He looked irritated. "I'm a lab tech! I went through basic training a decade ago and wasn't much good at it then. I didn't know if my skills would be enough. She warded her apartment and acquired protection."

"So? It was nothing your dark mage buddies couldn't have handled."

"I told you—they aren't my 'buddies. And you can't trust people like that. Some of them might have decided to kill her and take over where she left off."

"So you sent me instead."

"I needed someone with the ability to shrug off illusions and the necessary combat skills. It was a short list."

"You sent my own students to attack me, knowing they'd fail, that I might have to kill one or more of them—" I cut myself off before my voice got away from me. I'd always had more trouble controlling it than my face.

"To give you a motive to go after her, yes. I have no idea what happened to the real Colafranceschi, but if she's still alive, she's probably hiding under an alias. All I did was substitute a photo of Roberts in her file and fake the tests to make it seem that she had originated the Trial spell instead of me."

"So I'd kill her for you."

"Yes." He looked perplexed. "Why talk to her first? It's one thing I didn't expect—"

"Because she had Jason—or so I assumed. I've been racking up a lot of black marks lately and figured getting him back would erase most of them. Out of curiosity, where is he?"

Simons ignored the question. "I should have thought of that, shouldn't I?" he asked fretfully. "But I've been run ragged with the demands of the war and trying to do intelligence gathering on the side and then that bitch showing up with her ridiculous demands… I couldn't be expected to think of everything."

"Guess not. So where is he?"

Simons shot me a suspicious look. "Why do you care?"

"I told you: I'm curious."

Something in my face must have finally slipped, because his eyes widened. "You're not here to shake me down, are you?"

Fuck it. I hadn't really thought this was going to work. I drew my gun and pointed it at him. "Where?"

And then had to duck to avoid the curse he threw in my direction. It hit the metal shelving behind me like a hammer blow, knocking it over and sending a bunch of still-full packing containers tumbling down on top of me. One of them crashed into my skull and another hit my wounded shoulder, opening it up again and spraying the floor in front of me with red droplets.

I scrambled to my feet, slid on my own blood and went down again, before finally getting enough traction to follow him into the next office. There was no one in sight. Dammit! He'd already disappeared through the door to the hallway.

I started after him, but there was a violent hammering in my chest and the room started spinning. And then I was grabbed from behind and dragged out the door. The hallway wasn't so quiet anymore. Half a dozen mages blocked the way to the stairs, and three more loitered near the one elevator that had so far been installed. Simons headed for it anyway, but drew up at the sound of his boss's voice.

"Ben! You bloody fool!"

Simons whirled, taking me with him, in time to see Hargrove walking down the corridor toward us. He looked as pulled together as always, not a hair out of place, not a wrinkle on his snappy charcoal suit. He even had a little yellow pocket hankie standing to attention over his left breast.

Simons jerked us back against the wall, holding me in front of him like a shield, making my brain slosh up against the back of my skull. I bit back a groan—I really hadn't needed that. "Tell them to get out of the way or I'll kill her," he said, looking wildly at the mages surrounding us.

For some reason, Hargrove was looking at me instead of his onetime colleague. "You never took the Trials, did you, Accalia?" he asked thoughtfully.

"I'm not joking!" Simons screamed, shoving a gun into my ribs.

Hargrove ignored him. "I always wondered. How would you have chosen?"

If I'd had a hand free, I swear I'd have flipped him off. I knew what he was asking, and for a moment I tried to think of appropriate last words, but they kept tripping over the edges of my tongue, falling away into oblivion. "Oh, fuck it!" I finally said. "Just kill him already!"

I slammed an elbow back into Simons's gut and tried to wrench myself free, but he held on. There was a series of explosions and something slammed into my side, quickly followed by searing pain. The room spun wildly and he dropped me, sliding down the wall to a seated position, leaving a wide smear of red on the unpainted concrete. I staggered a few feet, but my leg gave way and I fell, my head bouncing off the floor when I hit.

And then nothing.

I woke up in a hospital bed under cold fluorescent lights. The division's leading physician was bending over me, his usual scowl firmly in place. It deepened when he noticed that my eyes were open. "Trust you to wake up early," he muttered. I had just enough time to think, Oh, I guess I'm alive, before every nerve ending in my side exploded. I screamed and thrashed, sending him staggering back into the wall. And wow, was that a mistake.

Sedgewick has a reputation for being brusque, unsympathetic, impatient, and mean. But that's for patients who haven't almost knocked him out. I not only had to endure having my bandage changed more perfunctorily than normal, but was treated to a tongue lashing as well. No extra charge.

He finally finished torturing me and left, only to be replaced by an unsmiling Hargrove. I wasn't alive, I decided. I'd died and gone to Hell.

Hargrove settled himself primly on a hard metal seat. "His bedside manner compares unfavorably with Torquemada's, doesn't it?" he asked.

I blinked at him. Obviously, I was hallucinating. Because it sounded like Hargrove had made a funny.

When I just stared at him, he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I have a meeting in fifteen minutes, so I'll make this quick. You're to receive a commendation for your actions yesterday. It will go in your file whenever I get caught up enough to write it."

"Yesterday?" The edges of my vision were doing this weird butterfly thing. I blinked, but it didn't help much.

"You've been out of it for more than twenty-four hours."

I absorbed that for a moment. "Why aren't I dead?"

"Because you were shot literally yards from our main medical facilities and you're half Were," he said tersely.

"So I take it Simons is—?"

"Dead, yes. And before you can ask, Jason is fine. Simons instructed him to lead us to the Roberts woman and then to elude capture and double back to his apartment. We found him there last night."

"He's okay." I couldn't quite believe it. Hargrove had wanted to send in a team to deal with his traitorous subordinate, but I'd insisted on going myself. I was the only war mage with a reputation bad enough that Simons might believe I could be bought off, giving me a chance to talk to him before he panicked. I'd been almost certain that he wouldn't have risked keeping Jason alive, but I'd had to know. I guess he'd been telling the truth about his busy schedule lately.

"All four recruits have made full recoveries, at least physically," Hargrove informed me. "I believe they are somewhat concerned about what effect attempting to murder their instructor will have on their grades. I trust you will exploit that fear to the fullest."

"I'm still an instructor?"

He cocked an eyebrow at me. "Why wouldn't you be?"

"I—Adam—"

"Was murdered, yes, but not by you."

"It doesn't feel that way," I said softly.

"Nonetheless, that was the case. Rather than becoming maudlin, you should perhaps try to focus on the fact that you saved four lives, as well as helped us to identify the mole who has been leaking our battle plans. We knew it had to be someone in a key position, but we were looking at combat personnel, not laboratory technicians. But as one of our forensic specialists, Simons was often privy to sensitive information."