She paused again, then glanced at the flat-screen monitor on her desk. “Five minutes. Please leave your spider outside.”

I saluted and set Smudge’s cage on one of the chairs to the side. The door to Babs’ office unlocked with an audible click as I reached for the knob. I stepped inside and shut the door behind me.

Babs Palmer looked more like a gym teacher than a lawyer or libriomancer. She was thick and muscular, with tattoos of a tiger and a dragon on her forearms. The colorful tattoos concealed magically inked text, similar in some respects to the forehead tattoo Nidhi wore to protect her thoughts, but Babs’ ink was far more powerful. Rings decorated her fingers. Several of those were magic as well, but I couldn’t read any of it, thanks to the black pearl hanging from a thick silver chain around her neck.

“How can you stand to wear that thing?” I asked. “Cutting yourself off from magic for days at a time? I’d go mad.”

“What do you want, Vainio?” Babs looked tired. Her tanned skin had developed new lines at the eyes, like cracks spreading through concrete. Books and papers covered her desk, which was as large as my first car. One open folder held a map of Asia and official-looking documents in Chinese. Another looked like a building plan of some sort.

A map of New Millennium dominated the wall to my left. Dots of differently colored ink moved slowly over the paper. I studied it more closely. “Did you finally figure out how to make that Marauder’s Map work in the real world?”

The map from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was one of the first projects my team had worked on, but we’d never been able to calibrate it.

“We went a different route.” She rearranged the files, stacking things in several haphazard piles. “You’re down to four minutes.”

“I was in Lansing yesterday.”

“I know. I got Nicola’s report.”

I sat in the chair opposite her desk. “I want to put my team to work helping to root out whoever orchestrated that attack. I’ve got one lead already.”

She sighed and leaned back, finally giving me her full attention. “What does that have to do with me?”

“Honestly? I may not like you, but you’re good at your job. I could use your help.” I cocked a thumb at the map on the wall. “Some of the things you’ve worked out for New Millennium’s security could be adapted to help us track—”

“I have enough of my own responsibilities without taking on yours. You’re our Research Director. If you want to push for this, do it. But don’t be surprised when the board shoots it down. The slightest whiff of magic is enough to taint even airtight court cases.”