ENDGAME, PART I

The Tower stood on the patio outside my father’s study. My study. I watched him through a window as he evaluated an idea I’d just put before him.

Inside, Brand was trying to get me to eat more seaweed. I picked up the package and laid it firmly in the middle of the table as an offering for anyone else who liked chewing on salty Scotch tape.

“Fine,” Brand said. “Convalescence is over. Please, go ahead and let the fucking world revolve around you again.”

I couldn’t help it. I gave him my smallest smile, because who was he kidding? It never stopped.

He tried to hide his own you’re-such-an-asshole smile by pulling out his phone.

I leaned back in the chair and gave an upside down, backwards look at my father’s stately desk, which took up the entire rear of the study. I reached out and plucked something off the edge of it. “Look,” I said to Brand. “We own a snow globe of New Atlantis.”

His eyes darted from his phone to my face, deciding whether to play. He could feel my emotion underneath it: isn’t-it-weird-to-be-back-here-this-is-all-ours.

He snatched something off the bookshelf behind him. “Look,” he said. “We own a small reproduction of a . . .” He squinted. “Old whaling boat, because apparently your dad liked memorializing the awful shit humans used to do.”

“Can you believe we have this place back? We have a vacation home. And who do you keep on texting?”

He’d gone back to his phone. “I’m seeing if I have a signal. Addam should be here for this talk.”

I was surprised because that didn’t surprise me. They’d spent the days before I woke up shouldering all the decisions. There was a new partnership between them, and I liked it. It felt like the catch of a necklace you’d been struggling to click closed.

The patio door opened, and Lord Tower returned to the table. He left the door ajar, which was nice, because the breeze was warm and carried the scent of cut grass. Brand had found some old push mowers hidden behind the big riding mowers in the tool shed, and handed them off to Max and Quinn. Anna got handed hand pruners and sent to trim weeds from a thousand paving stones.

“So it’ll work,” I said.

“In theory,” Lord Tower sighed. “It’s not a new idea. It actually has a name, if you’re old enough to have learned it. Arcana once called it the Quadrans Gambit. Lady Death used it herself to help end the Atlantean World War. The question is whether the situation is urgent enough for such measures now. I worry that you’ve let Lady Time into your head.”

“That’s my secret,” I said. “My head hasn’t been a very safe place to be for a long time now.”

Brand rolled his eyes at that, a little angrily. And the Tower didn’t seem satisfied with flippancy either. So, in a more sober tone, I added, “How many people died when Magnus Academy was destroyed? When Lord Chariot’s office building came down? The subway attack? Every day we take to flush her out of hiding brings the potential for a new attack. We may win the war but lose the city. Or we may lose the support of the people we’re supposed to be fighting for.”

“It’s as if someone taught you well,” Lord Tower said wryly. He sighed and pushed away from the table again. “I think you should bring this before the Arcanum—or at least those of us meeting today. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see if Ciaran and Mayan have arrived with the others.”

As Lord Tower exited, I swung my worried gaze onto Brand, who was still staring at his phone screen. “What are you worried about, Brand?”

“Too much is coming down on your shoulders. Why can’t the Tower do this? Or Lady Death, if she’s used this Quadrans strategy before?”

“You know why. I’m in the best position. Do you think I can’t do it?”

Now he raised his eyes, and he was pissed, because I was forcing him to defend me. “You know as well as I do that you’re at your best when your back is to the fucking wall. Life has made pretty fucking sure of that. And look where we are. Rune, fucking wall. Fucking wall, Rune.”

Thinking of necklaces had made me remember something. I pulled one off my head, undid the clasp, and let the sunburst sigil that Lord Judgment had bought me slide into my hands. Then I handed the dwarven steel chain to Brand. “Here. I don’t need this for the sigil.”

“Oh,” Brand said, a little nonplussed. “Really?”

“Well, you hinted pretty strongly that someone could choke me out with it.”

“Choke someone else with it,” he said. “I said someone else. But . . . yeah. This is cool. No one makes chains like the dwarves. Thanks.”

“I bought a ring for Addam,” I blurted.

Brand’s eyes flicked up to me. “Wait. You told him about the ring? You asked him?”

“What the hell,” I said, genuinely aggrieved. “How did you know about it?”

“You paid for it with our joint credit card, you asshat.”

Trying not to sound too guilty, I said, “I probably should have talked with you first.”

“Why? You didn’t think I knew you were heading in this direction? Rune, you’re not even an open book. You more or less engrave your intentions on the wall with firebolts. Did you think I’d be mad?”

“Are you? Mad? Or anything?”

“Addam is giving up his court. He’s giving up—everything. Everything he grew up with. He’s entrusting us with his brother. His kid. He deserves better than to go around being introduced as your boyfriend. Being your husband or consort or whatever term you use will mean something to him, just the way that me being your Companion means something to me when I’m introduced.”

I could only stare at him for a few seconds as the back of my eyes started to burn, maybe with some tears, maybe with some Aspect. “I don’t give you nearly enough credit, do I?”

“If I had the money, I’d pre-order and chisel it on your fucking tombstone,” he replied, but his lips twitched as he said it.

I wiped my nose discreetly and blinked out the patio doors, until the emotion subsided. “Are there any Companions coming today except for you and Mayan?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Why?”

“Because I want you in the room. When the Arcana meet. Let Mayan know—it’s nonnegotiable. Though . . . maybe not Corinne. It’s not that I don’t trust her, but we’re going to be talking about the Majeure, and I may be in enough trouble that I confided in Addam. If he was wearing my ring already, it’d be different—they have rules about who can know. But I want you and Mayan in the room, because you deserve it. It’s time things change.”

“Like any of you have a choice about things changing,” Brand snorted. “I can already see it. They’re all acting officious arguing about attendance, and Ciaran is standing on the table tilting the chandelier so that the light hits him just right. Companions in the room will be the least of it.”

Brand swung a look to the doorway a few seconds before I heard the approaching click of boot heels.

Zurah stopped, stared at me, and crossed the room at a swift stride. I stood up just in time to be engulfed in a tight, fierce hug.

“You did it,” she whispered. “You came back. Remind me never to bet against you, little brother.”

She put an affectionate hand on my cheek. Her fingers smelled like beeswax and honey.

“Now,” she said. “What’s this I hear about a plan? Because I’m moving into this compound until matters are well and done.”

* * *

Someone had lugged extra chairs into the family room and pushed the sofas into a lopsided circle. Most Arcana who were on Nantucket soil were at the estate, excepting those maintaining order inside the city.

Lord Wheel remained in continental America, outside the barrier that protected us against the human pandemic. Lord Devil and Lady Moon remained likewise removed.

Lady Justice, Lord Strength, and Lord Hermit represented the Moral Certainties, while Lady Temperance and Lady World oversaw concerns in the city. We had Hierophant and Chariot, but not Priestess. Lord Tower and Lady Death were helping me as hosts.

And we also had two Magicians.

One of them was standing in an adjacent parlor by himself, looking at old photographs on a mantle. I was alone at that point—Brand had gone ahead into the family room to speak to Mayan. Even though I had only the barest of familiarity with the Magician—or whatever I was to call Warren Saint Anthony—I felt obligated to welcome him, despite the awkwardness.

“Did you know him well?” I asked politely, seeing that he held a photo of my father. It was taken not long before the Sun Throne fell.

“Everyone knew your father,” the Magician murmured. “He insisted on it.”

He put the frame down and turned to me. He was a handsome man—ridiculously square jaw and just the right kind of height, somewhere between imposing and looming. How had I never noticed before it was as if he’d come straight from central casting? Ciaran couldn’t have picked a more convincing puppet.

“I wield the Majeure,” he said abruptly, annoyed at whatever emotions he saw scrolling across my face. “I have the power to run a court, as Arcana or principality. It would be a mistake to underestimate me, Rune Sun.”

“I try not to do that,” I said. “And I don’t want us to get off on the wrong foot. I know this is strange.”

“Is it? Is it strange?” he said, only he wasn’t really asking a question. “Because things felt quite normal and familiar until you came along. After all these centuries, I’m a bit surprised that you were the one to hound the secret from Ciaran.”

“Me? Wait, what? This is my fault?”

“It won’t be as easy as you think, installing Ciaran back into the court. Make no mistake, the Hex Throne will not easily respond to another’s lead. You will not find it a steady alliance.”

“Is that so?” Ciaran said from the doorway.

He wore a mustard-colored jumpsuit with a gold chain for a belt, and he sparked with the just-barely-visible glow of more than a dozen sigils. His bone necklace was intertwined with a string of pastel SweeTarts.

The Magician opened his mouth to speak, and Ciaran’s eyes flared into liquid mercury. “Attend me!”

The Magician dropped to one knee.

“You are only my face and my voice, not my Will, and I will have you remember that,” Ciaran said. “If—” He stopped and frowned. “What a strange sense of déjà vu.”

“That’s exactly what you said in Farstryke,” I said. “Back when it was getting into your head? The day we found Addam. Huh.”

“Good grief. I detest refried drama.” He aimed a tsk at the Magician. “Well, that’s you off the carpet. We’ll continue our talk later.”

Stiffly, with just a hint of angry, mottled skin at the neck of his tight cape, the Magician strode past us.

“It was the cleft in his chin that got him hired, wasn’t it?” I whispered to Ciaran. “He looks like a movie politician.”

“Don’t be fooled,” Ciaran sighed, glancing over his shoulder. “He has never been an easy ruse.”

Then he rubbed his hands and clapped them together. “Enough of that. It is so very good to see you on your feet, Rune. I did try to spend some time with you—I have the most bawdy romance novel and thought you’d enjoy being read to while comatose. But Brand tried to stab me.”

“He was worried.”

“Yes, but just imagine if he picked up something more constructive, such as knitting. We’d be surrounded in socks and scarves instead of blood and Band-Aids.”

There were things I needed to say to Ciaran, and this time seemed no worse than others. I went to the doors behind us and closed them. Ciaran raised an eyebrow and said, “Since you’re not that type of fun, I find myself worried.”

“I know what happened at Magnus,” I said. “Brand and the others are trying to keep me from getting upset, but I’ve heard pieces of what happened when Magnus was destroyed. The kids were there, gathering their stuff before being moved into hiding. You saved their lives.”

He opened his mouth to downplay it, so I held up a wait hand and said, “They might have died. Max, Quinn, and Anna may have died if you hadn’t been there. I might have lost them. And they? They are such a big part of my world now.”

Ciaran sniffed and fussed with the gold chain around his waist.

“It’s important that I say this,” I told him.

“It’s not important, it’s importune. I’m not doing this in my good eyeliner, Sun!”

I barreled over the objection. “I guess what I’m saying is that I kind of love you. You feel like family now. I hope you’re all right with that. I really, really do. For gods’ sake, I’m pretty sure Corbie gave you that SweeTart necklace, and that kid does not share candy.”

Ciaran stayed quiet for a moment, and then raised his glassy eyes to me, within which swam sunshine. He’d always had mesmerizing eyes.

He lifted his hand to my cheek, not unlike Lady Death had just done. Only Ciaran smelled of clove and good tobacco.

“I am all right with that,” he whispered. “Knowing your family is a rather extraordinary gift, I am finding.”

“And when Brand talks about the kids calling you uncle now that you’re rich, just know that he kind of loves you too.”

“I do adore his practicality,” Ciaran said. He gently dabbed his thumb at the corner of his eyes, careful not to smudge anything. “Now. You have guests. Let’s have fun fucking up their stodgy worldview.”

Lord Hermit stood at the focal point of the circle. He was the oldest of all gathered, and by ancient pact would be the one to assume rule in an interim capacity with Judgment gone. There would be politicking later, but for now, the seat was his.

“We will not open this meeting with the staff of office,” he said. “The staff is lost, along with our brother, Pillan Judgment. We will honor his legacy at a later point, but for now, our city is under siege. We attempted to draw Lady Time’s attention to the Westlands by removing many of us from New Atlantis, in hopes of picking our own battleground. We failed—her attacks in New Atlantis continue unabated. Why?”

“She doesn’t know we’re here,” Lord Strength said immediately. “We were too damn subtle. We left too many of our forces behind.”

Lord Tower gave this a thoroughly blank look, which meant he found the assertion lacking.

“Why would she come after us?” I asked. “She doesn’t want to kill us. She wants to hurt us. She wants to punish us. Staying in the city and kicking down our buildings is exactly what she wants to do.”

“I think Rune is right,” said Lady Death. “We made bad assumptions because we didn’t have good information.”

“We continue to make bad assumptions because we overestimate her,” Lord Strength said. “Her hit-and-run tactics are a response to her anger at seeing her ancestral home destroyed. Do not forget—she looks like an old woman, but she’s still in her first cycle of life, and relies on brute force to solve her issues. She is emotionally a child. Our stratagems fail to take hold because we overestimate her capacity to even comprehend our plans.”

“You’ve all been told about the ritualistic equipment that was destroyed when Farstryke exploded,” the Tower said. He leaned back in his puffy sofa chair, somehow elegantly, and crossed one knee over the other. “If we are right, her anger isn’t about the loss of Farstryke, it’s about the loss of her seemingly limitless source of energy that said equipment provided.”

“That does appear to track,” Lord Chariot said reluctantly. “If we must rely on assumptions, at least that appears to be sound. We all saw her tactics change. From frontal assault to ambush tactics. If her source of power has been compromised, it could explain these hit-and-run attacks.”

“Have we independently validated the truth about this . . . ritual she used?” Lord Magician said.

“There are records of it in the Hex Throne archives,” Ciaran said. “I’m happy to show you.”

“We need to talk about these two, as well,” the Hierophant muttered. “Is Atlantis to have two Magicians?”

“That you should be so lucky,” Ciaran said, as if he’d been complimented. “I do have some thoughts, however. Perhaps one of us can secure a Vegas residency.”

“Let’s focus on the matter before us,” Lady Justice said. I’d watched her eyes flicker to the door every now and then, where Mayan and Brand had remained, and were now joined by Addam.

“Back to what Ciaran said earlier,” Lord Strength said. “There are records? We truly know this equipment she used is real?”

“It’s real,” the Hermit said in a heavy voice. “Once upon a time, it was called siphoning. I may be the only person alive to know that, excepting our Empress, and make no mistake: the Arcanum at the time worked very hard to make sure that type of magic faded from living memory. It’s a disgusting power—a form of cannibalism and slavery combined.”

“So . . .” I said, and dragged out the word. “If we can agree that the ritual equipment was real, and we can agree that it was destroyed—then it means her source of magic really has been limited. She is vulnerable.”

“Do we know if she can repair it? Or rebuild it?” the Chariot asked.

“From what I can gather—and I was, believe it or not, a young man when I last even discussed such things—it’s not unlike imbued summoning circles,” the Hermit explained. “The effort involved in creating the ritual and its devices is extremely difficult. How long does it take to create an imbued summoning circle? Years of work and dozens of magic users?”

“She is vulnerable,” I said again.

“Except . . .” Lord Tower said, and drew out his own syllable. “We have no idea how much energy she’d already siphoned before the equipment was destroyed. We cannot assume she’s acting as if her source of power has been eliminated. Only her ability to refill her power has been compromised. She’s being cautious now, but that doesn’t mean she’s vulnerable.”

I wasn’t sure if he was lobbing me a softball or not, but I caught it. “Which is why a Quadrans Gambit might work.”

Lord Strength slammed a hand on the arm of his chair. “Clear the room! Hermit, order the room cleared!”

“No,” I said. I looked at the two Companions and Addam. “They stay. They all know about the Majeure.”

“Addam does,” Lady Justice asked sharply, just barely a question.

“Yes, it couldn’t be helped, since it’s how I pulled us both out of the timestream,” I bit back. “He watched me use it—and he knows what it meant. It was unavoidable.”

“And that’s that?” Lord Strength demanded. “Do I get a say?”

I turned a flat expression on him. “Sure, but the problem is that you keep saying the wrong thing.”

“Enough,” Lord Hermit said. “This is a strategy meeting, and the Companions are elements of our strategy. They may stay. Rune Sun, do you know what you’re proposing? You’re proposing a Majeure battle with a woman who—if she truly retains any of the lives she’s siphoned—may have a significant reservoir of energy left.”

“Just like me,” I said, and there, when you stripped away all the fancy words, was my plan. “I’ve only just started using the Majeure. I’ll never need to rejuvenate to five years old. Or ten. Or even twenty. I have my own reservoir of energy.”

“One you’ll never regain,” Lady Death said. She did not look happy with me. “It’s not as easy as simply canceling out a year you have no desire to get back. It takes stamina to use, and your ability to draw on it can be depleted. You could cripple your use of it for months, maybe even years. Why make that sacrifice? There are other paths forward.”

“Which paths save most of the city from burning? She won’t stop what she’s doing. Haven’t you watched the broadcasts? It’s not just a war we’re fighting—it’s propaganda and counterinsurgency. She’s laying all of the deaths at our feet. At the very least, she’s been reframing the narrative to suggest the lives lost don’t matter because they are scions, while she protects everyone else.”

The Hierophant sighed. “There’s a reason you want to do this. What is it?”

“We all know she needs to be put down,” I said. “I want to talk to her first. She knows . . .”

—and my brain gave me an immediate, Technicolor memory of the carriage house, and the masks, and—

I hesitated, thrown, not sure how to mention what needed to be mentioned. Brand saw my hesitation and stepped in, like he always did. I felt him moving to my chair. “Lady Time has somehow been able to identify and co-opt the resources used to kill Rune’s father,” Brand said. “It’s conclusive. We don’t think she’s allied with all of the conspirators, but she knows some of them. The Sun Throne has every right to learn more.”

“It’s a brave move, young brother, and that’s no lie,” Lady Justice said slowly. “Truly. But if Lady Time is connected, even indirectly, with your father’s murder, it may be a reason why you should not be the one to face her. Perhaps the wiser path is to wait, and flush her out, and fall upon her as a group.”

“And the city burns,” the Hermit said. “How quickly we forget the past, even those of us old enough to have lived it. Do none of you remember the March Strike?”

Well, that caused a reaction. I knew it from an old school lesson—I could literally see the heading in a textbook—but it was buried well in Atlantis’s past.

“I’d rather the River’s current not bring that one around again,” Lady Justice sighed.

“The March Strike was put down,” Lord Strength said. “That’s the lesson of it.”

“And we lost three Arcana in the uprising,” the Hermit added. “It’s foolhardy to be dismissive when it comes to the power our citizens hold—because they do have power. Lady Time is stirring unrest that could turn catastrophic. Lord Sun’s plan may prevent that. It will cost little for us to support his Gambit.”

“What do you need of us?” the Hierophant asked, though grudgingly, because he didn’t like sharing his secrets and tools of war. I was half-tempted to lay claim to the tools of war he kept hidden in the Westlands.

“Find her,” I said. “Find where she’s hiding. Give me a target.”

Ciaran and Lady Death stayed behind long enough to record some . . . I didn’t know what to call them. Commercials? Interviews? Statements, maybe? Our own propaganda.

We used the recordings that Anna had snuck out of Lady Time’s underground compound. They showed an entirely new side of Lady Time, and reminded me that, soon, I needed to find out what exactly had happened to those kids. It was enough for now that they were safe and healthy, but I know there were parts of the story they hadn’t told me.

Using Lady Death, Ciaran, and me for filmed excerpts was intentional. Ciaran was a known trickster. Lady Death had publicly fought against the historic trappings of the Bone Hollows. I was young and untried, and more outsider than insider. We were a new face for an old institution, and the Tower gave us his implicit blessing by making himself scarce.

When we were done, Ciaran and Zurah headed back to the Magician’s compound, just to pack up their things. Now that I was awake, we were going to plan our next move together.

Quinn, Anna, and Max were whispering—possibly colluding—in the corner of the living area. Addam, Brand, and I were debating whether it was too early for a beer. Lord Tower was gluing macaroni to a piece of construction paper on the outside patio with Corbie. I knew this because Brand had set up a live feed to record it.

Brand’s phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen, answered, and put the phone on the table. “Mayan, you’re on speak—”

“I can’t reach Anton, I’m not getting a signal to his phone. Lock down your estate. Attacks have been launched at Half House and Pac Bell in the last few minutes—they may be trying to flush you out of hiding, if they don’t know where you are.”

I think the fact that Mayan used Lord Tower’s first name had me moving quicker than anything else, because Mayan always called Lord Tower by his title around other people. Brand and Addam were already sprinting toward the patio door and—

And Quinn had started crying. That was the last thing I remembered before the explosion tore a hole in the wall: Quinn had started crying, a bewildered look on his face, as if he’d lived this moment before and didn’t like the memory of it.

And then there was the explosion. I can’t remember much of that.

I picked myself up from the hallway floor. I think I’d been flung into the hallway.

I staggered back and saw Addam and Brand on the ground—Addam had managed to bring up a Shield.

The children were huddled behind a table on its side. Max had flipped it over.

Through a jagged tear in the wall, I saw the Tower lying still on the flagstone patio, covered in the fading static of a dead Shield. Corbie was pressed under him. I saw his little body twitch—alive.

Hovering above the lawn was Vadik Amberson, and my rage became my instinct.

I flooded my body with willpower, feeling my connection to all my sigils, which I’d refreshed and refilled over the last day. I called on Fire and Shield and Telekinesis. The conjoined Companion symbols at my belt flooded my body with Speed bolstered by Endurance to protect my bones and muscles.

I moved.

The world was a blur of blue and green—sky and grass—as my body flew forward. I was already a dozen yards from the mansion before the shock of my displacement cracked the air in a sonic boom.

Vadik was wearing his Serpent costume—the scaled leathers hiding his face from me.

I swung a hand at him and lashed out with Telekinesis. The leather mask was ripped off Vadik’s head. He yelped in surprise a second before throwing up a Shield—and not a small one. I felt his spell releasing from a mass sigil, like a train roaring inches past my face.

“You’re not my match,” I told him. “You’re just not.”

“Maybe, but I’m not stupid enough to face you alone. She really wants you dead,” Vadik said.

He didn’t move, and Brand was shouting in the background, but I’d already put two and two together. There was movement along the perimeter of the estate—pockets of movement in the foliage, where Vadik had somehow managed to tear holes in the estate wards.

As the mercenaries fired, I saw missiles come at me, just lines of fiery exhaust trails.

“Barrier!” the Tower said, and there he was, stepping to my side. He threw out his arms as midnight bled from his eyes and blood snaked from a cut on his forehead.

I linked my Shield to Lord Tower’s. The missiles struck with a searing explosion. Lord Tower twisted his hand, and the Shield wrapped around the detonation, creating a sphere of sunlike fury. Lord Tower whipped his hand toward the tree line and the sphere hurtled back to the mercenaries, who exited my attention as quickly as they’d entered it.

More magic flowed from the Tower. A hand of rock rumbled from the earth and grabbed Vadik by the waist. Lord Tower held up another hand, and Vadik’s Shield turned dark and cracked in a hiss of released power. The principality was slammed against the lawn with a force I could feel in my ankles.

I strode forward as Vadik coughed up blood. He said, “I yield. I’ve got to admit—that bastard wasn’t supposed to get up. And wait until you hear what I have to say next.”

“He’s stalling, it’s a tactic,” Lord Tower said immediately from behind me.

That’s when Brand started shouting again. I heard Anna scream.

Lord Tower gestured, and more stone covered Vadik, dragging him beneath the soil.

“Take the front, and I’ll flank from behind,” the Tower said. He shot off the ground and arced through the air toward the far side of the compound.

I called on my Speed, and ripped through the air toward the patio. Flagstones cracked beneath me as I came to a stop.

There were at least a dozen mercenaries in the living space, and I saw Corinne fighting more through the adjacent hallway as she battled her way to Anna. Max had a thin stream of fire swirling around his hand. Quinn had produced a Shield.

Brand had already put four men down, and Addam slammed another into the wall with Telekinesis. Not a single one of the mercenaries used magic. The Tower’s words came back to me. It’s a tactic.

Where was Lady Time?

I heard a scared sound and saw that Corbie was hiding in the bushes just off the patio. His eyes were wide and white, his face covered in dirt smudges. A mercenary heard the sound at the same time I did, saw it was a child, and raced to grab Corbie.

I threw willpower into my Telekinesis, reached out with an invisible hand, and crushed the man’s trachea with a wet snap.

I ran over and swung Corbie up onto my hip, while touching a sigil and releasing a fresh, new Shield.

“They’re down!” Brand shouted as he pushed his last assailant off his knife.

“Down!” Corinne shouted from the hallway. “I think there’s more at the entrance—I hear fighting.”

“It’s the Tower,” I said. “Corinne, find Layne, find Diana, find Queenie—I’ll watch Anna for you. Addam, back her up. Quinn, maintain your Shield around Max and Anna, that’s an order.”

I didn’t have to tell Brand where to be, because he wouldn’t have accepted any order except the one he followed—he came to my side. I lowered the Shield as he held out his arm and took Corbie from me.

“Vadik?” Brand said.

“He yielded, but he’s also a liar,” I said. “Corbie, are you hurt?”

Corbie, in Brand’s arm, had made himself as small as possible. I saw the shiny mop of hair shake no against Brand’s shoulder.

“Let’s put him in Quinn’s Shield,” I said, climbing through the hole in the wall and entering the living room. Brand passed me, walking in their direction.

“We need to move them to an interior room and secure the perimeter,” Brand said. “Doesn’t the compound have a crawl space? Maybe we can—”

Gunfire peppered the room. No—not guns—rocks. Small bits of stone shrapnel as Vadik exploded from beneath the patio and threw the force of his arrival at us. Multiple Shields sprang up or were flung between us and the rocks. Vadik stepped into the living room. He was bleeding from the nose, eyes, and ears.

Quinn’s Shield overloaded and failed. A rock hit Anna and blood droplets sprayed the wall behind her from a nasty slice on her temple.

The outline of massive wings made of fire appeared above her. They stretched wide with a sound not unlike thunder. Corbie saw this monster forming above him and began screaming his confused head off. And I felt magic in that scream—a trembling rush of confused, directionless magic.

A roar came from outside as shimmering white light flooded through the hole in the wall. The roar repeated—a fluted, trumpeting sound—and a six-foot lance of bone and keratin pierced the plaster and impaled Vadik from behind. Vadik had barely a second to form an O of shock with his lips, then the horn jerked upwards. A window shattered and more wall crumbled as he vanished into the outside air, flung over the back of a four-ton unicorn.

I’d beat myself up for this later—not understanding what it might mean for a creature to spend tens of thousands of years as the familiar of an ifrit.

Flynn was not happy. His horn pierced the wall again as he tried to tear his way into the living room and find Corbie.

“Corbie, tell Flynn you’re safe!” I shouted. “Tell him you’re all right!”

“It’s okay Flynn! It’s Anna, she scared me!” Corbie shouted.

Flynn trumpeted his anger again and tore a drapery rod from the wall, which spiraled through the air and cracked a mirror on the opposing wall.

“Corbitant Dawncreek, tell Flynn you are okay!” I yelled.

“I’m okay Flynn, I’m okay!” Corbie piped up.

The horn withdrew from the tear in the wall. I heard heavy footsteps, and an eye the size of a teacup saucer peered in at us.

“What the almighty fuck just happened,” Brand said, joining my side as I rushed toward the opening.

“Flynn has bonded to Corbie as a familiar,” I said. “Where did Vadik land?”

Brand pointed to a crumpled body on the lawn.

I wanted to put Vadik down, but couldn’t leave the others behind until—

The Tower walked into the room. Layne, Diana, Queenie, and Corinne were behind him, and Addam had the rear.

“Clear,” Lord Tower said. “Lady Time?”

“I haven’t spotted her yet,” I said. “Mayan called just before it happened. He said there are attacks at Half House and the Pac Bell. He thinks she’s trying to flush me out.”

“But not Sun Estate?” he said.

I started to answer and stopped, because that was a question that made a lot of sense. “Did Mayan have a team watching Sun Estate? Maybe they attacked there and he doesn’t know?”

“Of course he would know,” Lord Tower said. He shook his head. “Later. Let’s deal with the principality.”

He, Brand, and I climbed through holes in the wall and tried to edge as unobtrusively as possible around the prehistoric rhinoceros. Flynn was standing on a flattened resin picnic table, making confused lowing noises.

“This?” Lord Tower said.

“Corbie’s familiar,” I replied, just for the quick pleasure of seeing Lord Tower’s raised eyebrows.

We reached Vadik a moment later, stopping a healthy distance from his prone wreck. Vadik turned his head to watch us approach, but his arms were twisted in impossible positions. I couldn’t be sure, but it also looked as if his spine was severed. The hole in his abdomen was a mess of failed Healing and fresh blood, with the pink, telltale glimmer of intestine.

His leather outfit had been torn open, revealing what lay beneath.

Vadik Amberson was covered in sigils. Covered. He wore a custom-built chest rig to hold them in leather slots. I couldn’t even count them in a single glance. Sigils and mass sigils alike—and most of them? Most of them were forged into golden sunbursts.

“Our sigils,” I said in a hoarse whisper. “My father’s sigils. Those . . . those are mine!”

Vadik laughed spit-bubbles of blood.

“Now this makes sense,” Lord Tower said in disgust. “I was wondering why you hadn’t engaged in a Majeure battle. Are you even a real principality? Or just a cheap imitation of one? Anyone can cover themselves in mass sigils and pretend to be a god.”

“I bled the Tower,” Vadik coughed in satisfaction. “Didn’t I? I claimed Lord Sun’s tools of war, didn’t I?” His eyes rolled to me. “And I know what it’s like to have you broken and bleeding and begging beneath me.”

Brand did not waste time with a dialogue flourish. He walked over while pulling a knife from his harness. As Vadik took a breath to say something, Brand felt Vadik’s ribcage with one hand, found the right spot, and slid his knife in. He used his palm on the pommel to drive it home like a stake.

There was hard breathing and spasming, but what Brand walked away from was a dying thing, and he refused it the attention it no longer deserved.

“Claim them,” Lord Tower said to me. “This is your legacy.”

I stared at the sunburst sigils. An entire arsenal of them. I said, “By conquest, I claim these sigils as my own. Their will is now my will.”

Power snaked through me, dozens of needlepoint connections, linking me to the devices.

I was about to say something, and that was when I saw the Tower’s calm expression break into alarm. I realized he was reacting to something I hadn’t seen yet—and even as I realized this, I saw a crystalline bolt of light streaking toward us.

Lord Tower stepped in front of Brand and me.

The magic hit his right shoulder and ate a hole in it. Flesh seared and dissolved as the wound spread. Within that hole I saw a portal forming, and through that portal I saw eternity. I saw the timestream widening and pulling Lord Tower into it.

He had one hand thrown forward, a last-ditch attempt to Shield; and he was looking over his shoulder to make sure I was ready to fight whatever came next. He saw me, and I saw him, and the emotion in that gaze was bigger than any single word could ever describe.

I watched the life go out of his dark eyes.

The portal anchored to his body expanded and flashed shut, too quick to follow. Lord Tower vanished in a roar of primal energy.

Standing on the lawn, just a few yards away, was Lady Time.