“Because when I looked directly at you in the Mercenary Guild as you were absorbing a power word, my head wanted to explode. When I looked away and accidentally caught your reflection in the glass, it hurt significantly less.”

Saiman took one of the night tables, walked to the right front corner of the platform, and walked exactly six steps diagonally. “Do you remember David Miller?”

“Yes.” David Miller was a magical idiot savant. Nobody ever managed to teach him how to use his enormous reserve of magic, but after he died it was discovered that the objects he had handled gained strange powers. His descendants had sold them off to different buyers, deliberately trying to scatter them, but Saiman collected all of them over the years. He’d used Miller’s bowling ball to produce a vision of my aunt when we were trying to identify her as she rampaged through Atlanta.

Saiman took one step to the right and placed the night table. He came back, picked up the second night table, walked back to the first night table exactly the same way, turned, and walked to the left for eight steps.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to measure?” Curran asked.

“Measuring doesn’t work,” Saiman said.

“Why?” Curran asked.

“Nobody knows. Counting the steps is a part of the ritual.”

Saiman opened the wooden trunk and took out a pink vase with three fake pink roses in it. He walked directly to the first night table and set the vase on it. A lava lamp with pink and blue wax was the next to come out of the trunk. He set it on the second table. The third item was a bright pink fake fur rug. Saiman carefully placed it in front of the platform and turned to me.

“You’re standing on a stage Dave Miller built for his daughter when she was a child.” Saiman reached into the trunk and pulled out a pink tulle tutu.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“It won’t fit.”

“Elastic waistband,” Saiman said. “It will fit.”

Curran’s grin was pure evil.

“Don’t you dare,” I told him.

“It’s too bad the magic is up,” he said. “I’d take pictures.”

“Shut up.”

“Have no fear, Alpha,” Ascanio said. “We’ll tell no one.”

Kill me, somebody.

Saiman held out the tulle skirt to me.

“Maybe it will work without it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“If I put this on, it will be ridiculous.”

Saiman waved the pink tutu in front of me. Fine. I snatched it out of his hands and pulled it on over my hips.

Ascanio collapsed into a moaning heap of laughter.

“Now what?”

“Move around onstage. It would help if you danced.”

Curran was dying. That was the only rational explanation for the noises coming from his direction.

“You’re doing this on purpose,” I told Saiman.