“Maybe I’d better go back to escorting you to and from work.”

Was that a purely practical suggestion, or did he have ulterior motives? “If you think that’s necessary,” I said, aiming for a mildly flirtatious tone.

“I don’t know if you’re in danger, but with all those influence spells, I may need you to slap some sense into me.” His eyes twinkled with humor and a hint of mischief.

“Well, if you insist, but let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“Do you think you’re up to dealing with Idris now?”

“This may be the best time. It’ll be nice to take it out on the person who deserves it.”

“Maybe you can terrify him into talking, and then we can get all this over with and go home.”

I got up and followed him out of my office. Perdita jumped when she saw us. “Sorry about that, Miss—Katie, I mean. I tried not to let him through, since you were working, but he just barged in.”

I silently counted to three and reminded myself that she had no way of knowing that Owen had an all-access pass. She acted like she didn’t even know who Owen was. “That’s okay, Perdita. This is Owen Palmer, from Research and Development. His department creates the spells we market, so I’ll need to talk to him often. You can let him in at any time, and you should always put his calls through.” I knew that was safe to say, since with Owen’s funny knack for knowing things, chances were he wouldn’t ever show up at a bad time.

She gasped an “Oops!” and put a hand up to cover her mouth. “Oh, sorry about that. And sorry, Mr. Palmer. I didn’t know.” As she turned to him to apologize, she got a good look at him, and then her eyes got a funny glint to them. Owen had that effect on women. He really was quite gorgeous, with his dark hair, blue eyes, and a face worthy of a sculpture.

I cleared my throat to get her attention back to me. “And now I have to go deal with something urgent. I hope it won’t take too long, but I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

As we headed down the hallway from my office, Owen said, “So, that’s your new assistant.”

“Yeah. I’m really moving up in the world. But apparently not up far enough to avoid being assigned a space case.” He smirked at that, but then his face quickly went back to neutral. “It’s not funny,” I insisted. “I’ll have to spend all day with her, every day. And if you laugh, I’ll call you down for meetings twice a day.”

“That wouldn’t be so bad.” I was still trying to decide how to interpret that when we reached the dungeons.

Since the MSI building looked like a castle I expected a real dungeon—a dark, dank place in the basement, with iron bars and chains and maybe even some really scary guards. The MSI detention facility turned out to be in the middle of the building, two floors below my office. Instead of having slimy stone walls, the place looked more like a laboratory or hospital. The floors and walls were stark, sterile white.

“What, no basement dungeon?” I quipped to Owen as he waved his hand across a blank wall.

“It’s too easy to escape through a basement. Here, anyone trying to rescue him would have to get through a good portion of the building, no matter which way they come, and he’d have to go back through much of the building to get out.” A doorway opened in the wall, and Owen guided me into an observation room.

A long window showed Idris seated at a table in a brightly lit interrogation chamber. His hands were chained in front of him, and the chain looped through a bracket on the table. He fidgeted and glanced constantly around the room, but then he yawned, so I decided he was more bored than nervous.

Two security gargoyles stood watch next to an area of blank wall that I assumed must be another magical doorway. A tall, thin man dressed in black turned from the window to face us. “Ah, there you are,” he said in a voice too deep for a body that thin. “The magical dampening field is in place, so remember that neither you nor the prisoner will be able to use magic,” he told Owen. “I will observe and will send the guards if anything untoward happens.” He gave a thin-lipped smile that made goosebumps appear on my arms, then waved a hand to reopen the doorway. Owen and I exchanged a look, then he nodded and we stepped forward into the interrogation room.

When he saw me, Idris’s jaw dropped in shock at first, but then his face lit up with a huge grin. “Katie!” he called out. “I hope you didn’t come all this way just because I asked.” His grin faded when I got close enough for him to see my injuries. “Ouch. That looks like it hurts. Maybe you should see one of the healers. Oh, but I guess they wouldn’t be able to heal that cut, since magic doesn’t work on you, huh?”