At two in the afternoon Julia spiked spell number sixty-eight on an otherwise perfect run-through. Iris rolled her eyes and groaned and lay down full-length on the wooden floor and stared up at the ceiling. She couldn’t even look at Julia anymore. Julia didn’t pause but went right back to the beginning, whereupon she stuffed level fourteen, a gimme spell that even Jared knew cold.

“God!” Iris shouted at the ceiling. “Get it right!”

By the time Julia rattled off two perfect runs, right through to seventy-seven, it was six thirty in the evening. They hadn’t broken for lunch. Julia hadn’t even sat down. The setting sun, angling in from the west, painted the long wall a chalky pink. Her feet were killing her.

“All right,” Iris said. “That’s it. Same time tomorrow.”

“But we’re not done.”

Iris levered herself up off the floor.

“Nope, we’re done. Finish tomorrow.”

“We’re not done.”

Iris stopped and stared at Julia through her nerd glasses. Maybe Iris was annoyed at having to babysit the new fish, but Julia had so much more anger than Iris did at her disposal. She was making a withdrawal from her stockpile now, spending a little of the principal, and it hardly made a dent. She walked over to a window and punched it. It would have broken if she hadn’t already cast level fifty-six on it three times that day.

“All right, Julia, I get it. I was tough on you. I’m sorry. Come on. Let’s get some dinner.”

“We’re done when I say we’re done.”

Julia cast a locking spell on the door (level seventy-two). It was a symbolic gesture, as there were in fact two doors out of the Long Study, and Iris could probably have unpicked her level seventy-two in a couple of minutes anyway. That wasn’t the point. The point was that Julia had been waiting four years to get to Murs. Iris could skip dinner.

Iris sat back down and put her head in her hands.

“Whatever.”

She could stand to skip a few meals anyway, Julia thought. She’s working on a muffin-top situation with those jeans.

Julia started again. She was going slower now, and when she was done the room was dark. It was almost nine o’clock. Iris stood up. She tried the door Julia had locked, swore, and walked the length of the Long Study to the other door without looking back or saying a word. Julia watched her go.

There was no touching moment of female bonding. The grizzled sergeant didn’t chuck her on the shoulder and grudgingly admit that the rookie might make a hell of a soldier one day after all. But when she reported to the Long Study at eight o’clock the following morning it was tacitly understood that they could now skip the alpha-chick bullshit.