As soon as I stepped through the doorway, red lights flashed all over the basement. A sound like an air horn split the air.
“Gods!” Loken yelled. He grabbed my hand and yanked me toward the stairs.
He slowed at the top of the steps. Instead of opening the door, Loken placed a palm flat against it. “Ready?” he asked.
I nodded.
In the span of less than a second, the door melted outward into the door frame, leaving three shocked guards standing open-mouthed on the other side. Loken grabbed one of them by his shirtfront and tossed him down the stairs before the others had even started moving.
I flinched as the first guard tumbled down the steps and crumpled at the bottom. I was pleased to hear him moan; it meant he was still alive.
Loken unsheathed his sword so quickly that I hadn’t even seen him reach for it. He pointed it under the chin of one of the remaining two guards. “Don’t move,” he growled to other, “unless you want your friend here to start breathing through his neck.”
Loken gripped my shoulder and pushed me up the last two steps and past the two men. While he had them disabled, I took the opportunity to snatch the comm unit from the waistband of one of the guards. We circled them until we’d put them between us and the basement.
“Now run!” Loken shouted.
I took off and felt Loken close at my heels. We raced around the corner and skidded to a stop as Elder Kohler came into view. Despite his thin arms and mellow demeanor, I knew better than to underestimate him now. Loken’s arms still held the red welts Kohler had left during our last bout.
I spun in place and took off in the opposite direction. I rushed around the corner too quickly and hit the wall in front of me.
Loken grasped me around the waist, shielding me as the sound of a roaring fire filled my ears. Pressed against me, his body suddenly became much hotter. Terror stirred in the pit of my stomach. I peeked over my shoulder, dreading what was happening to Loken, who was directly in Kohler’s line of fire.
“Oh, gods, Loken,” I whispered as my gaze met his face.
The metal tattoo on the side of his face melted and spread. More metal climbed upward from his neck. The shining silver crawled along his face, over his cheeks and forehead, until it covered him like a second skin. Gripping me around the waist, his hands hardened against my arms as they, too, became metal.
“Stay down,” he said, through lips that shone like liquid steel.
Fire burned all around us. It filled the edges of my vision. Sweat prickled at my skin at first, then streamed down into my eyes and dripped off my chin. Loken’s hands around my waist, and his chin pressed against the top of my head, felt heavier and hotter as each moment passed. I struggled in his grasp, desperate to move, terrified that his metal skin would melt. And so would he.
Over the roar of the flames, I could barely hear the droning female voice in the walls: “Please stay calm. Remain calm.”
Finally the fire let up. Loken let me wriggle from his grasp. As I raced for the back door, I shot a peek over my shoulder. Elder Kohler had doubled over and was gasping for breath. He’d tired himself out trying to kill us.
My back tingled as we ran, anticipating a surprise attack. I expected any second to be burned by fire, or stabbed by a Bender joining the fight. I approached the glass back doors and reached for the handle.
“Don’t slow down. Go through it!” Loken shouted.
I hesitated for a split second until I realized what he meant. I hoped I was heavy enough and moving quickly enough to break the glass. Ether swirled around the door. I picked up my speed again, barreling toward the exit, praying to the gods I hadn’t believed in yesterday to help me break through it.
White-blue lights winked around the door, reflecting the sunlight streaming in from outside.
Gods, help us.
I squeezed my eyes shut and leapt toward the glass. It blew outward; I didn’t even feel it touch me. The glass shattered onto the grassy lawn. Shouts sounded behind us, but I didn’t look back. Loken’s hurried footsteps beat against the ground behind me.
We were safe. We were fugitives.
My breath came in shallow pants by the time Loken let me stop to rest in one of the many copses of trees just off the side of the road.
“What . . . now?” I huffed, sucking in deep breaths between words.
He grabbed my new comm from my waist—the one I’d stolen from the guard—and cracked it against a nearby tree trunk.
“Hey! I need that.” I snatched at it, but Loken held it out of my reach.
The comm split across the middle, and the top of the device popped off.
“Here. Hold this.” He passed me the plastic top.
Loken peered into the lower half of the device, with all its internal circuitry visible. A thin needle appeared in his hand, which he used to pry up a small computer chip. Loken displayed the chip between his fingertips, then tossed it in the dirt. I handed the top back to him, and he snapped it into place.
“Now they can’t track you,” he said. “But we can’t stay here. They’re too smart not to check the trees all along this road.
“So then what?”
He gave me a half smile, flashing his dimple, as he pointed to the east.
“Oh!” I turned to run away from the transport that hovered toward us across the grassy hills.
“Wait.” He grabbed my wrist. “It’s Rey.”
We stepped from the shadow of the trees, and the vehicle sped toward us. It stopped and the doors slid open.
Rey stuck his head from the driver-side window. “We’ve got a few minutes. I disconnected the power supplies from all the other transports. It’s an easy fix, but it will take them a minute or two to figure out.
I pressed a sloppy kiss on his cheek. “You are a goddess.”
He grinned. “I know. I know. Get in the transport.”
Loken and I closed ourselves in the vehicle, and we took off.
“Where are we headed?” I asked.
“Believer village,” said Rey, turning toward the front of the vehicle. “Jin’s sister offered you safe harbor.”
A sigh of relief blew past my lips. I settled back into the vehicle for the short ride.
After a minute of silence, Rey asked, “Are either of you hurt?”
“Are you?” I asked Loken.
I peered at him, examining his, once again, bronze skin. I lifted the bottom of his shirt and inspected his muscled abdomen, then shoved him around to examine his lower back. The metal tattoos swirled across his torso and back, motionless. I traced a finger along one that ran up and down his spine. Even through the tinted windows, the metal winked in the sunlight.
“Shall I take of my pants?” he asked.
“Not while I’m around,” called Rey from the front seat. “And let’s leave the sexual innuendo to the experts, shall we?”
Loken chuckled. As he did, his abdomen tightened under my hand. “Sorry, Rey. Didn’t mean to step on your toes.”
“Just don’t let it happen again.” Rey twisted around in his seat to give us a mock glare.
My hands jerked away from Loken. “Watch where we’re going!” I shouted, pointing toward the front window.
“Okay, okay.” Rey turned back toward the front.
Loken watched me through slightly closed lids. My heart raced as I remembered the feel of his hands on my body. I lifted his arms up, and Loken obediently held them out in front of him. I inspected the skin and metal on his arms as well. Everything appeared to be intact, no burns, no open wounds.
I brushed my palms over the soft skin of Loken’s arms. Not only did he have no new injuries or burns, but the burns on his right arm from our previous run-in with Elder Kohler had disappeared. I gripped the arm just under the elbow and twisted it around in my hand. Definitely no burns. My gaze traveled back up to his face, which shone with a healthy glow and slight redness on his cheeks.
“So no one’s hurt?” Rey asked again. “Or are you guys too busy making out to answer my question?”
“If you must know, Rey, I feel like Ra’s calloused foot. But your buddy here looks like he’s never been in a fight a day in his life.” I whirled around to lock eyes with Loken. “What just happened?”
Loken shrugged but failed to hide his smile. “You have an ether shield; I have a metal shield.”
“On the rare occasions when I can get my ether shield to work, it doesn’t heal me.”
“Maybe it would if you actually learned how to use it,” Rey called.
“Just drive the vehicle and shush!” I said. Then to Loken, “That was incredible.”
The edges of Loken’s smile twitched downward. “I wasn’t able to hold it as long as I used to. And I used to not need the tattoos at all. I could do it by drawing metal particles from the air.”
Again, Rey turned his head around to look at us. I scowled at him. “I’m slower than I was before the new timelines started,” he said. “So Elder Kohler was right about our abilities being affected.”
“Looks like it,” said Loken. His eyes narrowed at me. “I wonder how powerful you were before.”
I didn’t respond. If I’d known about my Ethereal ability before, I’d have a little brother right now. These were not the types of things I wanted to think about.
The transport slowed as we reached the edge of the village where Naja lived. The suns had set by then, and most of the villagers had turned in for the night. The few that remained stared at us as we coasted through town. Most cast us disapproving frowns. I sank deeper into my seat, trying to pull my face below the bottom of the windows without blatantly hiding.
“Can we just get out here and walk?” I asked.
“Absolutely not,” Rey said. “They don’t care that we disapprove when they come to the Council building in their fancy red-and-yellow robes, protesting our causes. So no, we’re not going to respect their silly pro-nature customs. And who says this transport isn’t natural anyway?”
“I think the fact that the Council members built it means it’s not natural,” I said.
“Council members are natural, and so is their work product.”
Naja’s house came into view. The closer we got, the clearer it became that Naja’s face held a hard scowl.
I pointed at her. “I think she would disagree with your analysis.”
When we stopped, I jumped from the transport and raced to the door, putting distance between me and the custom-disrespecting vehicle.
Naja gave me a quick hug and pushed me inside the house. “Would you help me with the dishes please? I had dinner guests, and the sink is overflowing.”
As I stepped into the house, she hissed to Rey and Loken, “Time for you gentlemen to go, and take that thing”—the word dripped venom—“out of here.”
The kitchen was smaller than any I’d seen before. Just a sink and a square of counter space. I guessed Naja did most of her cooking outside over her fire pit. I grabbed a damp dishrag and got to work on the pile of wooden dishes. Muffled voices floated to me from the doorway.
“Fine,” Rey said after a whispered exchange.
He came into the house, trailed by Loken. Rey and I hugged and exchanged cheek-kisses.
I tilted my head upward as Loken reached for me. Our lips met. My body tingled in his arms. This wasn’t the time or the place to indulge in that—not with Rey and Naja as audience, especially with Naja tapping her foot against the floor and darting exaggerated glances at the transport parked just outside her property.
Loken and I pulled apart. He brushed his fingertips across my lower lip before turning to leave. The men climbed into the transport and took off the way we’d come.
“So,” Naja said as she sauntered back outside. She beckoned for me to follow. We sat on two wooden stools in her outdoor dining space.
“So?” I still had no idea why she was allowing me to stay with her. The serious set of her lips suggested she was about to tell me.
“Do you know why you’re here?”
She wasn’t going to tell me after all; we were going to play a guessing game. Withholding an annoyed sigh, I said, “The Council thinks I’m going to be responsible for whatever’s about to happen.” Naja nodded. I added, “But none of that explains why you’re willing to have me here.”
Her mouth crept into a smile, which somehow was not reassuring. “You and I are allies. You see, you may or may not have the power to end things. Most likely, the Vision is a fluke, and there’s no end in sight. But either way, this is not something people were meant to interfere in. See—”
I cut her off. “I don’t understand. Don’t you guys care that everything we know may come to an end?”
“Should we care?” she asked, with one eyebrow quirked upward. “All things must end. Such is the cycle of nature. If the gods have decided that our time is over, then we should move on to the afterlives they have set for us. The end is not something to fear. It’s something to be welcomed.”
Six days ago, I might have laughed at that statement, at the seriousness with which she spoke of these alleged gods. The same gods who’d been on vacation when Pace was murdered. Now, I had my doubts. Something had happened back at the Council when I’d called on them to get me through the glass door. Or maybe I’d imagined it.
Still, I wasn’t buying Naja’s theory. And I certainly wasn’t willing to bet my existence on it.
“So if we fight and survive,” I asked, “does that mean there are no gods? No one up there preparing to end the world?”
“If your people fight and survive, they were always meant to survive, and the Vision is a fluke.”
Neither of us spoke for a while. Our eyes narrowed at each other across the dining table.
Naja stood and brushed dust off the seat of her pants. “I can see we’re not going to agree on this.” A smile brightened her face. “But I think we can agree that you need a place to stay, and I am willing to give you one. You’ll stay in Jin’s room, but only for two nights. After that, the Council will figure out where you are from the change in the Mages’ movements.”
Before she turned and headed for the archway into the house, she added, “The other villagers and I will provide you safe harbor temporarily. But if you get in our way, we’ll kill you.”