16
Harry was torn. Part of him wanted to attack Isara; part of him wanted to run. Flight warred with fight, and the only thing he got for his trouble was a pair of trembling hands. He had bested her before. He could do it again. But then Melissa had said much the same thing, and her rematch with this woman didn’t turn out so well.
Isara stood in the alley with her back turned, wrapped in the folds of a red cloak. She seemed to be watching the street. “Such curious people,” she murmured as two protestors walked past. So far as Harry could tell, neither one of them had noticed her. “I wonder. Was I ever so…innocent?”
“What do you want?”
Giggling softly, she whirled around, and he could see that she was smiling in the darkness of her hood. “To speak, of course,” she said. “Don’t you want
