Chapter Two

Much as he would have liked to take this opportunity to enter the house by the front door, Grover couldn’t make himself do it. It would be too much of a spectacle, he decided, and he wasn’t here for that.

Truth be told he no longer knew why he’d come, exactly. But he now had a reason to stay—a job that paid gold dollars.

He came in through the back door. The warm, fragrant atmosphere of the large kitchen felt familiar. He stopped to greet the new cook (a Creole lady named Camille) and then to allow the plump whirlwind of a housekeeper, Mrs. Citlali, to hug him and chastise him for wearing a hat indoors like “some kind of ruffian, raised in a barn”. Grover removed his hat and thanked Mrs. Citlali when she hung it and his coat up with the aprons. Seized by memories of the last time he’d entered the ballroom, Grover tried to linger in the familiar surroundings of the kitchen, offering to haul in firewood as he’d done as a boy, but Mrs. Citlali wouldn’t hear of it.

“Don’t you steal my work, Grover. You mosey out and let those rich folks hire you to guide them through the rift lands.” Mrs. Citlali playfully pushed Grover towards the hall door. “I expect you to do your mama proud and demand twice what they first offer. Or three times, even. They can afford to pay, believe me.”

“I’ll do my best, ma’am.” Grover strode through the hall and slowly pushed open the door to the big ballroom. The light blazing from chandeliers powered by ignited alchemic crystals seemed to gild the dancing couples. It limned the multitude of single men who lingered at the sideboard tables and warmed the complexions of elderly ladies who sat around the grand fireplace chatting.

Far over by the bay windows, the musicians from the Variety Music Hall rolled out the sweeping notes of a waltz. Grover recognized one of the fiddlers—a handsome Black man—as the fellow he’d spent a few pleasant hours with naked in the attic of the music hall last summer. That hadn’t lasted long past Grover noticing his wedding ring.

Still, Grover’s gaze lingered on the man as he reflexively searched for an ally in this big room brimming with white folk. The treacherous sensation that he didn’t belong and wasn’t safe in such company crawled up his spine like a chill. Grover straightened his back, resisting the reflex to hunch low. It wasn’t that wariness wasn’t warranted, but he prided himself on his dignity and courage—he’d earned a reputation for living fearlessly alongside mountain lions and making game of dinosaurs.

Yet none of those wild creatures made him so uneasy as this room of near strangers. Sure, Grover knew the names of half the better-dressed folks, but he certainly wasn’t in a position to use those names in any but the most formal terms. The few uniformed men who hadn’t just arrived with the airship worked for Sheriff Lee and weren’t any of them keen on Grover, not the least because he did business with Arapaho and Ute out beyond the scope of their authority.

Grover craned his head, trying to catch a glimpse of Lawrence or even Mayor Wilder. Instead Cora Cody gave him a very bright, pretty smile, and all at once drew her tall dance partner away from the other couples. Even before the man turned, Grover knew he was Lawrence. He made himself smile, though it hurt seeing how handsome a couple the two of them made. He had no right to feel jealous. Bottom truth was Cora had been Lawrence’s childhood friend even before Grover had come along. And a long time before George Cody arrived in town too.

Grover glanced through the crowd and picked out George’s big frame beside the ornate punch bowl. He stood, laughing with the Tucker brothers. If Cora dancing in the arms of her one-time fiancée troubled him at all, it didn’t show in his cheery expression. Grover guessed the Tuckers must have been discussing natural sciences. There wasn’t much else—aside from Cora—that lit George’s ruddy face up to such a pleased glow.

“Grove,” Cora called as she drew Lawrence along to his side.

“Mrs. Cody.” Grover bobbed his head and kept a good step clear of her. Men like Sheriff Lee all too readily took offense at even a hint of intimacy between any man of color and a white woman. It suited Grover to stand beside Lawrence in any case.

“Isn’t it wonderful!” Cora declared. Before Grover could ask exactly what she meant, Cora turned her gaze on Lawrence. “It broke our hearts thinking you were dead, Lawry.”

“I said I was sorry,” Lawrence replied.

“To me.” Cora released Lawrence’s left arm. “But I’d bet my back teeth that you haven’t said a thing to Grover.”

“Grover and I were speaking just a while ago, in fact,” Lawrence replied and then grinned. “Which of your teeth would you like to hand over?”

Cora laughed at that but cocked her head slightly. The blond curls bordering her face bounced, as if still dancing to the happy melody filling the air.

“So you two…” She raised a brow as she looked intently at Grover. “You’re loving friends as ever?”

Grover wasn’t certain whether his own incoherent choking noise or Lawrence’s look of tongue-tied alarm was more awkward, but one or both inspired Cora to shake her head and set her curls swinging again.

“It astounds me how articulate you men can be at times,” she commented.

“Not every fellow is as eloquent as your husband, Mrs. Cody,” Grover responded.

“True.” Cora’s fond gaze went at once to George, though a moment later she sighed. “He will never remember to bring me my punch with those two chatting him up.” Cora pointed to the sideboard where George stood looking delighted as one of the Tuckers puffed up his chest like a prairie grouse and the other held out something in the palm of his gloved hand. Lawrence frowned, but whether it was at the reminder that Cora had wed another man or at the sight of the Tucker twins, Grover didn’t know.

No reason it couldn’t be both, he supposed.

The punch looked good though. So did all the platters of fried fish, clams and giant red crawdads. Silver dishes brimmed with chips of butter and little braided rolls of wheat bread. Grover didn’t think he’d tasted real bread or butter in four years—maybe five.

“Have you eaten anything?” Lawrence asked. After a moment of quiet he prompted, “Grove?”

“Sorry. I thought you were asking Mrs. Cody,” Grover replied. “I ate this morning. Nothing like that spread, though.”

“Let’s avail ourselves of the refreshments, then,” Lawrence suggested.

“We’ll have to,” Cora agreed. “Especially as my husband has forsaken us for the wiles of those doe-eyed professors.”

“He’ll come to his senses the moment he notices that you’ve claimed two dashing dandies as escorts,” Lawrence responded.

Cora laughed and Grover smiled. Dashing dandies had fallen on hard times if Grover was being admitted to their company. The three of them crossed the room and folks watched. Most the locals, Grover guessed, gawked and gossiped about Lawrence, only hours back from the dead and already dancing with Cora. Some of the newcomers from the east, however, appeared wary of Grover. Eyeing him like dogs hankering to get their hackles up.

Grover felt too hungry and too pleased with Lawrence’s company to let himself be cowed by newcomers going red-faced at the sight of a Black man eating from the same sideboard table as them. Of the few men in fresh blue uniforms who cast him evil glances, none had the grit to meet Grover’s gaze when he looked them in the eyes.

If they planned to stay in Fort Arvada for any time, they’d just have to get used to mixing with folk who weren’t white, because outside of this quaint little party, thousands of people of every color and creed filled the businesses, boarding houses, music hall and saloons of the city. By Grover’s reckoning they made up more then half of the population, and they weren’t going anywhere, anytime soon. Just pondering the matter, Grover felt irritated with himself for allowing a few sneering bigots to get under his skin and rattle him so bad.

Lawrence asked him about a fern dish and two platters of fish. Grover quickly forced himself to put the men surrounding them out of his mind. He’d been invited in here by the mayor, and he had as much right to stand in this ballroom as any one of them did.

“You’ll like them big crawdads,” Grover assured Lawrence. “I saw the Liu brothers net them just this morning. The meat’s real sweet. Them ferns are good too, they taste like green beans.”

Lawrence helped himself to an assortment of small fish, crawdads and spring fronds. Grover claimed a thick cut of shark, a fried pterosaur leg and warm bread roll, which he slathered with butter. Cora packed four rolls and several cuts of turtle on her small plate as well as a heap of butter chips.

Grover tried not to stare at Lawrence’s right hand as he held his plate. Lawrence moved it so smoothly that it took Grover a moment to recognize that the jointed fingers and smooth palm were carved from polished ivory. Tiny gold grommets glinted along the joints.

For an instant, sorrow for the pain and loss Lawrence must have endured swept over Grover, but he didn’t let himself dwell on it. Instead he admired how masterfully Lawrence manipulated his artificial fingers. Then, knowing Lawrence wouldn’t thank him for gawking, he applied himself to his serving of shark flesh. Cora too darted glances at Lawrence’s hand, but when she spoke it was only to say, “Lord, have I missed butter!”

None of them took long to finish off their food. By the time they approached the punch bowl, they’d all three turned their empty dishes over to the parlor maid, who’d whisked the plates out of sight like she was smuggling alchemic stones out of the country.

At the punch bowl, Cora cleared her throat loudly. At once George looked from the Tucker brothers to Cora and grinned.

“Darling!” He gestured her nearer, and when she reached his side he took her extended hand and kissed her fingers like they were still newlyweds. “You must see this preserved bone that the Tucker professors discovered in China. It bears a remarkable resemblance to the fossil Grover brought us from the rift.”

“Really?” Unsurprisingly Cora’s concerns over punch evaporated at once. She beckoned both Grover and Lawrence nearer as well.

Grover followed, taking his time to look the Tucker brothers over. Since all he knew about either of them was that they meant trouble for Lawrence, he was strongly inclined to interpret their narrow faces and large dark eyes as weasel-like. But if he gave them a fair shake, he’d admit they were good-looking in that flaxen-haired, wan manner of the sensitive but brooding heroes in Cora’s favorite novels (chapters of which she read aloud at the boarding house once a week). Their slim builds lent them the illusion of youth from a distance but, standing closer, Grover noted the gray at their temples and the lines worn into their faces. Both were certainly past forty.

Aside from their thick, perfectly coifed sideburns, the thing that struck Grover as most remarkable about them was the effort they’d put into perfecting their resemblance to one another, not merely in the cut of their hair and tailored suits, but to the extent of displaying the same thin white scar across both their chins.

Grover wondered which of them had cut himself to match his brother.

“Professor Tucker and Professor Tucker,” George said. “May I present my lovely wife, Mrs. Cora Cody. This fine fellow is Mr. Grover Ahigbe, the famed Fort Arvada hunter you’ve been asking about.”

The twins turned their heads in perfect unison and appraised Grover like a strange but costly curiosity.

“A pleasure,” the Tuckers responded as one. The one on the right added, “I’m Nathaniel, this is my brother David.” Both of them looked smug about the introduction but neither offered his hand to Grover. Something about their expressions made him wondered if the twins weren’t having a joke on everyone, maybe switching their names just to amuse themselves. It didn’t escape Grover that Lawrence hung back from them.

“So, let us have a look at the fossil that Grover found.” George stuffed his hands into his coat pockets, and after withdrawing a few odd rocks and a very battered pocket watch, he fished out a small tin and opened it to reveal the opal snail shell that Grover had found at the edge of the rift. Lawrence cast George an uncertain look, but Grover wasn’t surprised in the least that George had brought a variety of his geological wonders to share with the professors.

“Now watch this.” George lifted the shell up and angled it out towards the overhanging chandelier. All at once it lit up, glowing as brilliantly as the alchemic stones that illuminated the ballroom.

“It’s resonating with the illumination spells in the chandelier!” Cora all but beamed at George in her delight. Then she raised her delicate brows. “Does that mean that it’s an alchemic stone, as well?”

“One could be forgiven for assuming as much,” David Tucker replied. “However my brother and I have tested samples from the rifts and discovered that these new reactive minerals are chemically different from true alchemic stones. It seems that they have absorbed and retained alchemic qualities. This rodent’s jawbone, for example.”

Nathaniel Tucker drew a white kerchief from his pocket as his brother spoke and opened it to expose a small toothy bone. The luster of opal suffused it and, like George’s shell, when it was held up the jawbone threw off thin beams of light.

“It is our theory,” David Tucker continued, “that the alchemic energy released by opening the rifts was so explosive that it radiated into the surrounding minerals, impregnating them with alchemic properties.”

Grover glanced back to Lawrence and noted how his mouth tightened into a hard line. But he couldn’t figure out why. As he understood it, alchemic stone was rare and hard to process into the dust that powered most spells. The Wilders could display these shining chandeliers, because their family fortune had been built upon the discovery of a vein of alchemic stone in the hills surrounding Fort Arvada. But even that had nearly played out, and now the city’s fortifications needed alchemic stone more than ever.

This ought to be good news. So why did Lawrence look so unhappy?

“The rifts could be a treasure house of alchemic power.” Cora gazed warmly at the shell in her husband’s hand then smiled at Grover. “Grove, you could have started a bigger boom here than the one in ’39 when the Wilders started panning for magic dust.”

“Certainly. Magic dust could become a readily producible material.” Nathaniel Tucker folded his kerchief closed around the jawbone and slipped it back into his coat pocket. “But that is just one opportunity that the open rift offers us.”

Grover noticed that a good number of men in sharp suits had moved closer to their group. The low murmur of small talk faded so it seemed like the whole population of the ballroom hushed to hear more of what the Tuckers had to say.

The stocky banker, Mr. Haim, his scrawny cousin Reverend Dodd and the handsome sheriff, Gordon Lee, all edged up closer. The smells of their cigar smoke and pomade drifted over Grover like too much cologne. Just beyond them Grover glimpsed Mayor Wilder and Lady Astor standing near each other and casting worried glances past him. Lawrence bowed his head, hiding his face as he feigned interest in his watch fob.

“We would never go so far as to call the opening of these rifts a blessing.” Nathaniel Tucker raised his voice to address the crowd. “Our nation and our allies have suffered too much loss to ever say that.”

“But we Americans have a history of facing our tragedies and finding opportunity where others see only defeat.” David Tucker glanced to Lady Astor with a sly sort of smile. For an instant the gray-haired woman pinned the Tuckers with so murderous a glower that Grover thought she might hurl her punch glass at one of them. But then, like a trick of the light, her furious expression melted into a bored yawn.

David Tucker shifted his attention to the sheriff and his companions. “We don’t need to remind you that a surprising number of savage Indian tribes survived this calamity to lay claim to what are now numerous islands along the Inland Sea. And untold hundreds of thousands of slaves have exploited the destruction of our southern homes to insinuate themselves into northern cities where they have passed themselves as free—”

“We aren’t implying that one or both these groups were behind the opening of the rifts.” Nathaniel cut in like he was taking a stage cue.

“No one in this country opened the rifts,” George stated with that curt tone he used when he felt anyone at the boarding house needed reminding of the latest scientific fact.

“Certainly not.” David agreed so lightly that he sounded like he was making a joke. A good number of the men and women surrounding them exchanged the kind of knowing looks that no doubt delighted prosecutors. Taking them in, Grover’s entire body went ice cold and then sickeningly hot as dread and anger welled up in him.

The Tuckers’ insinuations too easily stirred up those terrible first weeks after the rift opened, when rumors of Arapaho collaborating with abolitionists to destroy settlers and slave plantations had spread like brushfire. In Fort Arvada houses had been burned and families threatened. Grover had been in a couple close scrapes himself and had spent four hungry days with a busted hand and a black eye in a jail cell. But he’d counted himself lucky. Elsewhere people deemed to be rootworkers or shamans had been beaten to death, hung, drowned and burned alive.

If news hadn’t arrived that rifts had also opened in Europe and China—that they’d likely been summoned by the Chinese Imperial Consort Cixi—the murders might never have stopped.

Grover sure as hell didn’t like blame being thrown out at him and his again, not even as some sort of bad joke.

“Please forgive my ignorance, professors.” Cora crossed her arms over her chest, like she did when Toby had earned himself a switching. “But I fail to see any connection between people of color and your discoveries concerning the properties of minerals at the rift.”

“We weren’t implying a corollary, my dear girl,” Nathaniel responded, though he hardly looked at her. His attention remained focused on the men gathered around him. “Only pointing out that there are social troubles this last remaining rift might help us address. If we are not too hasty in closing the rift we, as a nation, could benefit far beyond simply powering theurgic spells.”

“Indeed.” David took up the conversation from his brother. “We all know that there have been immense difficulties enforcing the Indian Removal Act since the flood.”

Grover couldn’t help but raise his brows. Nearly all the old Indian Territories lay half-a-mile under the waves now. The Tuckers weren’t seriously trying to imply that people ought to have attempted to live in the Inland Sea, were they? Grover stole a glance back to Lawrence, half expecting him to assure him it was all a joke. Instead Lawrence just gave a small shake of his head.

“Several tribes have taken over islands and land along the new coasts and threaten the construction of Mr. Moreau’s railroad and telegraph lines. Without those we have little hope of reuniting our country. Indians can’t be allowed to run wild, burning down bridges and terrorizing work crews,” David said.

Grover hadn’t heard of any plan to span the Inland Sea with a rail line. Reading the expressions of most the other townsfolk in the room, he knew they hadn’t either. The federal soldiers from the east, however, nodded and scowled as if the project was a familiar and sore subject.

“But what if,” David Tucker went on in a breezy tone, “we could relocate these savages to lands not already occupied nor of use for development. What if we gifted them with the vast unclaimed territories beyond the rift.”

Grover stared at the twins, unable to believe he’d understood them correctly. Were the Tuckers really suggesting that refugee Cherokee, Choctaw and Chickasaw be once again uprooted? Did they imagine the Arapaho and Ute who’d repelled Comanche raiders and stood toe-to-toe with dinosaurs would go meekly into the quicksand and jungles inside the rift?

Not only was that a cruel proposition, but it also struck Grover as likely to start a war that isolated cities like Fort Arvada wouldn’t survive.

Reverend Dodd’s approving smile at the Tucker brothers assured Grover that not only was exile being suggested, but these men considered it a fine idea indeed. Both Cora and George Cody appeared to feel the same revulsion Grover did at the notion.

They hadn’t forgotten how Chief Niwot and his people had sheltered refugees displaced by the surging floodwaters. The chief’s sister, MaHom, had nearly died from the strain of holding huge waves back long enough for hundreds of families to reach the high ground in the mountains.

“But isn’t the land beyond the rift terribly wild? Not fit for human survival?” George looked to Grover. Nathaniel Tucker answered before Grover could offer a word to describe the humid, reeking swamps and dark, insect-infested fern jungles that lay beyond the jagged stone of the rift’s opening.

“A savage land for proudly savage peoples, I’d say,” Nathaniel replied. “Haven’t some of their braves already accommodated themselves to hunting dinosaur herds?”

“They have. And they aren’t the only wild things to have profited from this disaster.” Sheriff Lee cast a long look in Grover’s direction. “Certain black buzzards are having a right time in all this human misery.”

That tore it! He’d already been on edge, but now his outrage blazed into fury. Grover balled his hands into fists. He was gonna knock that smirk right off the sheriff’s face.

But as he turned towards the sheriff, a warm sensation rolled up his spine. His legs went sluggish and heavy; his arms felt soft as honey. He sagged, just slightly. In an instant he recognized the heat of Lawrence’s left hand pressed against his back. The spell wasn’t even as strong as the ones Lawrence used to toss at him when they’d wrestled as boys—Grover could have shaken it off—but it gave him pause.

This wasn’t the time or place to cross the law. As good as it might feel to punch Sheriff Lee to the ground, Grover wasn’t ready to give up his home and live the rest of his life on the run for that brief exhilaration. It wouldn’t go one drop to proving himself a better man than Sheriff Lee either. If anything, laying the sheriff out during a dance would only make him look like the animal Lee implied he was.

Still, Grover shrugged off Lawrence’s hot fingers. If he was so damn worried, Lawrence might put in a word to counter the Tuckers. But he remained silent, his gaze downcast. Used to be, he’d shout down a hurricane if he didn’t like the way it blew. Now he’d gone so quiet he could have been a shadow at Grover’s back.

“Of course, this is all merely speculation,” David Tucker went on, as if the comment hadn’t been made, though he did turn his attention to Grover, offering him the sort of thin-lipped smile only a rattlesnake would find reassuring. “We have yet to observe the rift ourselves, but if the area is indeed rich with alchemic minerals then we will certainly have to consider the difficulty in mining the lands, particularly since they are populated by so many dangerous creatures.”

Concerned murmurs spread through the room, and unsurprisingly more people gathered around the Tuckers and turned their attention to Grover. Of all of them, only he had crossed the rift. Normally, Grover took pride in that, but noting the Tucker brothers’ speculative expressions and Lady Astor’s dour gaze, he felt like he’d just set his foot down in a snare. Any moment the slipknot would pull tight.

“That’s where the strong backs and brute characters of so many of the Negroes currently overrunning our cities could be put to great use,” Nathaniel Tucker said. “If any people can thrive in such a brutish landscape, it would certainly be hearty Negroes like Mr. Ahigbe.”

Grover didn’t knock the grinning twins’ heads together, but it took some will to suppress the urge.

“You two think folks with half the sense God gave a flea are gonna haul themselves through wild country and across the Inland Sea to work a federal mine for government wages?” Grover demanded, because it almost sounded to him like the bastard Tuckers had forgotten about universal emancipation passing in the senate and thought they could just ship Black folk out like cattle.

“Well…” David gave a shrug while his brother Nathaniel smiled. “The Proclamation of Emancipation hasn’t cleared the House yet. The representatives are awaiting our report from the Office of Theurgy and Magicum. So, procuring a workforce may not prove as difficult as you presume, Mr. Ahigbe.”

Grover’s face flushed hot with anger, and for an instant his right hand dropped to his sidearm but he caught himself.

Beside him, Cora stared at the Tuckers in horror and George made a face like he’d discovered a slug in his punch glass. Mayor Wilder paled when Grover met his gaze. But those repulsed and sorrowful reactions weren’t reflected by even half the folks gathered around. Some simply continued dancing and laughing—utterly unaware—while others wore sly, smug smiles like poker players with all four aces in hand.

“That’s just…shameful!” Cora sounded almost too angry to speak. “I’ve never in my life—”

“It isn’t as though free men like Mr. Ahigbe would lose their liberty. So long as they aren’t criminals and have their papers, free Negroes would remain so,” Nathaniel Tucker responded. “Not that there wouldn’t be positions available to them. In point of fact right now Mr. Ahigbe stands to make a pretty penny.”

Grover turned away, because if he stayed even a moment more he was going to knock those white teeth right out of the Tucker brothers’ mouths. And then he’d keep pounding the sons-of-bitches till they didn’t move anymore. As much as he hated them, he knew they weren’t worth hanging for.

He headed for the kitchen door, ignoring the Tuckers’ sudden protests. One of them called an offer for his services as a guide. Incredulity nearly did stop Grover then. Did they really imagine that any amount of money would convince him to help them? After everything they’d said, could they imagine any person of color wishing for anything but to see them dead?

“I’ll talk to him.” Lawrence’s voice drifted from behind him, but Grover didn’t look back.

Betty wasn’t too pleased to be woke in the dark of night. When Grover called her name, she lifted her head from the heap of hay where she’d bedded down. Through the deep gloom, Grover recognized the shine of her eyes. After a couple chirps she plopped her head right back down.

“Damn it, Betty.”

“Grove, wait.” Lawrence paused at the stable door. The faint glow of light from the house outlined his gaunt form.

“Hell no,” Grover snapped. He glared at Betty. “C’mon you. We’re leaving.”

Betty pushed her head farther beneath her feathered arm, pretending not to hear him. Lawrence closed in behind him.

“Grove.” Lawrence’s left hand lighted upon Grover’s shoulder.

“Don’t.” He knocked Lawrence’s hand away hard. “I ain’t in the mood to hear anything you or those sons-of-bitches have to say.”

Lawrence stepped back. Grover stomped into the horse stall and frowned at Betty while she feigned sleep. He glowered over his shoulder to the far wall where his saddle and tack faded into darkness. He needed a lamp. If he’d had any sense, he would have brought one from the kitchen, but he was in no temper to go back and ask anyone for anything.

Lawrence cupped his hand to his mouth like he was warming it with his breath, but then he spread his fingers and small orbs of gold light drifted from his lips like he was blowing luminous soap bubbles. They rose and drifted through the stable, throwing a soft golden glow across the weathered wood and bales of alfalfa.

Betty, as well as several horses, took note. Though the horses, being shy creatures, pricked up their ears and went tense. Betty hopped up and snapped after one of the filmy lights like she thought it was a spicy firefly.

“She gonna get sick if she eats one of those things?” Grover heard the surliness in his voice but couldn’t help it. He felt too angry to offer thanks. He hadn’t asked for this. If Lawrence hadn’t been here, he would have worked his own way through the gloom. He hadn’t needed Lawrence’s help for eight years now.

Lawrence met his glare (he looked so damn tired) but didn’t say a word.

It wasn’t like him to keep so quiet, Grover thought, but reminded himself that he had no idea what Lawrence was like anymore. If he’d changed so greatly that he could support the Tuckers’ plans, the man Grover had known might as well have died six years ago. Grover would almost have preferred that than to think Lawrence had so completely betrayed the ideals he’d once shared with Grover.

The notion cut deep, pricking at old resentments far down in Grover’s core—remnants of his earliest sense of the injustice in the different circumstances of their lives. He’d always had to work twice as hard for anyone to think him even half as good as Lawrence.

But it didn’t do any good to dwell on how Lawrence had been rich and white and able to command the magic of the earth while Grover had been forced into the role of a servant just because of the color of his skin. He was grown now and had to put away childish tantrums about the unfairness of the world. Moaning and railing didn’t change nothing.

Deeds, not words, showed the true worth of a man.

Grover knew he was better than the Tuckers, better even than this stranger who’d come home answering to Lawrence’s name. They and Lawrence could go to Hell if they thought he’d aid them in any way. Not for money or even long-lost love.

Though Grover reckoned his refusal would require exiting Fort Arvada right away before they realized they couldn’t buy him. Because as soon as they did, he didn’t doubt the Tuckers would find a reason that Grover should lose his liberty—with Sheriff Lee on their side it wouldn’t take long to fit him up as an outlaw—and decide that Grover would work for them whether he wanted to or not.

No, he’d go up the mountain. And if they followed him…

Well, there were a lot of ways men—even trained soldiers and mages—could disappear. Especially near the rift.

Feeling better for having a plan, Grover fetched his saddle, bags and lead.

When he turned back he discovered Betty standing up and extending her long neck over the stall door for Lawrence to stroke her beak. Very slowly Lawrence lifted his ivory and gold right hand and held it out for Betty to inspect. Betty gave the hinged plates of the palm her owl-eyed look but then went ahead and ran her beak across the ivory fingers.

The relief in Lawrence’s expression was so easy to read that Grover felt a pang of deep sympathy. It took a heap of rejection to make a man look that thankful for the acceptance of a critter like Betty. The thought tempered a little of Grover’s rage but not enough to let him forget all that the Tuckers had said. Or Lawrence’s silence in the wake of their suggestions.

“You might as well go back to the dance.” Grover walked past him and into the stall. He threaded the leather lead under Betty’s arms and buckled it across her back. “I’m not helping you to find the rift. I don’t care if you offer to make me king of California.”

“That’s not why I followed you out here.”

“Why, then?” Grover turned on him. “Cause if it’s for my rollicking company, I’ve got to warn you I’m in something of a foul temper.”

Lawrence simply nodded and Grover scowled at him.

“God’s sake, Lawrence, can’t you damn well say anything? Did you lose your tongue as well as your arm?” Grover regretted his words the moment they escaped his mouth. And seeing the brief flicker of pain in Lawrence’s expression, he realized how low a blow he’d dealt the other man.

“I didn’t mean—” Grover began, but Lawrence cut him off.

“That doesn’t matter,” he said. “What’s important is that you understand how necessary it is for me to get to the rift before the Tuckers.”

Grove paused with Betty’s saddle in his arms.

“What do you mean?” Grover asked. “You work with them. You ain’t thinking you can undercut the feds and stake a private claim like your granddaddy did, are you?”

“No.” Lawrence stole a glance back over his shoulder to the stable door then lowered his voice. “I told you. I’m working to close the rifts. That’s why I must reach the last one before they do. But I need your help to get there.”

Grover stared at him. Lawrence’s allegiance and obedience to the Office of Theurgy and Magicum glittered across his chest in an array of bright medals, but what he suggested sounded like insubordination—or worse if the Tuckers were reporting to the House of Representatives.

“Are we talking about an act of treason here?” Grover asked in a whisper.

Lawrence’s expression turned particularly grim. “Please help me, Grove. I don’t know that I can do this without you.”

Grover silently absorbed the enormity his small gesture belied.

A mage flouting the orders of his theurgist superiors might as well be defying God. Wasn’t that the law? Grover couldn’t imagine that either of the Tuckers would take such insubordination lightly. And it wasn’t as if an accomplice would get off easy either. If he and Lawrence got caught at this then likely they’d share a gallows.

Only minutes before Grover had been thinking that assaulting the Tucker brothers wasn’t worth hanging for. But stopping them? That might be. Grover felt sick at the thought of being strung up—he’d seen too many men kick and jerk at the end of a rope not to—but he forced his fear down.

“How soon can you get packed up and ready to ride?” Grover asked.

“First light tomorrow morning.”

“They’re going to notice you missing.” Grover belatedly realized that he still gripped Betty’s saddle. He set it down and spread a blanket over the downy feathers of her back.

“They won’t,” Lawrence replied.

Grover waited for Lawrence to explaining his certainty and got nothing for his patience.

“Won’t they?” Grover prompted as he buckled Betty’s saddle in place over the blanket and secured it to the lead as well. When Lawrence still hadn’t responded, Grover turned to him. “You’re asking for my help on this venture, so you might want to get back in the habit of being straight with me. Now, why shouldn’t I expect the Tuckers to light out on our trail right away?”

Lawrence considered the question for a moment.

“Honora is familiar with a huge variety of spells, not all of which are…legal.” Lawrence leaned into the stall and again lowered his voice to a whisper. “I’ve provided her with my hair and blood. She should be able to assume my form for at least the next month. She and her maid have already made arrangements for her to claim to retire to her sickbed tonight if she’s needed to take my place.”

Grover raised his brows. He’d heard tall tales of wicked witches, doppelgangers and boo hags stealing people’s shapes, but he’d never thought it could really happen. Most spells, as far as he’d seen, were simple and elemental, like the shining spheres of light floating through the stable.

“If she’s discovered she’ll face beheading, so you can’t tell anyone about any of this.” Lawrence added, “Not even George or Cora.”

“I’m not the one who got himself engaged to Cora,” Grover replied, then he realized the response wasn’t much of an assurance. He wasn’t even quite certain why he’d said it. “You know full well I can keep a secret.”

Lawrence nodded. “What about you? Will anyone remark on your absence from the boarding house?”

“No. I keep to myself for the most part. If folks don’t see me around for a few weeks, they’ll just think I’ve taken myself off to sulk in the woods.”

“Brood off into the wilderness often these days?” Lawrence asked, though his expression was friendly, teasing.

Still it rankled. After he’d learned of Lawrence’s death, Grover had gone out and lost himself in the wilds. No one had seen him for the better part of a year, and he couldn’t rightly remember where he’d been himself. But that wasn’t something he wanted to share, so he just offered Lawrence one of those shrugs he seemed so fond of.

Lawrence drew back from the stall, allowing Grover to lead Betty out of the paddock. He walked alongside Grover until they reached the stable doors. When he touched Grover’s forearm, they both stilled. Grover felt the heat of his fingers even through his coat.

“I can’t say how glad I am to see you again, Grove.” Despite his words Lawrence’s expression remained downcast. “But I’m also sorry as hell to have to drag you into this mess.”

“I’m a grown man. Ain’t no one can drag me into anything I don’t want.”

That won him one of Lawrence’s wide smiles, though it didn’t last so long as Grover would have liked. Nor did Lawrence’s warm hand remain on him. Instead he stepped back.

“Ride safe,” Lawrence told him.

“Always do. Betty’s the reckless one.” Grover swung up into Betty’s saddle and started out across the grounds, but he couldn’t resist one glimpse back. Lawrence remained in the doorway, his eyes closed and his head bowed. Then he suddenly swung his ivory hand up and through the air as if raking aside a curtain. At once the lights all around him burst, and the night swallowed Lawrence completely.