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mouth smiled, but her eyes screamed Get me out of this! I nodded to her reassuringly.
    “That’s really nice,” I said. “But you know she’s married.”
    “So what?”
    Now I really wanted to kick him. I kept my tone friendly.
    “If you really loved her, you’d pay attention to the way she wants to live. And that’s not with you, or wouldn’t she have stayed with you?”
    “But she’s my true love,” Shilldon said, turning his handsome face to her. “The one that got away. I want her back. Isn’t that right, my darling? You’ve been waiting for me all this time, sad and lonely?”
    Massha melted toward him longingly. Even I was beginning to be affected by his charm. It dawned on me that maybe that was being generated by a magikal gizmo, too.
    “What if she doesn’t want you?” I asked.
    “Of course she does!” he said. He looked deeply into Massha’s eyes. “Sweetheart, why don’t you throw this skinny pipsqueak over the wall, and we’ll go off and live happily ever after?”
    Never breaking the intense gaze, my former apprentice flicked her wrist. A huge wave of energy hit me under the chin like an uppercut. I sailed upward toward the courtyard battlements, flying end over end.
    I flapped my arms to stop spinning. It took me a moment to get my wits back and used a handful of magik to stop my outward trajectory. I hovered for a moment, working my jaw to make sure it was still intact. That blow had hurt! Shilldon was a master manipulator, getting Massha to attack me instead of doing it himself. That was it! He had to go.
    I reversed my course and headed back toward him, under my own power this time.
    “Hey, Shilldon,” I called. “Happy Affection Day!”
    I pulled one of the pink-fledged arrows out of my quiver and nocked it to the bowstring.
    Shilldon’s green eyes widened in horror. The face rose as if he sprang from his seat. Then he yanked Massha up and held her before him.
    “You won’t shoot me,” he said. “You’ll hit Massha!”
    The shadow figure I could only see in my mind’s eye huddled down behind her. Her broad body made a good shield. I could have moved around to the other side. But I was pretty sure I didn’t have to. He wasn’t in control of the situation. He’d have to peek out sooner or later to see what I was doing.
    Wait for it, I told myself, the sharp string cutting into the joints of my fingers. Wait for it.… There!
    I loosed. The arrow took Shilldon right between the eyes. He fell backward and measured his whole length on the cobblestones. The shaft of the arrow disappeared, and pink feathers floated down onto his face.
    A billowing cloud of nothingness floated off his body, revealing a tall, muscular frame. So it had been a cloak! He tried to sit up, but I hovered over him and peppered him with more arrows.
    “Let’s find you the real love of your life, or at least for tonight!” I said.
    On the dance floor, a handful of girls and a few men stopped gyrating and looked around. All at once, they saw Shilldon.
    “Oh, my God, he’s gorgeous!” a tall redhead shrieked. She abandoned her partner and ran toward Shilldon, her arms out. A black-haired beauty caught up and blocked her way.
    “Don’t you dare touch him! He’s mine!”
    “I want him!” a slender man dressed in pink Affection Day garb said, throwing himself at the prone Jahk. “He fell out of nowhere to be with me !”
    In a moment, more than a dozen people were fighting over Shilldon, tearing at his clothes, covering him with kisses and caresses. He scrambled backward, trying to get away from them.
    “Massha, help me!” he cried.
    My former apprentice looked down at him. Her jaw set.
    “No.”
    Shilldon looked up at her in shock and disbelief. The mass of loving bodies covered him, hiding him from sight, weighing him down.
    Bamf!
    The would-be lovers collapsed to the ground. Shilldon was gone.
    “He’s gone!” the redhead cried, feeling the empty cobblestones in vain.
    “How could he leave