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"You don’t think Idris was involved?"

He shook his head "No"

"He doesn’t see about it" I told him briefly abouta rogue wizard with a short attention span to deal with, we also now have his girlfriend, who has ainst both of us, and who’s capable of staying focused on one thing for more than five minutes at a stretch Plus,past all our security Fun"

Heto track theine we’ll know soon enough"

"I guess it’s tooaway to Fiji and leaving us alone"

He laughed at that "It would be nice, but I doubt it"

I had so incredibly witty and clever to say in response, but before I could say it, there was a screa alarm and a burst of cold water as the sprinkler system came on

"Fire!" so their First Aht to yell "fire" in a crowded restaurant

Three

Asta over chairs and tables in their haste to escape froainst the wall, so eren’t in the traffic pattern to be trampled As usual, Owen remained calm in the crisis "Get your coat," he reminded me "It’s cold outside" Meanwhile, he put on his own coat I threw ed into the h the crowd The real holdup seemed to be the front door, which was so narrow only two people could get through at a time It created a bottleneck as people pushed forward in a panic All the while, the sprinklers drenched us

"This isn’t good," Owenin a lass in the front floor-to-ceiling s vanished Another wave of his hand and the tables and chairs in front of those s relocated to another part of the restaurant "This way!" Owen called out as he guided me toward one of those open s, but he was so soft-spoken by nature that his voice didn’t carry over the noise of the crowd, the fire alarers to ave a piercing whistle "This way!" I bellowed The crowd split off and followed us as we stepped onto the sidewalk The police and fire engines had arrived by then, and the police officers directed everyone to the sidewalk across the street frolassless ithout any shards on the ground below "Are you going to put those back?" I asked Owen, hly soaked hair and clothes

"Oh, sorry, I can’t believe I forgot," he said, but when he waved his hand, theglass didn’t come back Instead my clothes suddenly became dry Then he helped me with my coat, which was drier because it had been folded over ic on that, too His clothes were suddenly drier, as well "I’d do so your hair, but that’s ht be suspicious if we both suddenly looked blow-dried in this crowd," he said with a rueful grin I looked around and noticed that all the other escapees frolass should coainst hiht around me That made uy, but he had a fair a held by hiain," I said with a sigh "Nor for everyone, just by being there"

He chuckled and hugged hter "I don’t think you can take the blame for this It just happened" Then he paused and said, "Or maybe…"

"Maybe what?"

"Take a look at the building and tellwhere the restaurant was, and while I saw fla The structure of the building wasn’t changing at all I also didn’t s restaurant was coughing or wheezing