“What the Turn?” I said to myself, trying to see past the cars lined up before me. Traffic was at a standstill, and when I rolled the window down, I could hear a crowd and a bullhorn a few blocks up. I was nearly at the square. Something was wrong. Ivy was there.

Pulse fast, I jerked the wheel, driving in the wrong lane for a few car lengths to pull into a tiny—and illegal—parking spot for the meter police. I waved at the guy blowing his horn at me as I popped my FIB sign in the front window and grabbed my shoulder bag. Thanks to my weekend sleepovers at Trent’s I was in a clean pair of jeans and a casual sweater, but I felt anything but professional as I locked the car and strode off, boots clunking.

Nina? I wondered, shocked as her voice came through the bullhorn, her aggressive urgency mixing with the rising roar of unseen people. Crap on toast, Felix had committed suncide this morning. A handful of other masters had gone from soul-induced depression to out-of-control raging when their souls were ripped from them. That they were forced underground was a blessing and a breathing space. Cops were everywhere, both the FIB and the I.S., and I strode up to the nearest. “Excuse me. What’s going on?”

“That way, miss,” he directed, and I jerked back before he could touch me. His expression hardened, and he actually looked at me. “There’s an illegal demonstration at the square,” he said, clearly not recognizing me. “Please go home.”

They were almost lining the streets now, and everyone was being turned away. “Ah, I’m trying to reach someone,” I said, thinking if Nina was in there, so was Ivy. “I mean, I was called in to work,” I said, flashing my old I.S. badge with my spell-burned hair and dopey look. “Who do I talk to?”

“Hell if I know,” the cop muttered as he looked at my street clothes. “Go on.”

He didn’t have to say it twice, and I slipped behind the forming human wall and hustled to the square, waving my outdated ID at everyone with a badge who looked my way. My pulse pounded, and the brief respite of people vanished. It wasn’t a demonstration, it was a mob, and I stood in the middle of the blocked-off road trying to make sense of it.