She looked up from her writing, putting her crossed arms down upon the page. “You don’t know how to call your familiar.”

It wasn’t a question. I lifted my left shoulder and let it fall in a shrug. What could I say?

“I’ll do it,” she muttered. “Give me your hand.”

I started as she grabbed my wrist. Her bony grip was surprisingly strong. The metallic taste of ash coated my tongue as Dr. Anders muttered an incantation. It was like chewing tinfoil, and I pulled away as soon as her fingers slackened. Rubbing my wrist, I watched Bob, willing him to swim to the surface, or toward me, or something. He just sat on the bottom and swished his tail.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered, feeling betrayed by my books and the spell-casting abilities I was so confident in. “I followed the instructions to the letter.”

Dr. Anders was positively smug. “You will find, Ms. Morgan, that unlike earth magic, ley line manipulation requires more than an unimaginative adherence to rules and to-do lists. It needs talent and a certain amount of freethinking and adaptability. Go home. Make a pet out of whatever shows up on your doorstep. And don’t come back to my classroom.”

“But I did everything right!” I protested, standing up as she made shooing motions and shuffled her papers in dismissal. “I stood on the scrying mirror and pushed my aura off. I got it into the transfer medium without touching it. I put Bob in with it—”

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.”