The guard turned to the mage. “You have a visitor, sir.”

“Not now,” he said, dismissing the guard with an irritated wave.

“It’s the Lord Alpha, sir.”

My body froze. What the fuck was Corrigan doing here? Damnit that guy was like a bad smell. The mage’s eyes narrowed infinitesimally.

“Fine,” he snapped, “I’m on my way. Watch her,” he instructed the guard, who smiled immediately with malicious glee. Oh, excellent.

The mage turned round and glided towards the door, not giving me another look. Shit, looking at the guard he was leaving me with I might not get another shot at this.

“Wait!” I called out weakly. “There’s an old woman. In Scotland. Well, she was in Scotland, anyway. Now she’s…somewhere else. You put her in a coma. She didn’t do anything, you need to release…”

The mage left, slamming the door shut behind him.

The guard looked down at me and smiled again. “Oh, we’re going to have some fun, girlie.”

I sighed deeply. “Please don’t call me that.”

“I don’t think you’re in a position to be asking for anything now, are you?”

He sent out a stream of blue that hit me in the cheek. I yowled in agony and tried to turn away.

“Now tell me,” he said, sending out another shooting beam of pain at me, “what kind of weird bitch has green magic?”

I didn’t answer. He flicked his fingers and hit me in the same spot, just below my eye. Involuntary tears sprang to my eyes, rolling slowly down my cheek. They just made my cheekbone sting even more.

“Answer me!” he demanded, raising his hand up again to show just what I could expect if I remained silent.

I gave in momentarily. “I don’t know, it was one of your lot that caused it. What’s the big deal anyway? So it’s green, so what?”

He flicked his fingers again but this time thankfully up towards the ceiling. “What are you, colour blind? That’s blue. My friends are all blue. The Arch-Mage who you thought you could attack, is blue. You, bitch, are green.”

Huh. I’d achieved even higher than I’d expected. The Arch-Mage was about as senior a wizard as you could possibly get. At least I’d achieved some modicum of success then by targeting the most in charge person I possibly could have. It hadn’t even occurred to me that I might get that far within the Ministry to manage that. I permitted myself a small smile.

The guard growled and sent yet another arrow of blue flame towards me. But this time I’d had an idea. Instead of twisting my head away, I met it face on, allowing the shot to take me in the cheekbone at exactly the same spot where the prick of a guard had hit me before. The pain was white hot, and it felt as if it was eating away into my actual bone. A wave of dizziness overcame me. Once I’d recovered some of my equilibrium, however, I raised my hand to my cheek. As I’d hoped it came away wet. I reached forward and smeared my blood across the edge of the cage, doing my best to ignore the painful electrical shocks.

I wasn’t entirely sure if this would work, but if I could use my blood to break through a faerie ring, then it had to be worth a try. The guard watched me.

“Jesus, you’re pathetic. Are you trying to knock yourself out?”

I pulled myself up to a crouch and leaned back on my hands to rest my body weight against them. Taking a few deep breaths and feeling just the smallest satisfying flicker of bloodfire deep inside me, I lashed out at the cage with my feet, striking the exact points that I’d smeared with my blood. It worked. The metal fell away as whatever magic that had been holding in place was dissolved by my blood. The guard’s eyes widened dramatically. He started pelting me with streams of blue light, over and over. I bit my tongue, feeling even more blood fill my mouth with its hot iron rich taste. Drawing up from the well of fire inside me, I threw out green flame towards him. It met his blue light, forcing it backwards and causing ripples of sparks to shoot out in every direction.

“Fucking bitch!” the guard hissed, then ran out of the door, slamming it firmly shut behind him.

I crawled out of the cage, dragging myself by my hands. I didn’t think it was possible to hurt quite this much. When I finally managed to pull my body clear, I collapsed on the floor, panting and curling up into the foetal position. I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t be messing with any mages ever ever again once this was all over.

Now that I was out of the cage, however, I felt as if I had more control over my own body. I reached into myself, pulling out threads of fire along my veins, allowing the tendrils of heat to trickle down each leg and each arm, each artery and muscle. Eventually I was able to stir myself into a sitting position against a wall. I rested my head against it and waited for the Arch-Mage to return.

I didn’t have long to wait. The door to the little room was thrown open and the Arch-Mage himself was stood there, balls of blue flame in the palms of his hands and golden runes starting to form again around his head. Behind him stood several others, all in action stances, ready to take on little old me. I sighed deeply, tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear.

“Please, Mr Arch-Mage. All I want to do is talk.”

He started to murmur to himself chanting whatever it was he had been when he’d knocked me out previously.

“Uh…sir? Really, I just want to talk to you.” I held my palms up towards him in submission. “If it helps I’ll crawl back into the cage.”

He stopped talking to himself and looked at me. I widened my eyes slightly and tried to look sincere.

One of the clustered mages behind the Arch-Mage began to protest. “Your Magnificence, you can’t….”

He held up a hand and the mage fell into a silence. As impressed as I was by this display of blind obedience, I was finding it difficult not to snort in disbelief at the Arch-Mage’s title. What was it with Otherworld megalomaniacs? That reminded me though.

“Uh, Sir?” I was damned if I was going to call him ‘Your Magnificence’. “Can I ask why the Lord Alpha is visiting?”

“I believe you just did,” the Arch-Mage said softly, raising an eyebrow at me and waggling it in a manner that reminded of some stage magician plying fake tricks to an awestruck audience. “It turns out that he was here for you. Still is here, in fact.”

Uh oh.

He continued. “It appears that he is demanding to know why one of his pack members is being held here. The Lord Alpha wanted to remind me of the Aberstrong treaty.”

I must have looked confused, because he elaborated. “It’s an old piece of Otherworld legislation. It came about after the Crimean War.”

“Half a league half a league half a league onwards?” I asked.

“That’s the one. Some of the conflict and the, well, the unfortunate deaths, were caused by dissension between shifters and mages who were present at the Battle of Balaclava. It was believed that had we worked together with clear lines of cooperation and communication, then things would have gone better. Once the war was over, a contract was drawn up to ensure such issues did not occur again. One of those includes the clause that neither mages nor shifters will interfere in each other’s business without first brokering a meeting with each head of state. The Lord Alpha wanted to know why you were here and he hadn’t been contacted.

Naturally, I was going to point out that you are not a shifter and therefore not covered by the treaty. However before I could do so I was informed that you had broken free of the cage and were rampaging through the College yet again. He’s still waiting upstairs.”

Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.

“Sir, I would really appreciate it if you didn’t do that. Tell him I’m not a shifter, I mean.” I licked my lips, nervously.

“Yes, I can imagine that you would. I would appreciate it myself, however if over a hundred years of relative peace between our two groups was not shattered by some nonentity little girl who is trying to pass herself off as a shifter and yet is actually a mage.”

“I’m not a mage, I can promise you that.”

“You can do magic. Not what we are used to, but I can guarantee that it was magic. And you broke free from the cage.” He glanced over at it for a moment and looked almost sad. “That’s never happened before. So before we do anything, you are going to tell me what you are, who you are and what in damnation you are doing in my College!”

I looked down at the floor. I couldn’t tell him what I was. My mother had hidden me at the pack for a reason; John had kept the truth from me for my entire life for a reason. In fact, since I’d discovered that I was Draco Wyr, I’d already told four people and I was damn lucky that they hadn’t done anything else with that information. I was quite sure that there were others like Iabartu out there somewhere who would be willing to wreak all manner of devastation to get hold of some of my blood. The Arch-Mage might even be one of those others.

I moved my gaze back up to the mage. “I can tell you that I am no threat to you or any of your mages.”

Several of the followers in the background began to splutter. One of them shouted out, “What about Trevor? You maimed him! And Martha almost died.”

I was proud of myself for staying calm and answering a level voice. “You brought the fight to me. Nobody is dead; nobody is in danger. If you had just left me alone, then I would have never come near you.”

“We can’t just let rogue magicians roam about the streets of Britain! Imagine the consequences!”

Heat started to rise in my stomach. I did my best to dampen it down. “I’ve told you, I’m not a mage.” I enunciated each word. “In fact, I can promise you that I will never, ever knowingly go near any mage ever again for the rest of my life, however long that may be, if you just sort out the stasis spell that you put on my friend.”

The mage who’d shouted out opened his mouth to speak again, but the Arch-Mage held up both his hands this time to silence the mutterings and exclamations. He had a puzzled frown on his face. “What do you mean?”