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resist using it again, and Molly's errors tended to run in that direction. The kid was good at heart, but she was just so damned young. She'd grown up in a strict household; she'd gone insane with freedom the minute she ran away and got out on her own. She was back home now, but she was still trying to find the balance and self-discipline she'd need to survive in the wizarding business.
    Teaching her to throw a gout of fire at a target really wasn't terribly difficult. The hard part was teaching her why to do it, why not to do it, and when she should or should not do it. Molly saw magic as the best solution to any given problem. It wasn't, and she had to learn that.
    To that end, I'd made her the bracelet.
    She stared at it for a long minute, and one of the beads slid up the string and stopped when it touched her finger. A moment later, the second bead joined the first. The third quivered for several seconds before it moved. The fourth took even longer. The fifth bead jumped and twitched for several moments before Molly let out her breath in a snarl, and the others once more succumbed to gravity.
    "Four of thirteen," I noted, as I pulled into a driveway. "Not bad. But you aren't ready yet."
    She glared at the bracelet and rubbed at her forehead for a moment. "I got six last night."
    "Keep working," I said. "It's about focus, stillness, and clarity."
    "What does that mean?" Molly demanded in exasperation.
    "That you have more work to do."
    She sighed and got out of the car, glancing up at her family's home. It was a gorgeous place, white picket fence and everything, somehow preserving a suburban appearance despite the city all around us. "You aren't explaining it very well."
    "Maybe," I said. "Or maybe you aren't learning it very well."
    She gave me a glower, and what might have been a hot answer came to her lips—but she shut them and shook her head in irritation. "I'm sorry. For putting up that veil and trying to follow you. No disrespect intended."
    "None taken. I've been where you are. I don't expect you to be perfect all the time, kid."
    She smiled a little. "What happened today…"
    "Happened," I said. "It's done. Besides, it worked out. I don't know if I could have read anything at all from that victim, the way you did today."
    She looked hopeful. "Yeah?"
    I nodded. "What you found might be a big help. You did good. Thanks."
    She practically glowed. Once or twice, after a compliment, she'd literally glowed, but we'd gotten that under control within a month or two. She gave me a smile that made her look even younger than she was, and then pelted up the front steps and into the house.
    That left me there alone with pages and pages of dead women. I wanted to know more about them almost as much as I wanted to shove my manly parts into a radioactive wood chipper.
    I sighed. I had to get closer to this, but I could at least do it with a drink in my hand.
    So I went to McAnally's.
    Mac's pub—and make no mistake, it was a pub, not a bar—was one of those few places in Chicago frequented almost entirely by the supernatural scene. It didn't have a sign outside. I had to walk down a flight of stairs to get to the unmarked front door. Inside, it's all low ceilings, a crooked bar, and irregularly spaced, hand-carved wooden columns. Mac manages to keep electricity moving through the bar despite all the magical types wandering through—partly because it's rare for anything but a full-blown wizard, like me, to cause the inevitable failure of any nearby technology, and partly because he does a ton of preventive maintenance. He still didn't bother with electric lights—it costs too much to keep replacing bulbs—but he was able to keep a bunch of ceiling fans whirling and maintain a functional telephone.
    On the wall beside the door was a wooden sign that stated, simply, ACCORDED neutral ground. That meant that Mac had declared the place a nonpartisan location, according to the terms set up by the Unseelie Accords—sort of the