Hettie collapsed to her knees, gasping, the muscles in her chest and the cords in her throat raw, torn and stretched out like taffy. She stared up blearily in search of her sister, but Abby wasn’t there.

Glamor, she thought with a curse.

She grabbed Diablo with trembling fingers and pushed shakily to her feet. Thirteen sorcerers formed a ring around her, watching her and the gun in her hand a touch fearfully.

“Did…did it work?” a small male voice asked.

“Now, now, Hettie, put the gun down. I know you better than you think. You don’t want to hurt any of us, or yourself for that matter.”

She whipped around, blood rushing through her. Berkeley. Next to him was a slight woman with brassy hair and a defiant glare. Her eyes reminded Hettie of the void of an empty grave, or the night sky framed within a hangman’s noose. She met that hate-filled gaze, narrowing her own to dagger slits.

“Where’s Abby?” She didn’t care about the gun pointed at her heart by the woman with the death’s head stare.

“She’s here, of course,” Berkeley said. “I told you she was alive and well. And I did promise we’d be done with her soon.”

A tremor shook her arm, but she kept the gun pointed at the grandmaster and one eye on the woman next to him. “Bring me my sister or I’ll kill you all.”

He raised his chin. “Well, go on, then.”

Hettie pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. She called out to the mage gun, but there was nothing. Not silence. Not a mental shrug or a struggle as if Diablo had been gagged. Just…nothing.

The gun in her hand was just that. A gun.

“Congratulations, Professor Gallagher,” Berkeley called. “You’ve severed Miss Alabama’s link to that infernal piece.” To Hettie, he added, “Don’t you see, Hettie? You’re free of the curse of the Devil’s Revolver. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”

Free? No, no, that couldn’t be. She reached out again, trying to pull up the time bubble, trying for anything. But there was no magic in her touch. She impaled her trigger finger on the thorn, letting it sink in. Click, click, click. The grip was smeared with blood, but it was just a stain now. A mess. Not a bond.

Tears filled her eyes as the keen edge of loss sliced through her. She wanted to wipe that smug smile off Berkeley’s face. Shoot that damned woman through each of her soulless eyes…

Then she remembered.

She pulled the hammer back and took aim.

“Look out!”

Hettie pulled the trigger as a body dove between them, toppling her target.

The gunshot came at the same time searing pain blossomed in her side. Hettie rolled out of the path of the bullets as they pinged off the floor, switching the gun to her left hand and drawing a knife from her boot. She sprang to her feet and stabbed the nearest sorcerer in the gut, wrenching him around by the knife handle to act as a human shield. Two more sorcerers came at her from either side, starting incantations for battle spells. She shot the first in the chest, the second in the head. Hot blood spattered her face.

The others scattered. The stabbed sorcerer in front of her slumped to his knees, and she crouched behind his bulk as she took aim at the armed woman. Paid throbbed through Hettie’s side, and she grunted.

“This is a citizen’s arrest, Hettie Alabama,” the woman shouted. “You won’t get away this time.”

She didn’t know who the woman was, nor did she care.

“You fool! You shot her! If she dies—”

“I won’t let her escape justice that easily.” The woman’s conviction could cut rawhide.

Berkeley’s nostrils flared. “Be that as it may, I’ve no clue what effect opening the hell gate will have in this pocket realm, and I won’t have all my work here destroyed!”

Hettie thought hard. Her bond to Diablo had been severed, but somehow, killing her would still open the hell gate. She took shaky aim at Berkeley and fired. The bullet pinged harmlessly off the bulkhead behind him.

The grandmaster’s head shot up, nostrils flaring indignantly. “Enough of this!” He pushed a hand toward her. Hettie flew back, and her head banged hard against the far wall. Stars winked in and out of her vision, and her stomach churned. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to do that, but I abhor gun violence.” He nodded. “Now put that thing away, and we’ll get you a healer before you bleed out.”

She glared as she pushed up into a crouch. Blood poured from her side, spurting between her fingers. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“Professor Gallagher’s injured.” The woman was bent over the man in the gray suit, her brow furrowed. “He jumped in front of me…”

Berkeley frowned and gestured sharply. Three sorcerers hurriedly carried Gallagher away. The woman watched him go, but her aim never strayed from Hettie.

Berkeley turned his attention back to Hettie and frowned. “Don’t be foolish, Hettie. You won’t get far with that wound. Drop your weapon and I’ll get you all the help you need. I’ll even let you go to Abby.”

She looked for Zavi, for Abby, but saw neither. “Where is she?”

“In the next chamber. She can’t see you in that state, though. What will she think after all this time?” He extended a hand, sounding reasonable, compassionate even. “Surrender Diablo. Let my healers take that bullet out. Have a meal and a bath. By then, Abby’s work will be complete, and you can have your reunion.”

She chewed on the inside of her cheek. The man’s influence magic was strong, but Hettie was too stubborn to fall for it. “I’ll see her now.” Her aim wavered, but she zeroed in on the armed woman, who watched her like a hawk.

Berkeley compressed his lips and lifted a shoulder. “Follow me.” He turned his back on her.

“You…you can’t be serious!” the woman exclaimed.

“Miss Pinkerton, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s to never come between a woman and her goals. Anyways, we have time.” He beckoned as if he were the concierge at a hotel. “This way.”

Hettie hobbled forward, gripping her wound, muzzle trained on Berkeley. The Pinkerton woman glared hard daggers at her, but her focus was divided, her eyes darting toward the exit the sorcerers had taken the injured man through.

With every step, pain shot through Hettie’s side in a sickening wave that matched the throb of the machine. She didn’t want the armed woman at her back, but she didn’t have much choice if she was going to follow Berkeley.

They walked through an archway, and something shimmered over her skin. More glamor. She stopped in her tracks as her heart surged into her throat.

Abby, naked, floated three feet off the ground, suspended in midair, her body pierced through with needles that bobbed and wavered like silver porcupine quills. Fine threads of gold connected the needles to the rest of the machine above. Her sister looked peaceful, as if she were asleep.

A sob sawed through Hettie’s tight throat. Three long years of cursing a pantheon of uncaring gods, of hoping Abby was alive but secretly wondering if she were better off dead. Three years in which Abby had endured gods knew what, in which she’d gone from little girl to young woman in the clutches of greedy, terrible men.

Her grip tightened around the gun. “What have you done to her?”

“It’s all very scientific,” Berkeley said. “But the short answer is that Abby’s indigo powers have finally been harnessed, thanks to Dr. Fielding.” The grandmaster glanced around. “Alastair? Where are you, doctor?”

From one dark corner, the shadow of a man crept out, trembling. “I h-heard g-gunfire and hid,” he said shakily. His eyes lighted on Hettie and widened. “It’s you.”

Rage and pain and something like fear blew through her like a wave of heat from a furnace, prickling her skin. Hettie’s glare must have skewered him, because he shrank away. This man had tried to take liberties with Hettie. If he’d laid one finger on her sister—

“Dr. Fielding, please explain to Miss Alabama how you managed this great feat with Abigail.”

He cleared his throat. “In s-simple terms, I used the concepts that created the Fielding engines to develop this macro version, only I looped the raw power to filter through a”—he contracted like a snail into its shell, tucking his chin down—“magic proxy.”

“Proxy?”

“The w-warlock,” Fielding stuttered.

Zavi. The damned warlock she’d freed. He’d probably slunk off to lick his wounds and hightail it out of there. “What does this machine do?” Hettie asked Berkeley, hoping no one had noticed the absence of their “proxy.”

“Up till now, it’s been storing power. Augmented with what we’ve borrowed from other sorcerers, we’re just about ready for the final procedure.”

“Borrowed. You mean stolen.”

Berkeley waved his hand. “It’s a short-term loan for a long-term investment. The gifted will understand what this means once we’ve ended this magic drain and brought order once and for all.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in the magic drain.”

“A drain implies it’s not coming back. This is more of a drought. Magic will return, and thanks to these advances in science and sorcery, we have total control now.” The corners of his mouth twisted upward.

“So you lied.” Her gunshot wound throbbed. The taste of metal stained her tongue, and her hearing was coming in and out.

“Out of necessity. It’s the Division’s job to keep the masses from panicking. If we had acknowledged the shortage, we’d have rampant juicing; talisman forgeries ten times worse than what we see now; magic riots and power hoarding. Criminal enterprises would thrive among rogue sorcerers. Gifted children would be snatched from their homes. Why do you think enrollment in the Academy is mandatory?”

“Because the Division is trying to control all magic.”

“We’re trying to protect what’s left of magic.” A hard light filled his eyes. “The only way to preserve civilized magical traditions is to centralize all our gifted and their powers.”

“And you took Abby for those purposes.”

“I know it’s hard for you to accept, but your sister was key to the salvation of magickind. With Abby, and Fielding’s discovery, we finally have the means to not only preserve what magic is left—we can restore it.”

“How?” This from the Pinkerton woman; Hettie had nearly forgotten she was there. It was hard to keep focus.

“It’s long been theorized that the essence of magic comes from the heavens,” Fielding explained, his shaky voice growing steadily more excited. “The Celestials believe it comes from their qi. The Kukulos believe it is a God-given destiny allotted to the superior race through their bloodlines. Some cultures have pantheons of spirits and gods they worship. But the scientific answer is that all of these things are true.” He spread his arms wide, his expression manic as he turned his face upward. “Our strongest beliefs and traditions focus our energies and make manifest the ability to change reality, to manipulate what we collectively call magic. Only a small percentage of the population can actually do this, but the forces of magic permeate our reality, which must mean it comes from somewhere. That somewhere is the space common among all cultures and traditions that we must all be able to perceive to one degree or another, even if our names for it are different in every language.”

“The place in-between.” Hettie suddenly grew dizzy, and she staggered. She was losing blood fast. Her fingers tingled, and her vision was going gray.

A rumble like thunder echoed through the chamber, and fine dust rained down on them. “We discovered it by chance when we plumbed Miss Abigail’s mind during one of her episodes. She travels to realms we can’t begin to imagine along these corridors. We haven’t been able to map them at all—they’re infinite, twisting…and the magic there is nearly limitless.” Fielding gestured helplessly. “Those pathways that link human experience—our stories, our myths, our very existence in this realm—we’re all connected, don’t you see? Gifted and mundane, dimcan or grandmaster…”

“The bottom line,” Berkeley cut in sharply, “is that in a few moments, magic will be restored to its former glory, only now, the Division has the means to mine, harvest, and store it. Sorcerers can finally reclaim their rightful place as the inheritors to the earth. We can end the League and the Mundane Movement, and bring peace and order to the world. Our nation will become the greatest magical power on earth.”

“Whaddya mean…?” Hettie’s speech was slurred. The floor slid out from under her, and suddenly the world was on its side.

“Hettie!” Berkeley voice was sharp. “We can’t let her die. Not here, not now, when we’re so close.”

“Don’t worry. She won’t.”

Hettie turned over, and her heart beat hard. Sophie and Lady Starling were there, as well as Jay and several other sorcerers.

“Miss Sophie Favreau. What a pleasure it is to see you again.” Berkeley gave a slight bow. “And…Lady Eden Prescott. Or shall I call you Starling?” He eyed her up and down in her battle armor. “I’d heard you kept some peculiar company, but I had no idea you’d fallen so far.”

Starling watched him impassively. “It’s over, Grandmaster Berkeley. My people are raiding your compound now. We found the drained sorcerers. I don’t know what you’re doing with them, but this ends today. We will expose you and the Division.”

“Expose me? To whom?” He smirked. “You think an operation like this isn’t sanctioned by the government? I work parallel to the president. I represent the interests of the gifted and all magickind. No one in Congress would listen to a fallen woman like you, or any of your ragtag band of miscreants. There’s no one who could stop me.”

“You’re not exempt from the law.” She pointed. “Kidnapping and assault is worth at least fifteen years in jail, by my accounting.”

“Miss Hettie.”

Hettie turned over and looked up blearily. “Ling?”

“Don’t move. You’re seriously injured.” He pressed his palms to her blood-soaked side. Coolness swept through her, easing some of the pain.

“No…get Abby. Save Abby.” Her sister could be rescued now, and Hettie didn’t want to waste another second.

“Shh. It’ll be all right.” He grimaced down at her admonishingly. “It’s a good thing I had that talisman. The moment you crossed over, I knew you wouldn’t wait for us.”

I know you better than you think.

Blood throbbed into her head, and her vision narrowed as the sound deadened in her ears. Berkeley was smiling, despite the sorcerers all around him, their spells at the ready. Fielding was hovering over a panel—

“It’s a trap! It’s a tra—”

“Doctor?” The grandmaster tipped his head.

Fielding pushed a button.