“Yes. And yet it was done fairly quietly. It seems our intelligence on our young wizard thug was faulty.”

Someone, presumably Mantis Bitch, kicked me in the ribs. It hurt. There wasn’t much I could do about it other than try to suck in a breath.

“Very well,” Tessa said. “Take Magog and Deirdre for the Hellhound. Take him alive. Do it within the next five minutes.”

“Yes, my lady,” Rosanna rasped. What sounded like hooves clopped away.

Tessa stepped into view again, sweetly pretty face visible atop the monstrous body. She was smiling. “You’re all kinds of feisty, boy. It’s cute. The sort of thing my husband likes in his recruits.” She kicked me again. “I find it endlessly annoying, personally. But I’m willing to play nice, since we might work together in the future. I’ll give you this chance to cooperate. Tell me where the little girl is.”

“I wish I knew,” I panted. “That way I could exercise free will while telling you to go fuck yourself.”

She let out a playful little laugh and reached down to tweak my broken nose.

Okay.

Ow.

“They say to give a man three chances to say no,” she said.

“Save us both time and breath,” I said. “No, twice. That’s three.”

“Suit yourself,” Tessa said.

She reached into the pocket of my duster, withdrew my revolver, pointed it at my head, and pulled the trigger.

I had just enough time to gawk and think, Wait, wait, this isn’t right.

The muzzle flashed.

There was a loud noise.

I reached for power, tried to shield, but there was simply nothing there, nothing to use. The magic was gone.

So it had to be someone else’s spell that neatly intersected the bullet’s course and bounced it into the shaggy-feathered thing holding my arms.

My stomach sank as I realized what was happening.

Ivy must have been there all along, quietly sitting on the bleachers, hidden by her veil from everything that was going on. Now she stood perhaps ten feet away, just a young girl, her expression solemn—but her eyes and cheeks were bright with tears.

“Get away from him,” she said quietly. “All of you. I will not permit you to hurt him.”

I hadn’t really extended my line of thinking beyond Kincaid. But of all the people who had dealt with the Archive, I’d been one of the only ones to take any interest in her as anything but a font of knowledge. I’d been the one to inquire after her personally. I’d been the one to give her a name. Sad but true, I was the closest thing that little girl had to a friend.

She couldn’t have let anything happen to me, either.

I’d just handed her to the Denarians.

Tessa threw back her head and loosed a long, triumphant cry.

Chapter Thirty-three

“Ivy,” I said in that tone you use with children who are up past their bedtime. I’m better at it than you’d think, after so much time working with an apprentice. “Get that veil back up and get out of here.”