“Is it Alicia?” Eddie yelled, making his voice heard over the alarm.

“I’d guess so,” I called back. I’d sensed a human magic in those explosions, and unless there was yet another witch after me, Alicia seemed like the logical choice. With my non-fireball hand, I managed to text the most recent contact in my phone: Ms. Terwilliger. I could only manage a short message and hoped it would convey the severity of the situation: help.

I should’ve known Alicia wouldn’t settle for the opening we’d made into the building. The main door suddenly exploded in a shower of sparks and wood. A silhouette appeared in the doorway, and without verifying its identity, I hurled my fireball. The figure held up a hand, and the fireball smashed harmlessly against an invisible barrier. When it cleared, the figured moved forward, and I finally came face-to-face with Alicia. She gave me a cold smile.

“Hello, Sydney, nice to see you again. Surprised to see me alive?”

I called another fireball to my hand. “It was never my intent to kill you.” Even I realized how lame that sounded, considering all I’d done to her, and she gave a harsh laugh.

“Really? What exactly was the point of stabbing me and leaving me in a burning house?”

Before I could respond, Eddie charged her, swinging his bola in the air. With a flick of the wrist, she made a wall of mirrors beside him shatter. I saw it coming but wasn’t quite fast enough in dismissing my fireball in a favor of a shield for him. I deflected part of the damage, but some of the glass embedded itself in him, particularly his bare arm. I saw a brief flash of pain pass over his features, but he didn’t stop moving. Alicia shattered another mirror, and this time, I had an invisible shield squarely in place to protect him. He released the bola, but despite its perfect aim and fast speed, she anticipated it and blew it away with a wave of invisible force.

“Where’s Jill?” I yelled at her.

A cruel smile twisted over Alicia’s features. “You’d love to know that, wouldn’t you?”

Eddie picked up a piece of broken glass and came running toward her, wielding it like a knife. “I swear, if you’ve hurt her—”

“Oh, honestly. As if I’d waste my time hurting her.” Alicia took out a pinch of powder from her pocket, throwing it at Eddie and shouting an incantation I didn’t know. I wasn’t able to intercept this one in time, and the magic seized Eddie. Like that, he froze in place, midstride and holding the glass shard menacingly in his hand.

“What have you done to him?” I cried.

“Relax, Sydney,” Alicia said. “He’s still alive. Just like your little Moroi friend—for now.”

“Take me to her!” I demanded.

Alicia laughed. “Sorry, Sydney. You’ll never see her again. She’s going to have to suffer through a few more psalms . . . and you? You’re just going to suffer . . .”

The floor under my feet rippled. I staggered and fell to my knees but was able to throw a fireball at Alicia before I completely lost my balance. My aim was spot-on, but she lifted her hands to cast what I suspected was another shielding spell. The incantation she spoke was Greek, one I hadn’t heard before either. The fireball hit another unseen wall, but rather than shatter, the flames rebounded and came back toward me in exactly the same path. I yelped and managed to get out of its way just in time. I was spared, but the fireball hit a cabinet instead, engulfing it in flames. The fire spread quickly, making me wonder what kind of varnish Wolfe used. At the same time, the alarm finally stopped blaring.

“Mirroring spell,” Alicia said gleefully. “Very useful. Be careful what you cast.”

She meant it as a taunt, but there was truth in it that made me hesitate before I planned my next course of action. It was too long a delay, as she soon cast what I recognized as the same spell that had frozen Eddie. That one was too complex for me to fully follow, but it gave me the opportunity to dodge and block it. I then opted for a different kind of freezing—a literal one, as I sent a wave of ice her way. It wasn’t nearly as lethal as a fireball, but it also wouldn’t add to the already-spreading fire. Alicia responded with the mirror spell, sending the ice back my way. I ducked, and the ice landed in part of the burning room beside me. Rather than diminish the fire, however, it simply made the smoke grow thicker.

“You must be getting tired,” she teased.

She was right. I still had plenty of magic in me, but this active combat was exhausting. Ms. Terwilliger’s words came back to me: She wants an easy fight. That’s what Alicia was doing, trying to wear me down with magic so she could cast the spell that finished me. With the stolen life and magic she had, this battle wouldn’t exhaust her as quickly.

“Alicia, we don’t have to fight,” I said. “Please. Let’s stop this and get out of here before this place burns down. Tell me where Jill is, release Eddie, and we can be on our way.”

“Stop this? After you tried to kill me?”

“I only—”

Not caring about making the flames worse, Alicia hurled another fireball at me. I was tempted to try the mirroring spell and send it back to her, but she was too close to Eddie for my comfort.

“You’re too much of a threat, Sydney,” she said as I neutralized the fireball with a water spell. “I can’t allow you to leave. I’m going to let this building burn down around you, just like you left me to burn in that house.”

The floor rippled beneath me again, causing me to fall once more. She began speaking a complicated incantation, one I recognized as the start of the spell that had frozen Eddie in place. That was her plan. Make me into a living statue and leave me in this burning building, paralleling what I’d done to her. Desperately, I scrambled to my feet, needing to get out of the way of the spell. As she finished speaking, I saw something incredible: Malachi Wolfe, standing in the doorway to the burning room. His eye patch was on his right eye (it changed from day to day), and there were pieces of rope around his wrists and ankles as though he’d been bound.

I couldn’t replicate the statue spell on my own, but I’d heard the mirroring spell enough to feel good about that. I spoke the words and felt the magic engage in me. Alicia’s eyes widened in alarm as she attempted to move out of the way of the rebounding spell. What she hadn’t seen, however, was the herd of Chihuahuas running into the room with Wolfe. He’d spoken a word to them and pointed at her, and they swarmed around her feet, causing her to stumble and preventing her from moving away quickly. The statue spell seized her, and suddenly, she was as frozen as Eddie, except far less graceful looking. He was like some noble warrior, ready to strike. She was mid-fall, staring in disbelief at the yipping pack of Chihuahuas swarming her frozen feet.