"Oh, lovely," I said, hands on my hips. "You set me up for a little breaking and entering while you get off scot-free? I don't think so."

I walked toward her, intending to leave, but she put a hand up to stop me at the door. Her eyes were swimming with tears. "Please, Nell, you have no idea how much I wish I could enter and look for something that would tell me where Damian and Saer are, but…"

"But what?" I asked, impatient. If she thought I was going to take the fall for her pathetic "pity me" act just so I could have a priceless, one-of-a-kind breastplate that would without a doubt ensure me tenure when the results of my studies were published, she could just think again.

Maybe.

Man, I wanted that breastplate.

"But I can't! The door is warded. Couldn't you feel it when you passed through it?"

"Warded?" I ignored the faint memories that struggled to come forth and walked through the door. "What are you talking about? I didn't feel anything. What warded?"

She made an impatient gesture with her hands. "How can you be a Charmer and not know anything about wards?"

"I told you, I'm not a Charmer."

"A ward is a device drawn by an individual. Most wards guard something like a door or window, keeping dark forces from entering. Wards can be drawn to protect or bind people, an object, or a building. As I told you earlier, you as a born Charmer have both the ability to draw and charm a ward just as you can draw and charm a curse—the unmaking process is basically the same, just reversed."

Her explanation teased my memory. "Oh. Those wards. I'd forgotten about them, to tell you the truth. A lot of what I learned before the tragedy was… er… for lack of a better word, erased from my memory. So you're saying this door is warded? Protected by magic to keep bad things out?"

She nodded.