Emily was all but oblivious to this. She was engaged in lively,carefree chatter with her bandmates, talking about stage clothes anddancing moves for t...eir upcoming shows. Only once did she glance in thedirection of the cabin, noting the faint signs of the now-distant firewith impassive mild curiosity, before concentrating on more relevanttopics.It was not as if she didn't understand that Claudia had torched thebuilding. Naturally, Art needed to disappear to make room for Emily.She remembered. I knew that my father would be at work and my mother was at one of her regular bridge mornings, so drove to their house and collected my small collection of clothes and personal belongings. Having put them in the car, I went and placed their house key on the table in the hall with a note that said ‘I won’t need this anymore. J’ – and drove away.Freddy gave me a friendly wave as I got back to the Estate, and having unpacked the car, I set to in the kitchen to prepare something tasty for my host. He caught himself before he started casting the binding spell, and felt a sense of relief when it didn’t force its way through his head the way it had with Razai.He nudged Dot closer to Ellerie. “The girl in front is a mage,” he said in a low tone. “I managed to keep from casting the binding spell.”She raised an eyebrow. “Too bad you couldn’t have done that the last couple of times.”At least her tone was less biting tone than usual.Captain Restiv returned and said, “I’ll send a messenger to the. A career spent being certain in the courtroom and moving full steam ahead wiped out any thoughts of this being a tryst or storm of passion. Although it happened suddenly and surprisingly, those little ‘flirts’ here and there just proved it out to me to simply bull ahead. And besides, I had plans for tonight. There was no blue pill needed as I marched over to the door, and opened it. Anna-Brooks stood briefly on the other side, doubt beginning to plague her mind. Was she backing out? It was.