HALF HOUSE

It took the longest to free Addam. The Forerunner had removed Addam’s metal hand and tied him to the hook with a complicated series of underarm knots.

The body on the ground never so much as twitched. The glamor did end, however, fading with the Forerunner’s life essence. The illusion had covered an exceptionally old face with ruined, flaking skin. The man had not been entirely human—the skin flakes looked like reptile scales, still glittering on my finger from when I’d touched him earlier.

I’d love to say my metabolism had burned off the effects of the drug by then, but honestly, after we all spent a few minutes getting dressed, there was a stretch of minutes where Brand got mad at me because I kept trying to sit down. And my shoulder fucking hurt from being stretched above my head.

Right about the third time, he pulled a pill from a pocket and made me swallow it. I made a show of refusing until he told me it was caffeine. Then he said, “Here, bite down on this,” and gave me a strip of leather. I did that, and a few minutes later realized he was just trying to shut me up while he searched the suite of rooms.

I spit the strap out. “Do you feel as weird as I do?” I asked Addam, who was sitting on the sofa in the main room.

“Do you promise you and Brand won’t forget about me when you leave?” Addam said anxiously. “You’ll take me with you?”

“Why . . . what? Why would you say that?”

“I’ve got a feeling in my gut. Like I’ll be left behind.”

“Of course we’d never leave you behind.”

“But it would be so easy, because of that we,” he said insistently, which made perfect sense to him, but worried me.

The drugs were making us paranoid and messing with our focus. So I sat down and put my arms around him. I heard the weirdly comforting sounds of Brand ransacking drawers and cabinets, and just sank into the moment, especially when Addam sighed and rested his head against my chest.

The caffeine pill eventually ended the quiet moment. As the coffee-shakes hit the tips of my fingers, I untangled from Addam and stood up. “Brand?”

“Doesn’t make sense,” Brand shouted from another room.

“What doesn’t?”

He appeared in an open doorway to a walk-in closet, once a pantry where ballroom linens were stored. “There aren’t many herbs here. And not much alchemy equipment. If he really was an alchemist, where is the lab?”

“He’s an alchemist,” I said. “That drug, or spell or whatever it was, impaired my ability to call on my Aspect. I’ve never heard of anything so potent. Shit. Are we going to get in trouble for killing him? The Arcanum has these weird feelings about institutional knowledge.”

“You’re on the Arcanum, Rune,” Addam said.

“That’s right,” I said in my aha voice.

“Would you try to hold a fucking thought in your head,” Brand said. “We’re heading back to the tunnel. We need backup, so we can figure out what he meant by Lady Time being on the march.”

I considered that and saw the appeal. “Do you remember the way back to the market?”

“Of course I do,” Brand said, peeved. Then he froze. He closed his eyes and I watched the pupils darting back and forth under the lids. He said, “Shit. Maybe I need a caffeine pill too.”

Both of them ended up with a pill. We gathered our stuff and set out to find our way back to the surface.

Our next problem was immediately apparent. Addam and I were still having trouble with our concentration. Every light cantrip I tried to summon in the corridor outside the Forerunner’s home just sputtered and exploded into fireworks.

We stood there in the darkness for a second. I heard Brand patting down his pockets to see if he had an extra flashlight so we could watch both the rear and front while we walked. That was good in theory, but I kept getting distracted and making bunny-ear shadows against the wall.

“Jesus Christ,” Brand said, sitting down with his back to a wall. “This sucks. I want off this train.”

“At least we got high a few weeks ago. So it’s not so strange,” I added, feeling my way to his side.

“Yes, Rune, I’m sure smoking twenty-year-old pot really built up our tolerance,” Brand said. “This will surely be over in no time.”

“Maybe we’ll wait a minute until the stimulants really kick in?” I said.

Addam plunked down next to us. “I am useless. I cannot even make a light. I see now why you leave me behind so often.”

“You are not useless,” I said. “You’re sweet and noble, and you got the information to find the alchemist just by being you.”

Brand started laughing, but it was his are you shitting me laugh.

“Brandon,” Addam said, and sniffed.

“Addam,” Brand said, but couldn’t stop laughing. “You have got him so snowed. It’s like he can’t see how sneaky you are.”

“Addam isn’t sneaky,” I said.

“Oh, really?” Brand said. “Addam, did the girl tell you about Cornelius because you healed her?”

“I do not understand the question,” he said stiffly.

“Because it seemed like you kept talking for a while after you started healing her. Kind of made me think you ended up using one of your other go-to methods.”

“What go-to—” I started to protest, but Brand raised his voice, saying, “You either offered her money . . .”

“I—” Addam started to say.

“Or you used your dimples,” Brand ended.

I actually heard Addam’s mouth click shut.

“Sneaky,” Brand repeated. “I see you, Saint Nicholas. Why the fuck do you think you’re here? I’d walk into the Warrens anytime with you at my back. I’d walk into a firefight with it.”

“Oh, you ended up making it sound sweet,” I said.

“Thank you, I think,” Addam said, but I heard the pleased note in the words.

“Are we ready to try this for real?” Brand asked.

“You blokes talk a lot,” someone said. “Ain’t a great idea down here.”

Many things happened at once. We jumped to our feet. Brand turned on his flashlight. I swiped a finger over a sigil to release Fire. And Brand grabbed my arm and said, loudly, “Wait.”

My eyes adjusted to the flashlight beam he swung at me. My arm was outstretched, and Brand was standing in front of me. Brand spoke first to the unseen figure behind him. “You—whoever you are, stand the fuck right there. And Rune, do you see how your hand is aimed right at my stomach? Does that seem like a good idea to you?”

I swallowed and sweat broke out along my forehead. Brand whisked the flashlight beam along my face. “What’s wrong?” he demanded.

“I may have touched the wrong sigil,” I said in a shaky voice.

“What sigil did you touch?”

“Exodus. And it . . . doesn’t like to be held like this.”

The light beam ducked to my hand, which showed rims of blood around my nail beds. Brand grabbed my wrist in an honest panic—maybe because we might both be about to die—aimed it at a stone wall behind us, and barked at me to release it. A surge of energy shot from my hand and tore the front off the Forerunner’s home. The entire tunnel shook as stone thundered to the ground, caving in much of the translocated ballroom.

“Holy fuckballs!” someone cried behind us. The light beam swung on a young man’s thin face. He put his hands up and said, “Not going anywhere!”

I tried to swipe clouds of dust out of my face, which, given the oil already covering it, made everything worse. Exodus was one of my strongest last-defense spells, an explosive magic I meditated over daily to strengthen. A year ago I’d brought down a cathedral—a small cathedral—which Brand still managed to bring up with alarming frequency.

“Who are you?” I asked, to change the subject. I stepped around Brand to look at the young man.

“Old Toby, sir.”

“You’re the youngest Old Toby I’ve ever met.”

The scrawny young man shrugged. “My dad was called Young Toby on account of his da being Old Toby. But then my dad’s da passed down the River before I was born, so I was the new Old Toby. Trying me best to grow into it.”

“That man will give you a lot of money if you guide us back to the food market,” I said, and pointed to Addam. Needs must when the devil drove. I’d feel bad about raiding his wallet later.

Addam gave Old Toby a wad of cash before Brand could stop him. We usually didn’t pay off our sources until they’d done what we asked, or the dust had settled on all our collateral damage.

“Yes, sir, thank you, sir,” Old Toby said in delight.

We dusted ourselves off, made sure we hadn’t dropped anything, and followed the young man. Brand asked Addam to watch the rear with the flashlight so that he could walk abreast of our guide, who had a lantern that reeked of a caustic, homemade oil.

“You did for the Pill Man, ay?” Old Toby asked Brand.

Which was when I put another one of Quinn’s predictions together. He’d talked about more than one pill guy, hadn’t he? Godsdamnit. If I had to draw a metaphor of how this normally went, it would be spotting Quinn laughing his ass off in my rear-view mirror as I put the pieces together in hindsight.

“Is that going to be a problem?” Brand asked Old Toby.

“Not a bloody bit. Pompous ass, that one. Skint as all hell. Knew someone would come for him eventually.”

“We didn’t come here for him. We’re looking for something else. There’s more money in it, if you have the right information.”

Old Toby turned a gimlet eye on Brand. “Ay?”

“You know Lord Fool and his people? The Revelry?”

“Ay,” Old Toby repeated, but slower.

“Many of them have joined another group. There’s an old woman in charge of it. They may be in a compound near the Lowlands—or on the edge of the Warrens?”

“That’s the sort of secret people really don’t like to talk about. Bad things have happened there over the years.”

“I’m not asking you to lead us there, just confirm what we know.”

Old Toby held up a hand and stopped walking. “Shh. The bit ahead is lousy with undead. Lemme handle it.”

“What sort of undead?” I asked. Brand’s flashlight beam slid across a long stretch of rock corridor broken up by alcoves on the left and right. I didn’t remember walking through it before.

“Shh,” Old Toby repeated, and pulled out something that resembled a gun from a steampunk comic. It had a huge bulb on the end. “Keep an eye on all the alcoves. If any are about, they’ll drop to the ground as easy pickins.”

He took a few steps in front of us, aimed the gun at the ceiling, and pulled the trigger. The flash reminded me of an old Polaroid camera, but a thousand times brighter. The entire hallway was lit up like day until I closed my eyes against it, seeing sunspots under my eyelids.

When I opened my eyes, the hallway was empty, and Old Toby was gone.

Brand ran a hand over his eyes, tired. Then he marched forward twenty feet, reached into one of the alcoves, and yanked Old Toby back into the hallway by the collar of his shirt.

“I’m sorry,” Brand said. “Was this not like the fucking television show you watched? Did you think we’d just give up and let you escape during a commercial break? Give me that money.”

“No, I can still tell you how to get back!” the young man begged. “I just don’ wanna talk about that place in the Lowlands. Weird shit happens there.”

“The lab,” Addam said. “Toby—do you know where the alchemist kept his lab?”

The young man’s small eyes darted among us. “Ay,” he said. “You’re probably after the warehouse that he and the other gentleman meet at. It ain’t far. Just about six fuck-ups away.”

“Six . . .?” I said.

“Fuck-ups. Wot we call the translectured rooms and buildings. ‘Bout six of them between here and there. We can cut through market and take the tunnels.”

“Let’s go back to the market first,” Brand said.

Old Toby led us out of the alcove hall, through a short series of hatches and man-made holes, and by then I was starting to recognize some of the sights we’d passed earlier. I even guessed we were about to enter the college lecture hall a minute before we entered it.

But now, all the makeshift rooms were dismantled. Earlier, residents had stretched tattered blankets among the stadium seats to make their own pseudo-privacy. All of that was gone now, leaving behind only trash and food wrappers.

Old Toby jumped on a chair back and skipped down the decline with amazing agility. He laughed over his shoulder, “And I wasn’t tryin’ to hide from you, you prats! I just wanted you to think that while I texted my cousins. There’s more money in catchin’ nosy folks like you than that pocket change you gave me.”

Men in homemade armor began to pour through at least three other doorways: to the left, right, and straight ahead. Without missing a beat, Addam swiped a finger across a platinum disc slotted into his belt. A wash of Telekinetic energy shot from his hands in a stuttering wind.

“Concentration,” he grunted, and then bit down on his lip and doubled down. A second blast of energy pushed the front wave of ambushers back. Some lost their footing on the sloped floor and flipped over the lecture hall seats. Addam wasn’t able to sustain a continuous burst with his fractured concentration, but he was able to pulse the energy to create a defensible space in front of us.

“This is our third fucking ambush today, and I am done with it,” Brand snapped. “Put them down, Rune!”

“I . . .”

“They are straight-up bad guys,” Brand said.

“Not living down here. Not if they’re hungry. Not if we’re the difference between them eating tonight and not.” Maybe the caffeine pill was working, because that made actual sense. I added, “I’m not crossing that line. I’m not building a court on the other side of that line. Nonlethal tactics only.”

Brand looked like he either wanted to tear his hair out, because he knew I was immovable on this, or shove me hard to prove that I could quite easily be moved if he wanted me to.

“Nonlethal,” Brand snapped. “Push them back and I’ll prepare an extraction route.”

I started to touch a sigil, but Brand grabbed my hand. “Wait! You know which spell is in there?”

“Maybe not,” I said honestly. “But can anything be worse than Exodus?”

“Good point,” Brand said. “As always, thanks for being sure to fuck up the worst possible way on your first try.”

I ran a finger across two sigils at random, and Fire and Shield pushed into my hands, a heat mirage segmented into fractal, pixelated light. I didn’t often hold both spells in my hand at the same time, especially when drugged. Wondering what would happen if I put the two together, I wrapped my Fire in the Shield, stepped next to Addam, and pushed out a wall of energy.

Three rows of dry wooden chairs cracked and burst into flames. Men screamed and backed up. As the smoke pressed down on us, I decided maybe this wasn’t as effective as I hoped. I ripped the magics apart, and reversed Fire to suck up the oxygen around the flames, smothering them.

My mind refused to let the idea go. Being high and struggling to focus made me both frantic and creative. I always anchored my Shield to a floor, wall, or ceiling. Why? Did I have to?

So I narrowed Shield into an invisible battering ram that covered a semi-circle of space at waist height, covered it in a slick skin of Fire, and rolled it forward above the wooden lecture hall chairs.

And it worked. The spell passed above the flammable kindling and smacked into the advancing wave of thieves. Half of them were tossed backwards; some started to scream and catch fire. At least five of them had to stop, drop, and roll.

Then the world began to shake.

“Oh, what the fuck now,” Brand said, as dust and debris began to rain down from the ceiling.

A deeper sound than the rumbling filled the air. Like a god swinging a sledgehammer at rock. A piece of the ceiling above us cracked, and we backpedaled to avoid rock and tiles plummeting to the floor. Dust billowed, and Brand’s flashlight beam turned into a solid cone of yellow, unable to penetrate the haze.

Things fell through the hole in the ceiling. A washing machine crashed into the ground in front of us. Streams of water began to trickle and spray. A lit camping stove sputtered flame and gruel. The arm of something that may have been a giant lizard plopped right in front of my toe.

Then a gust of wind flowed down, clearing the clouds of debris. Amidst it, the Tower floated, and landed before me.

Muted sunlight now fell in shafts from a massive hole. Corinne and Mayan descended on a Bone Hollows ghost steed, with Lady Death hovering behind them. Ciaran flew down last in a dramatic swirl of blue leather and white cape.

Lord Tower wore an ancient chainmail jerkin. A series of bronze links built into the armor glittered with the power of mass sigils. I’d read stories about the Tower’s battle armor before, but had never, ever seen it in use.

He turned in a slow circle and stared at the ambushers, who were frozen in position with dropped jaws and whimpering injuries. They stared up at the skylight that hadn’t been there before, now linking this room to the surface. I think I even saw people on floors above us peeking their heads over the rim.

“Brings a whole new meaning to as the crow flies, doesn’t it?” Lady Death murmured at my side.

Before my friends could kill anyone, I cleared my dry throat and said—or maybe croaked, “This ends now. Lay down your weapons. Don’t make us stop you, because we don’t have much time, and there are few ways of ending things quickly that will allow you to walk home afterwards. Am I understood?”

A hand shot in the air from behind a row of seats. Old Toby peeked above the edge. He said, “Maybe we could still trade that information, yeah?”

“You stand in the presence of four Arcana, a scion of Atlantis, and three trained Companions,” I told him. “There will be no trading. There is only our mercy. Where is the warehouse?”

“Warehouse?” Death said.

“Four?” the Tower murmured, which is when I realized I had called Ciaran an Arcana. If I didn’t get my shit together, I was going to cause blow-back on my vow.

“Sorry, three,” I said irritably. “I’m still maybe high, there’s an army on the march, and some of these men have been burned. How about those of you with Healing get to work, while I talk with Old Toby.”

“You are high?” Lord Tower asked.

“As fuck,” I confirmed. “And there’s a whole lot of caffeine in the mix, too.”

The Tower touched one of the bronzed links on his suit of armor and released a mass sigil spell filled with Healing energy. He put his palm alongside my jaw and forced the magic into me. His personal brand of Healing wasn’t my own refreshing sunburnt feeling; it was more like clear-cutting a forest with gasoline. I experienced three seconds of howling pain followed by a pounding yet lucid headache.

“Brand and Addam too,” I said, wincing. “A rogue principality got the best of us before we killed him.”

“Vadik?” Lady Death said sharply.

“No. A second one,” I said, which made all the newcomers stare at me, because the idea of one rogue principality being loose on the island was unusual enough.

“Bad guys now, super-secret talk later,” Brand hissed as Lord Tower razed the drug high from his brain.

We lost a few minutes to logistics and PR. The Tower gave me a look that, in his muted way, conveyed exasperation, but I got Ciaran and Addam to circulate along the burnt would-be attackers and heal their injuries. Mayan, Corinne, and Brand ordered them into a sorry clump, while I pulled Lord Tower and Lady Death into quick conversation.

I explained to them what had happened since Zurah and I had parted ways.

“He called himself the Forerunner?” Lady Death repeated. “That’s a bit double-oh-seven, isn’t it?”

“Vadik calls himself the Serpent. Unironically.”

“I’ve sent three teams to secure the Amberson’s holdings,” Lord Tower said. “I would have gone myself but, not to put too fine a point on it, you usually stumble into the thick of things. I thought it best to find you first.”

“Fair,” Brand said, joining us.

“Luckily, you can hold your own,” Death said. She touched the lapel of my leather jacket and said, “Nice wards, by the way.”

I didn’t tell her that Queenie usually handled my jacket’s wards with homemade, and thus cheap, techniques. But they did keep me from getting too banged up.

“I want to find this warehouse. We’re closing in on Lady Time,” I said. “We know she’s taken over a secure space in the Lowlands. More importantly, we know she’s on the move. So we need to look for those battle plans. We find Lady Time, we find our kids.”

“You think these battle plans exist,” Lord Tower said.

“The Forerunner made a quip about the time they spent over the battle plans. Lady Time is a relic, and Cornelius is a centennial. What are the chances they run around with iPads? I’m pretty sure they’re stupid enough to have an actual battle map laying on a table somewhere. I want to look in this warehouse.”

Lord Tower snapped a finger in the direction of Old Toby, who stood at the edge of the trapped crew with a hangdog look. The young man scurried over, tripping over some charred debris from the fire.

Lord Tower said, “This warehouse Lord Sun mentioned—”

“That one is Lord Sun?” he said, startled, pointing to me.

“This one is,” I agreed, “and he’s about to get very mad if you don’t take him where he wants to go.”

Old Toby led us through another kaleidoscope. A hallway flanked by church pews; a fast-food restaurant dismantled of everything except a clown statue; a bell tower resting on a forty-five-degree angle. We encountered no resistance, but heard many footsteps running away from us.

Eventually we climbed through a manmade tunnel opening and into the massive, person-sized barrel of a carnival’s fun house. At the end of the red-and-white striped barrel was an invisible barrier that sizzled to my senses. Behind the barrier was a roll-up metal door.

“Just like the field around the rejuvenation center,” the Tower breathed.

“We’ll need to work together,” I said. “We don’t have time to lose body parts over this. Respectfully meant, Lord Tower.”

“How long has the warehouse been protected?” Brand asked Old Toby.

“There’s been some sort of shield that fries anyone who tries to muscle through it,” Old Toby said. “But that’s new. Few months maybe? But the old alchemist and his friend in the scaly mask have been coming here for years.”

I exchanged a look with Lord Tower, who was already exchanging a look with Mayan. I don’t know what that detail meant, but it meant something.

“I’m going to try something,” Zurah said. She was at the rear of the group, leading the ghost steed. In the light of multiple cantrips I saw the fine, pinched lines around her eyes. Summoning the ethereal horses was a costly effort—she’d burned away months of her life force to do it.

“You did this for me again,” I murmured as she passed.

“I’m keeping a tab,” she promised.

At the mouth of the barrier, she mounted the steed and took a moment to touch a few sigils. I watched a Shield glisten around her body, lit with a deep blue hue that made me think she’d added Frost magic to it. With a loud hah!, she charged forward.

She and the ghost steed slipped through the barrier and ran right through the roll-up door on the other side.

Old Toby tugged on my sleeve and pulled me to the side. “Look, Lord Sun. Lord Sun, right?”

I stared at him.

“No harm meant. And here’s some advice for free, since you did us a good turn. It’s not just starry-eyed kids that lady’s been gathering to her skirts. She’s been down here for months. We shouldn’t have been able to walk two fuck-ups without getting attacked—and we just walked six. It’s because she’s just about knocked off every local boss. That means all those boss’s peoples are with her now, you follow? She’s got an army that no one talks about.”

I thought about what he’d said, then nodded my thanks.

Lady Death charged back through the door. “Dark on the other side—and huge,” she said. “It’s a warehouse for planes or ships, I think. I can get us past easily enough. Grab my hand,” she said to me, and I tried to scramble onto the saddle behind her. It’s not something I did often, and I’m not proud to admit Brand had to apply a swift push to my ass.

The ride into the warehouse took a second. I fell off the horse while Zurah yee-hah’d her way back to ferry the others across the force field. I was alone for all of twenty seconds before Brand was galloped in, and I spent all of it looking for a light switch or power source. From the echoes my footsteps made, the room was as cavernous as Zurah had said.

I was just about to manifest a light cantrip when Brand shouted, “I’ve found a bank of light switches. Throwing them now.”

Overhead, rows of fluorescent lights snapped and began to warm to full illumination. Addam was—gracefully, of course—vaulting off the back of the ghost steed at that point. I spared Zurah a quick grin for her ferrying both of them over first, and she mouthed the word Tower, letting me know she’d be in the shit if she didn’t bring him next.

That was as far as we got, because the lights fully powered on in that moment. The ghost steed came to a dead stop as Zurah stared, stupefied, at what was behind me.

“Rune?” I heard Brand said in a small voice.

I turned around slowly, and saw Half House.

The warehouse was at least ten stories high. Enormous. Larger than two or three city blocks. It must have held battleships or cruise liners in its day. Even with the lights on, I could barely see the other side of the building.

Not that I was tempted to look at anything else other than the replica of Half House which had been built in front of me.

It seemed to float in the air—an illusion starting with Brand’s basement bedroom on the warehouse’s cement floor. The rest of the levels rose above that, to my fourth-floor bedroom under its dormer roof. There was even a representation of our back yard—a huge platform of dirt and grass suspended on pillars so that it could abut the second level of the structure, which was Half House’s ground level.

“I need to get the others,” Zurah said in a subdued voice. “I would stay where you are. Please.”

She raced back through the wall.

“Rune,” Brand said again, just as uncertainly but now with urgency. “Over there.”

He pointed to another structure past the model of Half House. Three wood and metal walls, with a fourth wall that looked like the exterior of a building. I whispered the words for a lens cantrip and put it to my eyes. Through it, I saw a bell motif worked into the stone. Past a window I saw the inside of a bedroom.

“Pac Bell,” I said in a hoarse voice. “That was my bedroom at the Pac Bell.”

“What is this?” Addam demanded.

Behind us, the Tower levitated off the back of the ghost steed and touched down beside me. The steed’s clip-clops were already on the move.

He stared for such a long time that I forgot I was waiting for him to speak. The others were brought through, and everyone stood in silence until we were a complete unit.

“What in the gods’ names am I looking at?” Corinne said. She walked past a stack of building material—huge pallets of cut wood, bags of concrete and nails—and approached the basement level of Half House. “There’s a wall missing in the back,” she called out.

Brand and I jogged over. Corinne was right—a doorway had been cut in the side of the basement apartment, where one had never been. It must have been used as an entrance.

I sent a light cantrip spinning into the darkness inside. Brand and I exchanged an unsettled look, and walked in. I heard Addam’s footsteps behind us, followed by the others.

“Jesus,” Brand whispered. “It’s . . . this is . . . that’s my same quilt.” He went over to the foldout futon along the opposite wall. “But there’s no stain from where you spilled the knife polish.”

My nerves were crawling over each other in a confused scrum.

Brand went over to the counter where he kept a microwave and mini-fridge. He pawed through a pile of energy bar wrappers. “This is my brand. Are these . . . Did these come from our fucking trash?”

I grabbed the handrail of the spiral staircase and went up to the first floor. The entire structure didn’t wobble and vibrate like the real staircase did, even when Lord Tower began to climb the steps after me. The first floor was so familiar that my stomach began to hurt. I stepped into the living room, but went no further.

“Quiet, Rune,” Lord Tower whispered. “Clear your mind and stand within a quiet space.”

He’d talked to me of quiet places before. He framed it in terms of moments when your concentration was paramount. What he never quite said was that it was the place we also went when we stood in a kill zone. Or when we were about to make one.

I took a deep breath and pointed at various things. “Same type of blanket. Of sofa. But look at the refrigerator in the kitchen. It has our weekly planner, but it’s empty.” I walked through the archway and opened the door to the fridge. There was a wine bottle and a milk carton. The wine bottle was empty, and the milk carton skittered back when I poked at it. “Trash,” I said.

“Probably yours.”

“Probably mine,” I agreed.

“What did they do with this?” Brand demanded. He was climbing the spiral staircase, two steps at a time. Ciaran and Addam followed.

I had a thought. “Brand, check Max’s room.”

He continued up the stairs without missing a step. I heard his footsteps above me—much too loudly. The floors weren’t insulated.

“It looks . . .” Brand said, then trailed off indecisively. His voice gained more confidence. “Remember that bureau we got from the Sunken Mall? It’s not here. This looks more like the guest room before it became Max’s bedroom.”

I went back to the stairs, climbed past the guest floor and past the third-floor sanctum, and stepped into my attic bedroom. It looked exactly as I remembered, right down to the old air conditioner hunched on the windowsill.

Ciaran had followed us. He swept a cold gaze across the room. I’m not sure I’d ever seen such a grave look on his face. “Rune, I’m assuming Addam knows nothing about the Majeure?”

“None,” I said.

“Ask Brand to keep him downstairs. Corinne too. I’m going to try something.”

“I heard,” Brand said from the stairwell. “I’ll keep . . . I’ll keep everyone downstairs.”

There was a rattled tone in his voice I rarely heard, and I would kill someone for putting it there. Someone would die for this. Someone would die for whatever I was about to learn.

Ciaran stepped into the middle of my bedroom and took a deep breath. He released it as a soft, low, long whistle, then shook his head. “Nothing. Not even when I look closely. Now with the Majeure.”

I felt the warmth of his magic—a quicksilver rush of power tied to no sigil. Ciaran closed his eyes for two long minutes. Light spilled through his lashes.

He raised an arm and pointed at my bed.

The custom mattress filled an entire end of the room. The comforter was newer than mine, but the same colors. The same number of pillows. I walked over, grabbed fistfuls, and began to yank it apart. Sheets and pillows went one way, and, when I saw the mattress top was normal, I began to yank it from the box spring. The Tower and Ciaran were helping by then—there wasn’t enough room for them to stand idly by.

It wasn’t until I’d pulled the box spring away from the wall that I saw something unexpected. A thin strip of metal cleverly worked into the corner joints of the wall. It almost looked like a smudge or pencil mark at first glance.

The metal felt cold under my fingertip. I channeled a burst of willpower into it—

* * *

I stood in my bedroom.

The mattress was bare. The linens had been stripped and moved to Sun Estate. My dresser drawers were pulled out and empty. Through the open door I saw my tiny bathroom, dusty and abandoned as well.

My body—or whatever this astral equivalent of my body was—moved to the window. The blinds were open to the approaching evening. I could see the park behind our cul-de-sac filled with real, moving people.

I ripped my hand from the metal strip while my stomach burned with nausea and acid. “It’s a fucking listening device,” I whispered. “It’s like an . . . antenna? A grounding ward for a clairvoyance spell? It’s a fucking listening device. Did you see the room over there?” I wildly pointed in a direction that may not have been right. “That’s my Pac Bell bedroom. There may be a listening device in the Pac Bell. I need . . . I need Brand. I need Brand.”

I wasn’t in my quiet place anymore. My chest hurt, like I wasn’t getting enough oxygen. The next thing I knew Brand was there, and I was grabbing him, saying, “It’s a listening device. These are all listening devices.”

“I don’t understand, I checked for bugs all the time, I still do, I promise, you know I do,” he said in a rush. He gasped, and his dry throat clicked. “Oh, God, Rune, this is—this dates back. The guest bedroom. The Pac Bell? How . . . how fucking long has Lady Time . . .?”

“I don’t think this is just about Lady Time anymore,” I whispered. “The barrier around the warehouse is new. But they said the people who came here have met for years. Whatever this is, I think it may have been here before Lady Time arrived.”

He pushed me away, just enough so I could watch his face. So I could see the understanding hit him. That this may have to do with the fall of my father’s throne, and the men who held me, and what happened that night.

“We can’t make conjectures,” Lord Tower said. “Not yet. We must learn as much as we can, as quickly as we can.”

I nodded.

A butterfly with wings of ice battered at the window. Lord Tower noticed it first, and went over to try to let it in. It was painted shut, so he ended up putting an elbow through a glass pane. The butterfly flew into the room and circled the Tower’s head until he held out a hand. It landed and melted in his palm, while the Tower cocked his head and listened to an inaudible message.

“Ciaran,” he said, his face shut down as tightly as I’d ever seen it. “Would you please join Lady Death by the Pac Bell replica.”

Ciaran curtsied and left.

“I don’t want to know, do I?” I asked Lord Tower.

“We will seal off this warehouse,” he told me. “With our combined abilities, not even Lady Time will be able to breach our defenses. We will come back later and pull this abomination apart nail by nail.”

“So Zurah found something other than battle plans,” I said.

I turned and walked down the staircase with rubbery steps. Corinne and Mayan were on the third floor, in a bare replica of my sanctum. Addam waited on the first floor. My emotions were gathered in a threadbare net by that point, so I settled for just holding out my hand to him. He took it and, hand in hand, we walked down to the basement, into the warehouse, and over toward the Pac Bell room. Brand was walking behind me, so I stopped until he stepped to my side and the three of us could walk as a team.

Everyone else followed. The Tower gave me my lead, but I saw him let out a small breath when I stopped at the Pac Bell and went no further. Ciaran and Lady Death weren’t to be seen, but I noticed a bobbing cantrip light around a massive partition in the warehouse ahead.

At the window—which would have faced a busy downtown street from the Tower’s stone skyscraper—I spotted things that had long since faded from my everyday memory. A full-sized bed with a cherrywood frame. Matching bookshelves and a desk. A desk chair that Brand had rebuilt after I put it together with half the screws that came in the box.

“Do you think there’s a strip of metal in there that would let you see into the Pac Bell right now?” I asked quietly.

“I suspect there might,” the Tower said.

“What is this, Anton?” I asked.

He met my eyes. “We must stay our theories for now, Rune. These are perilous moments.”

There was movement in my peripheral vision. Ciaran poked his head around the partition, saw us, and winced.

I let go of Addam’s hand and walked over to Ciaran.

“No, Rune,” he said.

“I think I know what’s there.”

“It’s not the same as seeing it. Please. Please, my friend,” he said gently, and put his hands on my shoulders. “Do not do this to yourself.”

But Ciaran only had two arms to stop me, and, of course, Brand was already running past us, fiercely determined to take the injury before I could. I watched him crest the edge of the partition, see what was on the other side, and come to a wavering stop. A soft sound escaped his lips.

He yelled over his shoulder, “Rune, don’t you come over here!”

I pried Ciaran’s hands off my shoulder and walked toward my Companion.

“Rune, don’t you . . . we don’t need to do this now,” Brand begged. “We don’t . . .” His eyes began to glisten.

“It’s the carriage house, isn’t it?” I asked.

Brand nodded. He pressed his palms over his eyes and continued to nod.

“I need you to stay here,” I said.

He ripped his hands away from his eyes and glared at me.

“Please?” I whispered. “Please do this for me?”

He pushed the words that’s low through his lips, and I knew he didn’t trust his voice not to break.

“You’ll be right here,” I said. “That always makes me strong.”

I walked around him. The hanger on the other side of the partition was not as large as the main room, but no less massive for that. My eyes were drawn immediately to a replica of Sun Estate’s beaten-down carriage house. The barn-like sliding doors were closed, and Lady Death stood by the frame. She shifted her weight as I approached, blocking my view of something.

For a second—just a second—I thought I saw Lady Time standing in the half shadows, a gloating smile on her face. The image vanished before I even blinked.

“Brother,” Zurah said. “Why do this to yourself?”

But she lowered her head and stepped aside.

Behind her—nailed to the frame of the building—were two masks. A snake head and an owl head.

Two decades ago, a group of people who remain unidentified to this day invaded Sun Estate while its people slept. By the time they were done, everyone on the property was dead except Brand and I, including my father, who was nearly burned beyond recognition.

I was taken to the carriage house. Nine men in animal masks raped and tortured me for hours. Brand eventually came to his senses and saved me.

New Atlantis considers it an enduring mystery. It has dogged my every footstep, my every ambition, my every nightmare. In a rundown section of the city I even maintain a small apartment filled with secret research dedicated to learning more about why they did what they did.

Until recently, I’d only identified a single villain—Ashton Saint Gabriel. I’d killed him.

And now?

Two more. Two more names. One of whom still lived.

The masks were dusty and old and very, very authentic.

I felt the beginning of a panic attack stir. Only this time, the shouting that poured out of my mouth wasn’t mine.

Brand had walked to my side and seen the masks. I watched the expression on his face as he recognized what they meant. What this entire warehouse meant. That whatever had begun the night Sun Estate fell had not ended—it had only become something different.

We had been spied on our entire adult life. In the sanctuary of our own home, we had been watched.

Brand screamed at the masks. His face was red, and the tendons on his neck stood out like steel cables. No words, just inchoate rage at the one thing that had hurt me he’d never been able to kill. Helpless fury at the one thing that had hurt us again and again and again.

“Brand,” I said, and my eyes were blurry with tears. “Come here. Come here.”

His screams were going hoarse. He was nearly staggering on his feet.

And then Addam came up behind him and wrapped his arms around Brand. He began to whisper words into his ear. When Brand stopped screaming, Addam lifted one arm, and I moved beneath it, so that the three of us were locked in an embrace.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched my friends approach. They formed a semicircle around us, including Lady Death. They folded their hands over their chest and turned their backs, standing so close that they effectively formed a barrier between us and the world.

It was an old Atlantean custom among the closest of allies. It spoke of support and privacy and compassion. It was a deeply felt gesture from a group of people who’d all lived on the Atlantis homeland once upon a time.

After a small eternity, I pried away from Brand and Addam.

“I already guessed,” I said in a cracked voice. “Vadik is stupid enough to call himself the Serpent. And Cornelius made a crack about an owl’s nest. I . . . already guessed, I think, deep down.”

“I am so sorry,” Lady Death whispered. “I cannot imagine how this must feel.”

We didn’t have the luxury of breaking down now, though. Not for any longer than we already had. As Lord Tower had said, these were perilous moments.

Swallowing, I turned in a slow circle to see what other fun surprises the room might hold. The only thing within the reach of the overhead lights was a large table ringed by chairs. Behind it, flush against the wall, was something like an ancient computer. It was as large as a dining room hutch, and covered with glass tubes, bulbs, bronze dials, and heavy-handled switches.

Someone made a sound. When Ciaran saw he had my attention, he raised his hand. “I think I know what that contraption is,” he said.

“Is it—” I bit off the words, because something else had grabbed my attention. “Holy shit. There really are battle plans!”

I ran over to the table. A map of downtown New Atlantis was stretched along the surface. Notes had been scrawled in the margin, but they all seem to be centered around . . .

“Farstryke,” I said. “Of course. Why the fuck didn’t I think about that? It’s her ancestral home.”

Farstryke Castle was one of the few buildings that the Arcana had attempted to translocate from the Atlantean homeland. Its lands had been considered a public trust since the dissolution of the Hourglass Throne centuries before. Something about the transference had gone bad, and Farstryke was largely known as one of the most haunted pieces of real estate on the island.

The Tower reached the table, a half step behind Brand. I glanced at him and said, “Did you suspect?”

“I did. But then again, I suspect a lot of things. Not only is it her ancestral home, but there are patches of null zone on the property—which she seems to use as a power source. So if she really is moving on Farstryke it is . . . not unideal.”

“Ciaran, what is that?” I asked, nodding at the large device.

“It’s a device created by the Hex Throne and widely used by other courts in the 1800s. Frightfully expensive, unspeakably ugly, but also rather secure for what it does.”

“What does it do?” Addam asked. He put a hand on my arm, briefly, and squeezed.

“It facilitates communication between two fixed points,” Ciaran explained.

“Activate it,” I said.

“Rune, it would be wise—” Lord Tower began saying.

“Activate it,” I repeated.

Ciaran bowed his head at me and moved to the device. He examined the panel for a moment, then pressed a button and turned one dial fully counterclockwise. Bulbs began to brighten to a dull red. Ciaran put his palm on a square panel and pushed. From inside the machine, I heard an electric current crackle to life.

We watched for a good thirty seconds, and the bulbs deepened to a dark green. A minute after that, a metal grill began to hiss.

A distorted voice said, “Cornelius? We agreed not to speak until your and Vadik’s unfortunate arrangement with Lady Time has ended.” The word arrangement was nearly spat.

Whomever this was, it wasn’t Lady Time. And with everything else we’d just learned, I had to wonder if I was speaking with the person behind the unsanctioned raid on my father’s throne. The person behind my torture.

“Something happened,” I said, and hoped my voice was just as distorted on their end.

A pause. Then: “Tell me.”

“The warehouse has been compromised.”

“When? By whom? I swore to you if your freelancing with that woman jeopardized our own plans there would be consequences. I told you not to show her the monitoring station!”

“Lord Sun has identified us,” I said.

The pause lasted longer this time. The voice said, much more calmly, “Who is this?”

“When you feel my boot on your throat, you’ll know.”

The grill sputtered. No. No, laughed. Whoever they were, they laughed, a synthesized crackle.

“Rune Sun,” they said. “Even a blind pig finds a truffle now and then, doesn’t it?”

“Especially if he has friends,” Zurah said. “That makes all the difference, don’t you think, Lord Tower?”

“I most certainly do, Lady Death,” Lord Tower said, and the sclera of his eyes had gone black, a dangerous, dangerous hint that his Aspect was close to the surface.

“Don’t I get named too? Include me!” Ciaran said. “After all, I knew the people who built machines like this. And once I take it apart, I promise . . . I will find you.”

The machine went dead. The bulbs blinked off, and the electrical hum dropped into silence.

There was no time to discuss what had happened, because Mayan stepped up to Lord Tower and said, “Are you all right? What’s happening?”

The Tower gave his arm a frustrated look and, grudgingly, pulled up his chainmail sleeve. A welt was rising along the surface of his forearm, shaped like the seal of the Arcanum—a round circle filled with wavy River lines and connected spheres.

“Lord Judgment is using his staff of office,” he said.

Mayan gave his scion a furious look, not unlike Brand would give me if he learned someone was mucking about with my skin.

Lord Tower touched the mark and said, “We’re among friends, but speak guardedly.”

A voice—distant and hard to hear, like the last word in a string of cavern echoes—said, “Former members of the Revelry are amassing on the city streets. We have people in place to track their movements.”

“We believe her target is Farstryke Castle. And I feel confident we’ve confirmed that Lady Jade has, in fact, claimed the Hourglass Throne as Lady Time.”

“Then we must deny her the chance to gain a greater foothold. The Arcanum moves now, in full force.”

“Acknowledged,” Lord Tower said.

The burn mark sank back into his skin. Lord Tower massaged the rash-like area briefly, and lowered the armor back into place.

He said, “We go to battle.”