She didn’t want to find out who it really was. Ducking out from under his hand, she bolted for the top of the stairs, back toward the main entrance of the KKRU building. But before she’d taken two steps, the man behind her barked out a sentence in a foreign, lilting language. Suddenly Pita was running in midair. She struggled wildly, trying to make contact with the ground. But the stairs were a good half-meter under her feet. She twisted about—just in time to see the man who’d been posing as Yao shed his skin in a shimmering transformation. Clothes, hair, features—all blurred and changed. The man was suddenly thinner, darker. With a shock, Pita recognized the dreadlocked elf who’d tried to cast a spell upon her earlier. The mage! The one who’d led the goons to her! Like a fool, she’d fallen into his trap, despite the dream warning, despite Wayne’s reminder that she should scan her visitor on the monitor first—where his true form would have been revealed. Now she was trapped, and he would kill her. Pita cried out, but even as she did, a bolt of yellow streaked from the elf’s fingers toward her, enveloping her. Pita’s eyes closed and she fell forward into darkness.