I drove straight to the motel. Nita was one of the few people I felt I could talk to who still had absolutely nothing to do with the magical world. Of course, at the rate things in my life were going, I’d soon find out that she was from another planet or was Wonder Woman’s mild-mannered disguise.

“Ohmigod, what happened?” she gasped when I entered the motel lobby. Without waiting for me to answer, she said, “I’ll make tea.”

“Nothing happened. Why? Do I look that bad?” I asked as she raised the counter so I could join her behind the desk.

She put on the electric teakettle. “He broke up with you, didn’t he?” Her voice cracked with sympathetic tears. “Oh, Katie.”

I sidestepped her hug. “Broke up? We aren’t really together. We were barely together before I left New York, and I broke things off with him when I left.” I knew it was a different story from what I’d told my family, but I didn’t imagine her swapping stories with any of them, and in this case, something resembling the truth was my safest bet.

“Then, what is the problem? You came tearing in here like your tail was on fire, and you look ready to explode at any moment.” She poured water over teabags, then turned back to me, waving a spoon.

“Sit, and tell me everything.”

I did as she ordered, for fear she’d hit me with the spoon. It was funny how calming her hyper presence could be. There was a certain peace in her bubbly mania. Soon, she handed me a mug full of spiced tea sweetened with honey. “Now, you’d probably better start at the beginning,” she said as she took her own seat. “And don’t leave anything out. I’m already mad at you for not even mentioning the hot guy until he showed up in town.”

While I was still thinking of a way to explain what, exactly, it was that had me so upset, a car pulled into the motel driveway, making too fast a turn off the main road so that it fishtailed a little on the shoulder’s loose gravel. It then came to a screeching stop under the motel office’s canopy. When the driver got out of the car, I saw that he was tall and lanky, with clothes that fit so that he looked like he’d recently gone through an adolescent growth spurt. I knew exactly who he was. Phelan Idris, the rogue wizard who was giving us so much trouble, had come to town.

“Wow, a customer!” Nita said while I spilled my tea. “Nobody checks in on Mondays.”

I didn’t want him seeing me. Him not knowing that we knew he was here might give us the slightest advantage. “Oh, my tea!” I said, grabbing a handful of paper napkins from Nita’s desk and dropping to the ground behind the counter just before the door chime rang. I halfheartedly mopped up my spilled tea while I listened.

“Hi, and welcome to the Cobb Motel!” Nita said cheerfully. “How may I help you?”

“You got any rooms?” he asked.

“How many nights?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a few days.”

“Okay, open-ended stay. We can do that. Smoking or non?”

“Smoking.” Funny, I hadn’t ever seen him smoke, but I imagined he might want a smoking room so he could mix up potions without raising suspicions.

“King bed or two double beds?”

“I want a room, okay? Not a game of twenty questions.”

“I’m only trying to make sure you get what you want,” Nita said, her voice still full of forced friendliness, but now with a little frost around the edges. “I’ll give you a king room. Now, how will you be paying for that?”

“I’ve got a credit card.”

“Great! Then I’ll need a photo ID, as well, and you can fill this out. Don’t worry about the car license number part. I’m not even sure why that’s on the form.” She gave me a funny look as she went to make a copy of his ID, and I hurried to look like I was still carefully mopping up the spilled tea. She returned from the back office, handed him his ID, his credit card, and a key. “Okay, Mr. Idris, you’ll be in room twenty-five. You should be able to park right in front of your room. Enjoy your stay!”

Only when I’d heard the door chime and his car start did I stand up from behind the counter with my wad of damp paper napkins. “I can’t believe I made such a mess,” I said.

She raised an eyebrow. “I was wondering what you were doing down there. I almost thought you’d recognized him and were trying to hide, or something.”

I started to say that I had no idea who he might be, then realized that maybe this was a good opportunity to give her a valid excuse for keeping an eye on him. “He did look familiar,” I said.