It hadn’t occurred to me that the people who’d come after us might have been a part of this shadowy community of magical practitioners. Lucille, Dr. Grant’s father, and even Marie and Alec were cool, if not a little strange—but Dr. Grant clearly wasn’t talking about them.

“How worried should I be?” I asked. “You’re not telling me something. Do we need to put in an alarm or something?”

“Probably not a bad idea,” she said. “For now, give me any information you can about what happened at the theater.”

I ran down the details I could remember, but it had been dark and everything happened so fast. What I knew for sure was that there were four men who’d come into the theater in two pairs. They didn’t say anything, and I didn’t see if they got into a car afterward. The one who’d bum-rushed Karter was a white guy, stocky build, but I didn’t get a good look at the others. She flipped the notepad closed and walked me back to the truck, where she turned her attention to Karter.

“You’re Karter?” Dr. Grant asked him.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Karter Redmond.”

“Are you new in town, too?”

Karter shifted in his seat. “I grew up here, ma’am.”

Dr. Grant questioned him and it turned out he’d noticed even less than I did. He’d seen a few of the men go into the theater and sit down but didn’t realize anything was off until I grabbed his arm. She tucked her notepad away and waved off the other Public Safety official. “I’ll tail you to your driveway and then I’ll be on my way.” She and I exchanged a nod of silent agreement and she walked back to her car.

“What do we do now?” Karter asked. “We’ll have to make an official statement, right?”

“Listen,” I said. “I need a favor that’s gonna sound ridiculous, but I need us to be on the same page.”

He eyed me suspiciously. “What is it?”

“I don’t want to tell anyone about what just happened. If my parents find out, I’ll be back in Brooklyn by tomorrow morning.”

Karter opened his mouth to speak, then stopped. He sat quietly for moment. “Aren’t you worried about who those people were? What they were tryna do? They attacked us. That guy tried to hem me up. You’re not worried about that?”