Ceri handed Trent my scrying mirror, and I saw his expression close off in the gathering dusk. Damn, the thing was beautiful out here in the gloomy light, the wine-colored glass etched with crystalline lines in the shape of the calling pentagram with all its little figures and symbols. I couldn’t tell if Trent thought it beautiful or foul, and I wondered if that was why Ceri insisted he summon Minias. She might be trying to convince him neither she nor I was immoral for what we did, just incredibly stupid.

Swallowing hard, Trent knelt on the red pavement. He set the glass carefully in front of him, and he put a shaky hand on the mirror. My nose tickled, then faded, and when a queer feeling of falling inside out flipped through me, I wasn’t surprised when Trent blinked fast several times.

“Trent Kalamack,” he said softly, clearly talking to Minias. “I ask for your attention in a matter of traveling the lines and am prepared to pay. I won’t pay for you coming over here to discuss it, though. That is your choice, not my request.”

Trent blanched at Minias’s unheard response. “I’m using Morgan’s calling circle,” he said as if answering a question, then followed it up with “Standing beside me.”

A sudden pop of air pressure hurt my eardrums, and I jumped.

Minias had blinked into this side of reality within Trent’s circle. A thin hand held his yellow cap onto his head, and his beautiful green-trimmed robe looked loose and undone. His curly hair was in disarray, and with him was the scent of burnt amber and bread hot from the oven.

The demon had his back to me, but I could see his shock when he realized where he was and spun. “By the two worlds colliding,” he swore softly as he looked me up and down. “After sunset and still alive? How did you manage that?”

I shrugged one shoulder as Trent took his hand from the mirror and stood. Her back hunched, Ceri whisked it away.

“You kick your dog one too many times, someone’s going to call the animal protection agency,” I said, not liking the servile attitude Ceri had adopted in Minias’s presence. “Now that’s an organization you don’t want to piss off.”

Minias’s gaze went to my friends clustered together on holy ground, then Trent—who was trying to look calm—then finally back to me. “An audience?”

I shrugged again. “My friends.”

Trent cleared his throat. “This is nice, but we do have a deadline.”

My lips pressed. “Which you just blabbed to him, Trent. Way to go.”

Trent reddened, and Ceri made a telling face. Minias, though, tugged his yellow robe tightly closed and smiled wickedly at the elf.

“I want to bargain with you,” Trent said, casually clasping his hands behind his back to hide their trembling. “I don’t want to know your name; I’ve asked for your presence, not summoned you; and I’m never going to call you again.”