The man disappeared. I got up, started to leave, then paused. “Caldera?”

“Yeah.”

“That was half the reason. The other half . . . I’d rather you stayed alive.”

Caldera looked back at me for a long moment, then nodded. I climbed out of the ambulance and went to find Vari and go home.

| | | | | | | | |

As Vari and I walked out of my downstairs storeroom, there was a clatter of footsteps from upstairs. Luna poked her head out from around the banister, and she seemed to relax as she saw us both. “You’re okay?”

“We’re okay,” I said, wearily starting up the stairs. “Looks like you’re getting better at sensing gates.”

Luna had an endless stream of questions, and I used the excuse of making tea to let Variam do most of the talking. When it came to the fight in the safe house though, I had to tell the story, sitting in the armchair with legs crossed, a tiny trail of steam rising up from the mug in front of me.

“You’re so lucky,” Luna said disconsolately when I finished.

“I just had an eight-foot golem try to redecorate the room with my internal organs,” I said. “Lucky is not the word I would choose.”

“Can I come with you tomorrow?”

“It’s a police investigation. They don’t run ‘Bring Your Daughter to Work Day.’”

“Yeah, well, I spent the day on Theory of Magic makeup classes,” Luna said. “At least you got to do something fun.”

Even I have trouble believing Luna sometimes. “Luna, I swear, by the time you’re thirty, either you’re going to have more combat experience than any other girl in the British Isles, or you’re going to be dead. And no, I don’t know which.”

“Okay,” Variam said, “you’re not going to like hearing this, but I’m going to say it. Your new magic teacher, this Chalice? Maybe this whole thing was a setup.”

Luna frowned. “How?”

“She was the one who sent him to Uxbridge, right?”

“That doesn’t prove anything.”

“Yeah, well, she’s a Dark mage, and the first place she sends you, you nearly get your head chopped off. You don’t think that’s a funny coincidence?”

“Just because—”

I raised my hand and Luna subsided. “I did think about it,” I said to Variam. “When Chalice was doing that spell, I didn’t sense any magic. Could mean that I just didn’t spot it, but it could mean she wasn’t doing anything at all—she just knew the address already. That’s what you were thinking of, right?”

Variam nodded, but I kept going before he could answer. “But there’s a problem. Remember what I told you about the icecats? They went after Leo. Same for that force mage. Caldera and I weren’t the primary target. Leo was.”

Variam frowned. “Okay.”

“So if Chalice was behind the attack, why send me to Uxbridge at all?” I said. “We’d never have found the place in time without her help. If she wanted Leo dead, all she had to do was go there herself. And if she didn’t want Leo dead but she was behind the attack, why was Leo the target?”