“You see, Ms. Morgan,” Dr. Anders said as she opened the lid and took a peek, “the more power you can channel, the smarter your familiar needs to be. I have an African gray parrot as my familiar.” She brought her gaze to mine. “Is that your homework?”

I stifled a surge of annoyance and handed her a pink folder full of short essays. Under it were Nick’s water-spotted pentagrams, the black paper curling and warped.

Dr. Anders’s lips were so tight, they were bloodless. “Thank you,” she said, tossing Nick’s sketches aside without even a cursory glance. “You’ve got a reprieve, Ms. Morgan. But you don’t belong in my class, and I will remove you the first chance I get.”

I kept my breathing shallow. I knew she wouldn’t dare say that if anyone else was in the room.

“Well,” she murmured as if tired, “let’s see how much aura your fish was able to accept.”

“It took a lot.” My mood shifted to one of nervousness. Nick had looked over my aura before he left last night, pronouncing it to be rather thin. It would slowly replace itself, but in the interim I felt vulnerable.

Dr. Anders kept her opinion of my obvious fluster to herself. Gaze going distant, she dipped her fingers into Bob’s water. The skin on the back of my neck tightened, and it seemed as if my hair drifted in the wind that always seemed to blow in the ever-after. I watched, fascinated, as a blue smear from her hands enveloped Bob. It was ley line power, having turned from red to blue as it reflected the dominant color in the woman’s aura.

It was unlikely that Dr. Anders was drawing upon the university’s ley line. The power had been taken earlier and stored; it made for faster spell casting. I was willing to bet having a sphere of ever-after in her gut was what made the woman so sour.

The blue haze about Bob vanished as Dr. Anders drew her fingers out of the water. “Take your fish and get out,” the woman said brusquely. “Consider yourself flunked.”

Floored, I could do nothing but stare. “What?” I finally managed.

Dr. Anders wiped her fingers dry on a tissue and threw it in her trash can under her desk. “This fish isn’t bound to you. If it were, the ley line force I cloaked it with would have turned to the color of your aura.” Her gaze went indistinct—as if she was looking through me—then her focus sharpened. “Your aura is a sickly gold. What have you been doing, Ms. Morgan, to get it soiled with such a thick haze of red and black?”

“But I followed the instructions!” I cried, not standing up as she began writing on my form. “I’m missing a good chunk of my aura. Where is it?”

“Maybe a bug got into your circle,” she said irately. “Go home, call your familiar, and see what comes.”

Heart pounding, I licked my lips. How the hell do you call your familiar?