"Why?" I looked at him. "You've got a coat."

And he did. It was a pretty nice one for a thief, being thick wool and fairly new. In fact, it looked better than mine.

"It looks better than mine," I pointed out.

"It ain't the looks I care 'bout, is it?"

"What, then?"

"You never mind! You just give it-"

"Get your hands off me or I'll scream."

"You scream, 'n they'll be down on the both of us!"

"Which would be inconvenient for you, wouldn't it?"

He glared at me. But the hand on the front of my coat loosened. And then dropped away entirely, because he really didn't seem to want to deal with the war mages again.

I could sympathize.

"Tell me what you want it for, and maybe I'll give it to you," I offered.

He scowled. And then his eyes narrowed. "Maybe we could work together, at that."

"How?"

"That's a big coat. Too big for a little girl like you. Big enough for two maybe, if we work it right."

"Why would we want to do that?"

"'Cause it gets us inside the wards, don't it?"

I looked up at the door, which was still slightly open from where the mage had left it. "There aren't any wards."

"Not on the door," he said impatiently. "The inner wards. The ones they got on the upper floors. The ones on all the 'spensive and dangerous things they steal from people like you 'n me."

I didn't know how I felt about being lumped in with the criminal element, but at the moment I couldn't really argue the point.

"The coat gets you through those?"

He nodded. "'Course, it don't usually matter. Too many war mages prowling around for it to matter. More a time-saving device for them than anythin' else." He looked over his shoulder. "But seems like you got 'em all riled up. Seems like you got most of 'em out combing the streets for you. Which means there's a skeleton crew in there, and that means-"

He jumped me. And the next thing I knew, my back was against his chest, and his knife was pressing against my throat. Hard enough that, if I screamed, I'd slice my own windpipe.

"-this is my main chance," he hissed in my ear.

"I thought we were going to work together," I said, very carefully.

"You know that old sayin' about honor 'tween thieves?"

I nodded.

"I ain't never had no truck with it."

I tapped him in the leg with the trap.

"Neither have I," I said.

And a second later I was up the stairs and back into HQ.

The place was not deserted. There were people everywhere. Everywhere. It looked like our little escape had put them on high alert, and that meant halls packed with every war mage in the place.

And that went double for the stairs.

They only ones I saw were at the far end of the entrance hall, almost lost in gloom. Of course, I thought, before dodging into a side room to avoid being seen. And then slowly starting down the hall, throwing up the hood on the coat and ducking into more rooms whenever anyone started my way, praying there was nobody in them.

There wasn't.

Maybe because they looked like the sort of administrative offices any police department needs, and which closed in time for everyone to get home for dinner. There was also a library, filled with musty old books but no readers, and the Victorian version of a break room, complete with a fireplace, a few scarred old tables, and some dented tea-making things. And a hand-lettered sign, in ornate Victorian script: PLEASE RETURN SOILED DISHES TO BASEMENT FOR WASHING UP.

I looked at it. And then I looked out the door at the stairs, which were momentarily empty. And then I ran for them, scurrying down the hall silently-bare feet are good for something, after all-and reached the landing without anyone screaming for my head. But I didn't go up, because I wouldn't have made it one flight.

I went down.

Like most basements, this one was dank and dark and ugly. And filled with things like a belching furnace, a bunch of old furniture, and a pyramid of barrels piled in a corner almost ceiling high. But it also had a small area reserved for a kitchen, which, judging by the part of the floor that was tiled, had originally been much larger.

It didn't surprise me. The place had a converted house feel to it, with the kind of small touches that a police force, even an unusual police force, wouldn't have bothered with. Like the mahogany paneling in the library. And the curlicues on the bannisters and stair railings. And the quality of the wood floors, which were scuffed and weathered now, especially in the main hall, but which had been inlaid with a delicate border design at some time in the past.

And if this had once been a gentleman's residence, it should have an item, one of the must-haves of the nineteenth century. One my old governess had often bewailed the lack of in the farmhouse where I grew up, because it meant she had to go down to the kitchen to make her evening tea. And sure enough, the remnants of the kitchen area had a sink, some shelves, a huge old iron stove it looked like nobody ever used . . .

And a dumbwaiter set into a wall.

A huge grin broke out on my face.

And then faded as soon as I realized two things; it was small, like really small, and it was hand-cranked.

Well, crap.

I thought about it for a second, biting my lip, but there was just no choice. There might be another way upstairs, but I didn't have time to find it. If the demon council reached Rosier before I did . . .

I didn't think it would be a good idea for them to reach him before I did.

So I let Red out.

"Ha!" he said, slashing at me with his little knife, making me jump back.

And smack him in the arm with the trap.

He winked out, and I leaned against the wall, kicking my heels against the water-stained plaster for a few minutes.

I let him out again.

"Ha!" he said, and lunged for me.

Back inside he went.

I tapped my toe, wishing I had shoes. The floor was like ice, and it was leeching my body heat. I started trading off feet, so at least one stayed warm, and waited another few minutes.

"Are we going to keep this up all night?" Red asked when I let him out again.

"That's up to you. I need your help. In return, I'll help you."

"How?" He crossed his skinny arms and sneered at me.

"I need to get upstairs, to get my partner back. But the stairs are full of mages. I'll never make it."

"Not as a twist," he agreed.

"What?"

"A twist and twirl."

"What?"

He rolled his eyes. "A girl. There's no women in the Corps. Everybody knows that."

"There have to be a few."

"I ain't never seen one. And I think I'd a' noticed." He leered at me.

"So, like I said, I can't get up the stairs-"

"But I bet I could," he said eagerly. "You give me the coat and I'll get yer man out-yer demon. You 'ave my word."

It was my turn to roll my eyes. "I have a better idea."

"Then get someone else to help you wi' it, 'cause I got better things ter-"

Back he went.

"Cut that out!" he told me when I released him again, a minute later.

"Then stop wasting my time! We do it my way or not at all, and you can go back in here for good for all I care."

He glared at me sullenly. But he didn't say anything or try to attack me again, so I guessed that was something. "Here's the plan," I told him quickly. "I get into this box-"

"Wot?"

"Don't interrupt me. And then you put it on the dumbwaiter-"

"Wot?"

"I said, no interruptions! And then you crank me up to the top level. The coat will bypass the wards, if they can even read me in here, which I doubt. And then-"

"And then you sit there, 'cause there's nobody ter let you out!"

"I can let myself out."

His eyes abruptly narrowed. "All right. Now I know yer telling me porkies."

"What?"

"Porky pies."

"Do you speak English?"

"Lies! Ain't nobody c'n do that!"

"I can," I said impatiently. "Or if not, I'm about to trap myself in a box in the most secure level of war mage HQ."

He thought about that for a minute. And then his eyes brightened. "Y'know, I know some people who would be real interested-"

"We can talk about that later. Right now, I need you to get me up there."

"And wot do I get?"

"The coat. As soon as I'm up, I'll drop it back down the shaft. I won't need it anymore. Then you can see if your run up the stairs works for you or not."

"And how do you get back out, wi' no coat?"

"My demon friend will get me out. He can shift us into the demon realm-"

"Then why ain't he already done it?"

"Because he won't leave me! That's why I have to get to him-he doesn't know I'm out!"

Red mulled this over.

"I'll also need your coat," I added.

His hand closed on the neck. "Fer wot?"

"It's cold."

He just looked at me some more. And then decided he didn't care. He shrugged out of the nice wool number, but caught my arm when I went to grab it. "If you do get out o' here, return it to the Bull and Bollocks. I'll see you don't lose by it."