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from people who aren’t trying to get in my pants.”
    Paul arched his eyebrows. “Making friends with the locals?”
    â€œWasted effort, Paul. I’m a kinky bitch, and I’d lay dollars to delicious donuts there’s not a kink club within a hundred miles. I could never connect with these adorable vanilla confections.”
    Yet Paul noticed Valentine had discreetly swapped her Confederate flag tattoos out for some less confrontational Garth Brooks ink.
    Then Valentine’s head snapped up as she felt the surge of videogamemancy.
    â€œOh God,” Paul muttered. “Is she…?”
    â€œShe’s shit the bed,” Valentine pointed at Aliyah; her fellow players backed away as a black arrow shimmered into existence above her head, pointing down at her. “She’s selected herself. As the active player.”
    The parents elbowed each other, looking for confirmation they weren’t hallucinating.
    â€œ Aliyah! ” he yelled, trying to get her attention before she went too far – better to have them know her real name than for people to see ’mancy. But Aliyah’s magic twisted his cry, turned it into a thunderous roar of approval, a thousand people chanting Aliy-ah! Aliy-ah! Aliy-ah!
    It could have been a beautiful moment of approval, except for the furious parents charging out onto the field to tackle Aliyah. Some – too many – reached underneath their shirts for concealed carry holsters–
    â€œGet me targets, Paul,” Valentine said, leaping to her feet.
    Paul sucked in a deep breath and dove into the records. He focused on the man sharing an ice-cold lemonade with Imani, the glass dropping from his hand as he squinted at Aliyah:
    Braxton Tolliver: his Google history indicates many posts on anti-’mancer blogs, as well as repeated visits to the Magiquell website, a corporation that manufactures injectable nerve-gas cocktails designed to impede a ’mancer’s concentration. Failed the certification exam to purchase Magiquell last October.
    Paul scanned Tolliver’s posts – I’m not saying I hate ’mancers, but they did destroy Europe – and marked him as a bright orange THREAT LEVEL: HIGH before breaking into Tolliver’s bank histories to list recent purchases. He sorted through endless Sam’s Club and SafeWay receipts, scanning for dangerous expenditures: tasers, guns, pepper sprays.
    No weapon purchases. Nothing to elevate Braxton Tolliver to a red THREAT LEVEL: SEVERE.
    By the time Paul snapped into an analysis of Eliza Tolliver, Braxton’s wife, the lemonade glass was hitting the ground. He devoured her Internet history, her phone records, her email, compiling a comprehensive profile that would have made the FBI’s best work look shoddy. He flashed his attention to the coach, to Savannah’s parents, to Bennie’s mother and the–
    â€œSpeed it up, Paul,” Valentine said. Aliyah had detonated a blazing ball into the net, which had bought her a couple of moments as people dove for cover. “I’m glad for a little action – finally – but I can’t fight them all!”
    Paul suppressed a flare of irritation. Or you could just, you know, teleport us all out to safety .
    That was unfair, he knew: Valentine’s magic ran according to the videogame rules she had devised, and Valentine would never play a game that allowed her to teleport away from a battle. She couldn’t retreat any more than Paul could magically drop millions into a bank account – the universe only bent to their will because they believed in an alternative system, one with different unbending rules. Paul believed paperwork made the world safer; he couldn’t conjure up money, or embezzle it.
    Likewise, scrappy Valentine needed to face down her opponents one by one.
    â€œCome on, Paul.” She bounced from foot to foot, anxious to mix it up. “Less planning, more