“You canicula!” he shouted, pulling me out in a helpless scrabbling. The world spun as he rose to his feet. Violently shaking his hand, he smacked me into the desk. Stars exploded into existence, seeming to go with the dusky cinnamon taste of his blood. The pain in my head loosened my jaws, and I spun from my tail as he held me.

“Let her go!” I heard Jenks cry.

The world gyrated in quick swings. “You brought your bug,” Trent said calmly, slamming the flat of his hand against a panel on his desk. A faint smell of ether tickled my nose.

“Get out, Jenks!” I squeaked, recognizing the smell of sticky web.

Jonathan flung open the door. He stood in the threshold, his eyes wide. “Sa’han!”

“Shut the door!” Trent shouted.

I twisted frantically to escape. Jenks darted out just as my teeth closed upon Trent’s thumb again. “Damn you, witch!” Trent shouted, swinging me into the wall. Stars exploded anew, dying to black embers. The embers grew, and I watched, numb, as they slowly overtook my sight until there was nothing else. I was warm, and I couldn’t move.

I was dying.

I had to be.

Nineteen

“So, Ms. Sara Jane, the split schedule isn’t an issue for you?”

“No sir. I don’t mind working until seven if I have the afternoon for errands and such.”

“I appreciate your flexibility. Afternoons are for contemplation. My best work is done in the morning and evening. I keep only a small staff after five, and I find the lack of distractions helps me concentrate.”

The sound of Trent’s smooth, public persona slipped into my awareness, jarring me awake. I opened my eyes, not understanding why everything was glaringly white and gray. Then I remembered. I was a mink. But I was alive. Barely.

The alternating high and low voices of Trent and Sara Jane’s interview continued as I shakily got to my feet to find I was in a cage. My stomach tightened at a wave of nausea. I sank down, struggling not to vomit. “I am so wasted,” I whispered as Trent flicked glances at me over his wire-rim glasses as he talked with a trim young woman in a pale interview suit.

My head hurt. If I didn’t have a concussion, it was close. My right shoulder where I had hit his desk was sore, and it hurt to breathe. I tucked my front paw close and tried not to move. Staring at Trent, I tried to figure things out. Jenks was nowhere. That’s right, I remembered in relief. He had made it out. He would have gone home to Ivy. Not that they could do anything for me.

My cage held a bottle of water, a bowl of pellets, a ferret hut large enough to curl up in, and an exercise wheel. Like I would ever use it, I thought bitterly.

I was sitting on a table at the back of Trent’s office. According to the fake sunlight from the window, it was only a few hours after sunrise. Too early for me. And though it stuck in my craw, I was going to slink into that hut and go to sleep. I didn’t care what Trent thought.