“Please don’t take this as a challenge,” said Stone. “Being possessed by the devil isn’t a recreational drug. It’s losing everything.”

“It’s like being murdered,” said Hal, “only you have to stay and watch.”

“Exactly,” said Stone. “And yes, kid,” he said to Wheeler. “I think you’re weak. Because you are weak. Danny seems to be fighting this thing—and even he is barely holding on. There’s not a chance in hell that any of you are even close to being as strong as Danny is. Get it?”

“Got it,” said Wheeler.

“Go,” said Stone.

“You’re supposed to say ‘Good,’” said Wheeler.

“This isn’t The Court Jester,” said Stone. “Go.”

They all took out their amulets and gated away. Except Pat.

“Please tell me what you find out,” she said to Stone. “Please don’t cut us out of this just because we’re drowthers.”

“Give me your phone number,” said Stone. “Danny can sense whenever you come here like this, but he can’t tell if I text you or call.”

She wrote it down.

“But you’re the only one I’m telling,” said Stone.

“You can trust Hal to keep his mouth shut,” said Pat.

“Think a little harder,” said Stone.

She did.

“Oh,” she said. “I’m not a drowther.”

“Goodbye, windmage,” said Stone. “Thank you for telling me. I think you’ve done everything right.”

“We don’t even know what ‘right’ is,” said Pat.

“But you didn’t keep it to yourself in order to avoid being embarrassed if you were wrong,” said Stone. “You didn’t try to fix it or talk to Danny about it directly. A lot of really wrong things that you didn’t do.”

“Yeah, I guess it’s comforting to know I could be even dumber.”

Stone gave a short little bark of a laugh. “Nobody could ever call you dumb, kid. I saw you notice the other girls’ reaction when I said Danny might have blocked the Belmage from doing other things, too.”

“But I don’t know what it means,” said Pat.

“Maybe nothing,” said Stone. “But you noticed. Now you’ll hold that in the back of your mind, and maybe something will happen to explain it. Or maybe it won’t, because maybe it was nothing.”

Pat didn’t think it was nothing, but he was right. Just wait and things will get clearer. Or they won’t.

“Meanwhile, Pat, practice your magery,” said Stone. “Get it under very good control. Weaponize it.”

“Why?” said Pat. “I don’t want to hurt anybody.”

“When somebody’s trying to destroy a person you love, even pacifists find themselves wishing they had a gun.” Stone chuckled again. “Or a rocket launcher.”

He seemed to be referring to something, but Pat didn’t know what. She’d Google “rocket launcher” later. But it probably didn’t matter—if it did, Stone would have explained it.