"I had a key."

"And you obtained this key how?"

"I found it in my Lucky Charms."

Snickers erupted from the first two rows of benches. Luna had some friends in the Nocturne City PD, even now, with the whole werewolf scandal.

The judged banged her gavel. "Settle down. I will clear this courtroom."

"Your Honor, would you please instruct the witness to answer truthfully, and remind her what the penalty is for perjury?"

"Quit grandstanding, Mr. Fisk, and move your questioning along. Detective Wilder isn't here to help you make your case."

Fisk blushed, and the judge folded her arms and dared him to contradict her. Luna smirked at the defense before she leaned into the mic and said, oh so sweetly, "Shall I elaborate, sir?"

Fisk went from a schoolgirl blush to tomato. "I'm done with this witness," he said tightly.

"Detective Wilder, you can step down," said the judge. The prosecutor stood up. He was younger and slimmer than Fisk, his suit didn't fit, and he was cute. That, at least, was some small reward for sitting on this rock-hard bench all afternoon while Luna waited to testify.

"Your Honor, could we request a recess before the next witness? My cocounsel and I need to go over our questions one last time."

"Lack of planning on your part is not my problem, Mr. Procter," said the judge. She looked like a less cuddly version of Kathy Bates. "But fortunately for you, I could use a cup of coffee. Thirty-minute recess." The gavel came down, and chatter erupted.

Luna slumped into the seat next to mine. "I swear to the gods, I was about one step from vaulting the rail and nailing that smarmy bastard right in the gonads." This was a standard greeting from Luna, so I nodded.

"Think he'll get Trotter off?" Gordon Trotter was the CFO of the O'Halloran Group, and he was on the hook for securities fraud and a bunch of other shenanigans that made my eyes glaze over. Seamus O'Halloran, the CEO, wasn't next to him. Seamus O'Halloran was dead.

Luna snorted. "Oh, yeah. O'Halloran was one smart bastard, and what he couldn't do with dummy corporations and stock fraud, he magicked into being. There isn't one shred of evidence to tie any of them to the shit the O'Halloran Group was pulling. Flunkies will go down and Trotter will get a deal."

"You make it sound so certain." I looked at the back of Trotter's head, at the defense table. His bald spot was sweating under the TV lights that sprang to life as soon as the judge called a recess.

"Cuz, when you've seen as many scumbags as I have make deals and go on their merry way, you get a certain amount of cynicism."

I was going to answer and tell her if cynicism was booze, she'd be a third-stage alcoholic, but the sense of someone else's magick slammed into me like a truck and stole my words.

Witches aren't rare, especially in Nocturne City, but I'm used to being the only one in a given room. Whipping my head around, I saw a court clerk lugging an attache case, winding through the milling spectators toward the defense table. His magick flowed behind him, bright and hot as a forest fire. Somehow, I got the feeling he wasn't delivering a brief.

"Luna," I said, standing up. She followed my eyes.

"What?"

"You have your gun?"

She patted her hip under her vintage Valentino jacket. "Glock. Don't leave home without it."

"Good. You may have to use it in a second."

Leaving her sputtering, I shoved past the people at the end of my row and into the aisle.

I felt the working rise as the clerk—overweight, white, glasses, no one you'd expect to be anything special—closed in on Fisk and Trotter. He was muttering something over and over. "Vengeance est mei."

He dropped the case, papers scattering like doves. His hand came up, the black glass caster in it catching the light as he raised it over his head. Trotter stared at the clerk, wide-eyed as the man screamed, "Vengeance est mei!"

His working struck. I felt the ambient magick in the room rush toward his caster, and felt myself stick to the spot like I was Superglue Girl. I'd seen the result of offensive magick before—burning cars, twisted bodies, the black aftershocks in the aether that happen only when someone uses their craft to cause someone else a messy death.

Luna gave a shout, a few steps behind me. She was moving. She had her gun out.

She wouldn't be fast enough, even with were-speed.

My hand twitched down to my coat pocket, where I kept my own caster. Wood, for purity. Silver-edged, for strength. Before I really knew what had happened, it was out, thrust in front of me, at the second witch.

"Bright lady bind the circle and protect all those within," I whispered, yanking magick into the caster and funneling it into a circle around Fisk and Trotter.

The witch turned, blinking at me from behind thick glasses. "Bitch," he said in disbelief. "You can't stop me!"

"Put it down or you get two between your beady little eyes!" Luna bellowed next to my ear. Her gun looked big as a house.

He started to laugh. "I will be the exalted one. I'll be the master!" His working rose, strengthened. I could feel the spectral flames licking my face, begging to be called into this world.

"Bright lady bind the circle, and protect all those within!" I said, frantic. It came out jumbled through my panic-numbed lips. Brightladybindthecircle…

I pushed. He shoved. I felt my circle snap into place, a bubble of light magick over the defense table, barely holding under the onslaught of the second witch. He went red in the face, sweat dripping off him.

"In Persephone's… name…," he ground out. He was strong. Not trained, but strong as an ox. I was trained, terrified, and losing ground with my protection circle. I wondered which one of us would explode first.

The two magicks manifested as we put more and more power into them, my circle wavering gently, like a soap bubble, and his explosive spell charring the floor of the courtroom. Blood leaked from my nose, spattering my shoe and the wood in front of me.

The witch grinned into my bloody face. "I win."

Pop. Pop pop. The clerk screamed as his leg and shoulder erupted in three red fountains. His caster fell and went skittering under the prosecution's table.

His working snapped, all the power running out like a drain as his concentration broke.

I held my circle. Held it with every ounce of me. Feedback screamed in my head, the warning that I was pulling down too much power, burning out my circuits…

"Sunny."

I gasped, and looked to Luna, who was holding her Glock down at her side. She put her hand on my shoulder. "It's okay. You can stop now."

She peeled the caster out of my hands. The silver had burned my palms. Luna winced at the injury, and holstered her weapon, putting her hands over mine. "You did good, kid."

Trotter and Fisk were looking at me like I had three heads. As I came back to myself, I saw the entire courtroom was gawking with them. Luna laughed, low down in her stomach.

"Hey. For once, they're not all staring at me."

The clerk, whose name turned out to be Joe Abrams, got taken away to Nocturne Memorial, and Trotter and Fisk went to Luna's precinct, the Twenty-fourth. She let me ride with her without comment.

I couldn't stop shaking. "If my circle hadn't held, everyone in that room would have died," I said out loud as we mounted the steps.

"But it did," Luna said. "I gotta take statements. You can wait at my desk, okay?"

I sank into her creaky swivel chair and pressed my hands over my face. Everyone could have died, and it'd be all my fault. This is why I'm not heroic. It's too damn taxing.

Luna's phone rang, and kept ringing, and eventually a detective at the next desk glared at me. "You gonna answer that or serenade us all day?"