Bernie.
It was him—of course it was him. Didn’t he poke and prod to get her out of the building that afternoon? Didn’t he make a point of saying on her first day that the corridors went nowhere?
What in blue blazes was he doing?
The doorknob was warm to the touch, tingling under her fingers like mild static electricity—and locked.
“Oh, come on,” she muttered, yanking on it. To vent, not because she thought that would work.
But it did. She tumbled onto her backside, stunned, as the door burst open.
Inside, a cavernous room. Inside the room, a man wearing a cowboy hat.
And hovering at least fifteen feet above the floor.
He was too far away to see properly, but she could hardly miss how he recoiled as the door cracked against the wall. He hung in the air for perhaps a half-second more—just long enough for her to gasp,“Magic!”—and dropped like a stone, disappearing from view behind a large table at the center of the room.
Blank shock over the whole situation kept Emily on the floor for another couple seconds.Hadit been magic? What was happening?
“Hello?” she called out, getting no answer.
Scrambling to her feet, she dashed in, jettisoning the three-hole punch as she went. Why wasn’t he standing up? Had he been hurt? Her heart clenched when she found him lying motionless on his stomach, outstretched arms obscuring his face. The rest of his head was covered by his coat collar and the dark cowboy hat, which had landed only slightly askew.
“Bernie?” This came out half an octave higher than normal, wavery and fearful. Oh God, it was all her fault. “Are you—are you all right?”
The words echoed in the otherwise silent room.
“Be alive, be alive,” she pleaded, pulling his coat back to feel for a pulse.
She just had time to register the lack of salt-and-pepper hair on the nape beneath—the lack of any hair at all—when the man knocked her feet out from under her with one swift kick.
2
Practitioner
She opened her eyes to a ceiling that seemed too far away and shut them to stop the sickening sensation of falling—down a rabbit hole, like Alice. Then she realized she was flat on her back, lying on something hard. Soft. Both?
“Dr. Daggett?”
Oh. The floor. She was on the floor with some sort of cushion under her head—her aching, aching head.
“Dr. Daggett!”
She supposed she ought to say something. Whoever this person was, he seemed upset. But her “yes?” sounded too much like a groan to be reassuring.
“Can you sit up?” The man sounded familiar. “No, no, wait,” he added as she shifted experimentally. “I’m going to help. Easy now.”
Hands slipped behind her shoulders and supported her. Her head throbbed, but once she got upright, the pain eased enough for her to risk opening her eyes. Kneeling beside her, showing every sign of deep concern, was Hartgrave.
Great. She was hallucinating. She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again.
Still Hartgrave.
“Are you all right?” His voice faltered on the last word.
“What—what happened?”
He looked as disoriented as she felt. “I heard a loud thump. You were lying on the ground.”
