It was more than a bit disturbing to see myself dressed in Newt’s clothes. This was one of her bad days, I think. “Pierce doesn’t want to kill me,” I said, my thoughts flashing back to our night under the earth, then his sullen temper when I’d saved Al. Maybe he’d forgive me if I told him I’d almost killed Al, too. “He had a moment of pique, is all. He’ll get over it.”

She was nodding, looking like me as she sat on the couch. “They all get over it, don’t they? And then he’ll destroy your hope, kill your soul. He won’t even know what he’s doing until it’s too late. I can tell the future because my days are always the same.” I stiffened as she touched my hair again, head cocked as she studied it, feeling it between her fingers that looked like mine, right down to the wooden pinkie ring and the chipped red nail polish. “Between you and me, you’d be better off with both of them dead,” she finished.

Al cleared his throat. Newt’s gaze shifted to him and she made a soft noise. “Al, you are a fool,” she said as a sheet of black ever-after coated her and she turned back into her usual androgynous self. “You might have more than two curses to rub together if you didn’t allow both your familiar and your student to run about in the sun, plotting against you.”

“Then she should stay, yes?” he said, and she threw her head back and laughed.

“No. Rachel goes back,” she said, and I sagged a little in relief. “There’s more than one bet to be settled tomorrow, and they made me the referee again. They never let me bet anymore. Not since I won Minias. Where is he, anyway? Oh, that’s right.” She eyed me speculatively. “I killed him.”

Great. Newt was a demon bookie on top of everything else. “What are my odds of getting my shunning permanently revoked?” I asked, having to know.

Newt smiled and handed me my scrying mirror. “You’re going to lose because of Pierce. Didn’t you hear me? Or do you forget things, too?”

I couldn’t answer, trying to find enough air to breathe. Do I have a shot at this or not?

“That’s my girl,” she said, her eyes holding a shared pain as she saw my confusion. “Al, where are you going to put her? Not in your room. She’d pull a line through you and kill you when you hog the blankets. I’ll take the waif in. I promise I’ll bring this one up properly.”

Newt patted the six-inch space beside her thigh, and my face became cold. Oh God. Anything but that.

Al stood, tugging the tie on his robe tighter. “I have everything under control.”

Newt waved a thin hand in dismissal. “And that’s why she was arcing a line through you, yes?” she said, then vanished. The seat cushion rose slowly, and the fire flared as new air was sucked down the chimney to replace her mass.