. She just had to get hold of herself.

The mail did not reassure. This week’s Thaumaturgist. An advertisement from a continuing education course. A sealed letter with an Edgemont postmark she’d not open yet. And, at the bottom, a utilitarian envelope from the Hidden Schools, containing a student loan bill.

“Fuck.” She leaned against her apartment door, 403. Her heart was racing for reasons that had nothing to do with the stairs. She stopped it entirely, and stopped breathing too. Her limbs chilled and she heard small sounds—carriages on the road outside, mice skittering over floorboards, a drunk man’s laughter from the first floor, and beneath all these the bass fiddle note of the revolving world.

Okay. She started her heart again, breathed. Physical form had this to recommend it: your lungs let you know when they were happy.

She fished her keys from her purse, but when she reached for the latch, it popped open of its own accord. Still leaning against a suddenly open door, she lurched to catch herself on the doorjamb. Envelopes fell, and the Thaumaturgist flew like a drunken bird, flapping and spinning to land open to a two-page spread about the lure of shadow banking.