Lex put a hand on my shoulder, and I turned toward him. “There’s somethin’ she’s not tellin’ you.” I frowned at him, curious, and watched as he studied the girl. “A severe allergic reaction isn’t enough to get her tossed in next to the likes of that shifter.”

“Oh. Good point,” I replied sheepishly. Sure, it seemed pretty severe to me, because for a witch interfering with the free will of another falls into the category of harming someone. Alchemists don’t suffer from those kinds of moral issues though. They’re a mercenary lot, ready to stir a spell for the highest bidder with no questions asked.

“What’s your name?” I asked, focusing on her again.

“Jane.”

Ugh, plain Jane, no wonder she lost out to a Jennifer. “Jane, did something else happen?”

Squirming, she turned away and stared at the opposite wall. “Not to Todd.”

“Okay?” I prompted, waiting for an explanation. Jane refused to elaborate, continuing to stare sullenly at the wall.

“What happened to Jennifer?” Lex asked.

“Her hair fell out.”

That was odd. True, it was the sort of spiteful thing I expected from a teenage girl, but it also wasn’t a very big crime. “Was whatever you gave her supposed to make her hair fall out?”

“No. It was supposed to kill her.”

“Right then,” I said. Guess high school really is tougher these days. Without another word I turned and headed back to the first cell, giving the shapeshifter a wide berth. The imp had returned to staring dejectedly at the floor. “Okay. Tell me what you broke.”

“I broke the metal bird.”

“Metal bird? What metal bird?”

“The big silver one with the red and blue stripes.”

A sinking feeling formed in the pit of my stomach. Oh no. “An airplane?” The imp nodded. “Lord and Lady,” I whispered. “What did you break on the airplane?”

“A big round thing.”

I really hoped it meant a wheel and not an engine. “What happened to the airplane after you broke the big round thing?”

“The round thing started to smoke, big black smoke, and then it went boom!” There was a note of manic glee in the imp’s voice. “And then the metal bird fell out of the sky and there was an even bigger boom!”

A nauseous, lightheaded feeling washed over me as I realized just what the imp was guilty of. The little bastard had brought down a plane-not just a “oh the landing gear failed” kind of thing, but the sort of fiery explosion that the more bloodthirsty cable news networks like to show over and over again. I hoped it was a small plane, but a lot of the big airlines had red and blue in their logos. No matter what size the plane was, the imp’s tampering caused the death of innocent people. With that in mind, the imp’s punishment seemed like a no-brainer, so I didn’t know how it could be considered a test of my abilities. There had to be some sort of catch I was missing-

Lord and Lady. Mac’s plane left that morning.

“When did this happen?” I asked the imp, a spike of fear slicing through me.

“Just now.”

“Like when? This morning? Ten minutes ago?” The imp shrugged its tiny red shoulders. “Where did it crash? Where was it going?”

“I dunno. Somewhere in the human realm.”

Frustrated, I turned and walked over to Cecelia. “What plane was it? When did it leave?”

The faerie woman raised a regal eyebrow. “Will the answer affect your decision?”

“Was it Mac’s plane?” I nearly shouted, at the end of my patience.

She seemed to ponder my question for a long, tense moment, and then she nodded. “Yes, it was.”

It felt as though the air had been sucked out of the room, and I struggled to breathe. My knees wobbled beneath me as I stumbled backward. “Imma be sick.” Turning, I caught a glimpse of Lex’s expression-the color had drained from his face, and his mouth was set in a grim line. My legs threatened to give out and collapse beneath me, but before they did he grabbed me and pulled me into his arms. I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against his chest, letting him comfort me as I broke down into hysterical sobs. Lex murmured to me, stroking my hair as I struggled to pull myself together and regain my composure. Eventually I pulled away to dig through my purse for some tissue.

“I’m better now, thanks,” I murmured as Lex released me. “You have any advice here on possible judgments?” My voice was as raw and as weak as my knees had been, and I winced at the sound of it.

“You’re gonna have to put that dog down, it’s worse than rabid,” he replied, and I nodded. “I don’t know what to tell you about the imp, you’re gonna need to decide that for yourself, but I think the kid might be redeemable. Teenagers are brain damaged that way, they do stupid things.”

“Maybe.” I had a pretty good idea of what judgments I was going to hand out, but I had a few questions first. With slow, uneven steps I approached Cecelia.

“Have you decided the fates of these criminals?” she asked.

“I have.”

“Very well. What do you decree for the imp?”

Of course she had to ask about that one first. Great. Well, it was a tough call. Yeah the little terrorist bastard deserved death in a good old-fashioned law of Hammurabi kind of way. But then again imps just don’t realize what sort of havoc they cause when they tamper with machinery on the scale of an airplane, because they’re not exactly problem-solving critters. Most of them stick to the small stuff, but when they escalate to something on this scale there’s really only one thing you can do to stop them. You can either kill them, or you can send them somewhere they can’t cause any more trouble.

If I wanted be a good witch, I’d spare its life by banishing it to the Gray, a realm without warmth, sound, or color, where it would spend eternity tormenting beings that deserved it. It’s Hell, essentially, or at least a version of it. But I’d already proved that I wasn’t a good witch, and right now I wasn’t feeling merciful.

“Death.”

“Done.” Cecelia nodded, and the little bugger gave a piercing shriek of protest and vanished from its cell. I was glad that it vanished. I wasn’t sure I could deal with watching it die. There was a part of me that was afraid I’d enjoy it.

“Your decision for the wolf?”

“I have a question first. Can you cure it? Remove the wild magic from it, I mean. Make it not a shapeshifter.” Strange as it sounded, I couldn’t blame it for “hunting the hunter”, as it put it. If its crimes were all due to its “bad dog” nature, it might be possible to save it. I’d never heard of such a thing, but faeries have incredibly powerful magic.

Cecelia almost seemed surprised, but then again her expressions were so controlled it was hard to tell. “I can, yes. You must promise not to speak of it. I have no desire to deal with other shifters seeking a cure.”

“Okay, you have my word. I want it cured then, and sent to a mental-health facility where it can be treated.”

“Done.”

The intelligent part of my brain warned me not to watch what happened to the shifter, but curiosity got the better of me and I turned toward the cell. I don’t know what I was expecting, probably that it would vanish like the imp had and I wouldn’t get to see the beast sucked out of it. Instead the shifter loosed a piteous howl, the sound echoing around us as the creature crumpled to the ground in an angular heap of furred limbs. I half expected it would dissolve into the form of a naked human like in the movies, but instead there was a whirl of red energy that swirled up and out of it, ending in a bright white flash that blinded me for a moment.

When my eyes adjusted, I spotted a dirty, nude figure curled up on the floor of the cell. It stirred and sat up, and I blinked in surprise as I realized the shifter was female. A blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman stared back at me-and young too, even younger than me. Someone who should’ve been in college, not tearing guardians limb from limb. She glanced down at her hands and then back up at me, her eyes large and frightened.