I pulled my shredded concentration together. Not easy when Quentin’s love rays were pounding into my brain and I had to fight the urge to pull Lienna against me and—

Arg. I hated his power. I really did.

As we rushed down the final steps, I reapplied the invisibility warp, then created an illusion of the door so that when Lienna opened it, Quentin would have no idea.

Light flooded the stairwell as she drew the door open on silent hinges. And there he was.

My former best friend. My new enemy.

Quentin, his blond hair mussed and blue eyes bright, leaned against Rigel’s desk, casual as could be. Maggie crouched in front of the Celtic knot etched in the floor, which I’d scarcely noticed during our first visit—except it was no longer an etching. A square of hardwood was missing, revealing a steel door set in the floor.

“Almost done, my love,” she cooed, her curly blue ponytail bobbing as she fumbled with four vials of different colored liquid. “It will be ours soon. Very soon.”

“And then we’ll be safe,” he purred back, and a shiver ran over my skin. Adoration, longing, desire, attraction, and sweet, sappy infatuation rolled off him in waves, bombarding Maggie’s brain.

And mine.

Quentin was laying it on thick, ensuring Maggie stayed loyal to him until that vault was open. We had to stop him—but it wasn’t as simple as charging in there, invisible, and punching him in his smug jaw.

A shimmering, semi-transparent bronze barrier filled the doorway, preventing anyone from entering the office. Despite its insubstantial glow, I knew better than to try to step through the magic.

“An alchemic barrier,” Lienna whispered. “I can break it—I think. But”—she dug into her satchel—“I’ll need a few minutes to do it.”

“We don’t have a few minutes,” I hissed back as Maggie poured one of the four potions into a small divot in the vault’s door.

“Then distract them!”

Right. I could do that.

Ensuring I had a firm grip on the invisibility and door warps, I conjured up my clearest memory of Rigel and projected my former boss into the office. He appeared behind the desk, unseen by the two would-be thieves, then conspicuously cleared his throat.

Maggie’s head jerked up, and her mouth fell open. Quentin whirled, a shocked gasp rushing into his lungs, and the bombardment of loveyness fuzzing my brain disappeared.

Rigel gazed impassively at the trespassers, perfectly poised with his hands clasped behind his back, clean-shaven with his dark hair slicked to his head, and clad in his charcoal pinstripe suit.

“What are you doing here, Quentin?” I made him say, his crisp English accent emphasizing the tone he always used that suggested everyone in his presence was beneath his notice. “You wouldn’t be trying to access my vault, would you?”

“Impossible!” Quentin stammered, his eyes wide and nostrils flaring. “You’re dead!”

“I’m a man of many talents,” Rigel stated simply. “Rising from the dead being one. Resisting the powerful gift of my favorite young empath being another.”

Maggie frowned. A wave of gooey devotion hit me as Quentin realized he’d let his love-bomb falter.

I took a moment to glance at Lienna. She’d pulled a large pad of paper from her satchel, as well as a geometry kit and a calculator—not a pocket-sized one, but the big fat graph-making kind I remembered from high school algebra.

Refocusing on the office, I had Rigel raise an eyebrow mockingly. “Impressive work as always, Quentin. Submersing this young woman so deeply in feelings of affection until she became convinced the emotions were real—a delightful manipulation.”

Quentin’s jaw clenched, his sharp gaze jumping from Rigel to Maggie and back. She held her second potion vial above the vault door, motionless as confusion pinched her face.

“Yes,” Rigel went on in a murmur. “You’re unusually adept at making pretty women feel as though they’re living out their own version of The Notebook.”

Quentin’s mouth dropped open—then he burst out laughing. “You almost had me! I almost believed it!”

Uh-oh.

I stole another glance at Lienna—now drawing a circle on her paper with a protractor—then had Rigel cross his arms. “Is there a problem?”

Quentin turned away from the projection, facing the doorway. “Come on out, Kit. I know it’s you. Rigel never watched movies. He wouldn’t know The Notebook from Napoleon Dynamite.”

Aw, crap.

I made Rigel shake a finger at Quentin’s back. “Death has given me a lot of time to binge-watch Netflix. I just finished the first season of Riverdale. I think they filmed part of an episode in this building.”

Ignoring his dead boss, Quentin knelt beside Maggie. He caressed her cheek. “It’s okay, love. It’s just Kit messing with us.”

“Kit is here?” She looked around. “Kit?”

Keeping Lienna invisible, I let all other warps die. Rigel and the fake door vanished, revealing me standing on the other side of the barrier.

“I’m here, Maggie. I came to help you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You betrayed me to the MPD.”

On the word “betrayed,” she poured the second potion into the waiting divot. Two out of four.

“I was never going to let them get you, Maggie,” I explained urgently. “I wouldn’t hurt you—but Quentin is hurting you right now. He’s tricking you so you’ll open that vault for him.”

Quentin placed his hands on her shoulders and smirked at me. He was channeling that feeling of devoted love into Maggie at max output. I could feel the shock waves of emotion buffeting me, and I had to muster every iota of selfish, cold-hearted assholishness I possessed to counter the fluttery desire to throw myself at the nearest person and profess my undying love—which was Lienna, who’d already endured one “sappy Kit” experience.

I’d be embarrassed later. If we survived this.

Maggie uncorked the third bottle.

“Quentin’s an empath,” I reminded her, desperation creeping into my voice. “You know that, Maggie. You know what he can do. The love you feel for him isn’t real. He’s faking it.”

She poured potion number three into the vault door. “You can’t fake this.”

“That’s right, babe,” Quentin crooned, rubbing her shoulders. “Stop trying to taint our love, Kit. We know you’re only here because you want the artifact for yourself.”

His sneer mocked me. I couldn’t reach him, never mind stop him.

I glanced down. Lienna had drawn a complex geometric design and was frantically populating it with runes.

“Maggie, please listen to me.” Yeah, I was begging. “Even if you love him, this is wrong. What about your speech about the evils of greed?”

She pulled the last cork. “I know what I’m doing.”

Before I could try again to stop her, she upended the vial over the vault door. The gold liquid filled the final divot, and all four potions began to glow. Purple smoke wafted upward, drifting through the office.

“Lienna!” I hissed out of the corner of my mouth.

“I’m almost done! Almost—”

With a thick puff of smoke, the glow extinguished. A handle had appeared in the center of the heavy steel door.