Dr. Anders jerked, turning her thin face up to me. “Scrying mirror?”

“I said the incantation,” I continued. “Nick said it didn’t matter if I couldn’t say it in Latin.” Frustrated, I stood before her desk and fumed. If I left, it would be over. It wasn’t the money anymore. It was this woman thinking I was stupid.

“Latin?” Dr. Anders’s face was slack.

“I said it,” I protested, replaying the night in my head. “And then—” My breath caught and my face went cold. “And then the demon showed up,” I whispered, sinking down on the chair before my knees gave way. “Oh God. Did it take my aura? Did the demon take my aura?”

“Demon?” She looked appalled. “You called a demon?”

I panicked, sitting there at the nasty woman’s desk. I was scared out of my panties, and I didn’t care if she knew it. Algaliarept had my aura. “It got through the circle!” I babbled, forcing myself to not clutch at her arm. “Somehow it got my aura through the circle!”

“Ms. Morgan!” Dr. Anders exclaimed. “If a demon got in your circle, you would not be sitting in front of me. You’d be in the ever-after with it, begging for your death!”

Frightened, I sat where I was with my arms clasped about me. I was a runner, not a demon killer.

The woman looked angry as she tapped her pen on the desktop. “What were you doing summoning a demon? Those things are dangerous.”

“I didn’t,” I gushed. “You gotta believe me. It showed up on its own. See, I owe it a favor for taking me through the ley lines after it was sent to kill me. It was the only way to get back to Ivy before I bled to death. And it thought that I was trying to call it to settle my debt, what with the circle and pentagrams that Nick was copying for—uh—me.”

Her eyes flicked to the water-spotted drawings. “Your boyfriend did these, did he?”

Again I nodded, unable to outright lie to her. “I was going to redo them myself later,” I said. “I didn’t have time to do two weeks of homework and catch a murderer both.”

Dr. Anders stiffened. “I did not kill my past students.”

My eyes dropped and I felt myself start to calm. “I know.”

She took a breath, holding it for a moment before letting it out. I felt some kind of ley line force pass between us, and sat wide-eyed, wondering what she was doing. “You don’t think I killed them,” she finally said, and the feeling that I was chewing tinfoil stopped. “So why are you in my class?”