My feet hit him squarely in the chest and we both went down.

Where was everyone? I thought as my hip took the fall and I grunted in pain. I was making enough noise to wake the undead. But as such commotion was more common than silence these days, Ivy and Jenks would probably ignore it and hope it went away.

Slipping, I skittered from Quen. Hands reaching unseeing, I scrabbled for my paint ball gun kept purposely at crawling height. I yanked it out. Nested copper pots rolled noisily.

“Enough!” I shouted, arms stiff as I sat on my butt in saltwater, aiming at him. It was loaded with water-filled splat balls for practice, but he didn’t know that. “What do you want?”

Quen hesitated, water making darker smears on his black pants. His eye twitched.

Adrenaline surged. He was going to risk it.

Instinct and practice with Ivy made me squeeze the trigger as he leapt onto the table to land like a cat. I tracked him, squeezing out every last splat ball.

His expression went affronted as he pulled himself to a crouching halt, his attention jerking from me to the six new splatters on his skintight shirt. Crap. I’d missed him once. Jaw clenched, his eyes narrowed in anger. “Water?” he said. “You load your spell gun with water?”

“Ain’t you just lucky for that?” I snapped. “What do you want?” He shook his head, and my breath hissed in as I felt a dropping sensation in me. He was tapping the line out back.

Panic jerked me to my feet, and I flung my hair out of my eyes. From his vantage point on the table, Quen straightened to his full height, his hands moving as he whispered Latin.

“Like hell you will!” I shouted, throwing my splat gun at him. He ducked, and I snatched up whatever I could to throw it at him, desperate to keep him from finishing the charm.

Quen dodged the butter tub of frosting. It thunked into the wall to make a green smear. Grabbing the cookie tin, I ran around the counter, swinging it like a board. He dove off the table to avoid it, cursing at me. Cookies and red-hot candies went everywhere.

I followed him, grabbing him about the knees to bring us both down in a sodden splat. He twisted in my grip until his livid green eyes met mine. Hands scrabbling, I shoved saltwater soggy cookies into his mouth so he couldn’t verbally invoke a charm.

He spit them at me, his deeply tanned, pockmarked face vehement. “You little canicula—” he managed, and I jammed some more into him.

His teeth closed on my finger, and I shrieked, jerking back. “You bit me!” I shouted, incensed. My fist swung, but he rolled to his feet, crashing into the chairs.

Panting, he stood. He was soaked, covered in water and sparkles of colored sugar. Growling an unheard word, he leapt.

I lurched upright to flee. Pain lanced through my scalp as he grabbed my hair and spun me around into an embrace, my back to his chest. One arm went chokingly around my neck. The other slipped between my legs, yanking me up onto one foot.