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“How did you get out?” I asked.

“I just told you, Katie, I aimed for my brooch.” Even in her exhausted state, she sounded condescending.Advertisement

“What about the dragon?”

She sighed and shook her head. “Katie, there’s no such thing as dragons. Now, about my brooch? It was a birthday gift from my fiancé, and I’d like it back. Don’t make me call the police.”

I spotted the fake brooch lying nearby on the platform. “There it is,” I said. “Take it. I promise I’ll leave you alone now.”

She limped over to it, bent to pick it up, then pinned it on her tattered dress and took a few long, deep breaths. Then she frowned in disappointment. “Something’s wrong,” she said. “I don’t feel the power.”

“The power was in you all along,” I said, feeling like I was reenacting the end of The Wizard of Oz. “You don’t need a gem to be a bit—I mean, to be in charge. You need to find your own power.”

She scrunched up her face, like she didn’t quite believe that, then she shrugged and limped away toward the concourse. Owen and I turned to watch her go, then Owen said, “I hope the dragon’s okay.”

“You’d probably better send someone with magical powers to check on it,” I said. “I know I’m not going back in there.” Then my brain finally caught up to the current situation. With Mimi gone, that accounted for one of our nemeses, but what about all the puritans and Raphael who’d been on the platform with us when the Eye was destroyed? Sam had said everyone was knocked unconscious.

I glanced behind us and saw all the puritans just starting to stir. They were surrounded by MSI gargoyles. “What will happen to them?” I asked Sam.

“The boss figures that attempting to start a magical war puts them in Enforcer territory. He’s staying out of it, on account of the Eye being his creation in the first place. The Council’s not happy about having to take action, but it’ll do them good to have to take a stand on something.”

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“What about him?” Owen asked, gesturing toward where Raphael lay, still motionless.

“I dunno. Who is he?”

“He seemed to have had some issue with my birth parents. He should probably be taken to the infirmary and kept under watch. I think he was suicidal. We barely pulled him back from jumping onto the tracks before the brooch exploded.”

“Okay, I’ll have our people deal with him,” Sam said.

There were some popping sounds as the magical Enforcers materialized on the platform. I’d spent too much time evading them during the summer to be entirely comfortable with their presence, even though they were supposedly on our side this time. Their leader came over to us. “There was a report of an insurrection movement?” he said with a suspicious glance at Owen.

“Over there,” Sam gestured with a wing. “Those guys could have destroyed us all if these kids hadn’t stopped ’em.”

The Enforcer signaled to his men, who bound the barely stirring puritans with silver chains, then disappeared with their prisoners. I gave a big sigh of relief when they were gone. If I never saw the puritans again, it would be too soon. I just hoped they didn’t come up with any more crazy schemes for purifying the magical world.

The lead Enforcer stayed with us. “Is there anything else we need to know?” he asked, his attention on Owen.

“Merlin can tell the Council everything,” Owen said. “And, no, I wasn’t part of it, I wasn’t a target. I never touched the Eye, and I wasn’t the one who destroyed it. You can also tell your people to take the next few days off from following me because I’ll probably be sleeping.”

The Enforcer raised an eyebrow, but he said nothing before he disappeared. “Should we have mentioned Raphael?” I asked.

“He didn’t really do anything,” Owen said. “In fact, he helped protect us. I’d like to see if we can help him rather than turn him over to the Council. He needs the infirmary, not Council detention.”

“Speaking of the infirmary, we’d better get you two to the office,” Sam said. “Or maybe to a hospital, since magical healers won’t be of much use to you.”

“That gash on your leg will need medical attention,” I said to Owen before he could protest.

There was a commotion at the entrance to the platform, and in came Granny, followed by Earl, Thor, and someone else who looked vaguely familiar but whom I didn’t immediately recognize. Granny came right up to me. “Young lady, I told you that you needed me with you, and you just ran off.” Her voice was sharp, and she punctuated each phrase with a poke of her cane. pqdm.com