Outside the coffee shop, the day brightened as noon drew nearer. Snow glistened in patches where the plows had pushed it into the gutters of Main Street. Saul shoved his clay-spotted hands into his coat pockets and wished he had remembered gloves on his way out of the house.

  Behind him, Olivia folded her arms. Irene stopped walking a few paces in front of them and then turned around. Her dark hair gleamed in the sun. Her face looked even paler than usual outside in the daylight.

  “Where are these gern?” Saul asked as he caught up with her.

  Irene frowned at him. Her hand pressed to her scarf. “I fought one near the passage house last night.”

  “Is that when you arrived?” he asked.

  “The new guardian didn’t tell you?” Irene’s brow furrowed. “That’s odd.”

  “What’s odd is her trying to help you,” muttered Olivia from behind Saul.

  Saul tried to ignore Olivia’s words, but found it difficult, after contending with Irene three months ago. The burns and scars from her flaming sword were still recent. “I didn’t notice any gern last night. More should have arrived to take its taph when you killed it.”

  Irene grimaced and moved the scarf away from her collar. A red gash cut across her collarbone, with a wide streak of dried blood flowing down to her shirt. “I didn’t kill it.” She swayed slightly on her feet. “It’s embarrassing to admit.”

  Saul wrinkled his brow with concern he wished was not real. “You’re hurt.”

  “It’s nothing,” said Irene.

  “It’s an open wound.” Olivia scowled at Irene. “I don’t need to be a doctor to see that.”

  “A little help would not go amiss.” Irene’s eyes flashed. “Olivia, is it?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Olivia Jordan.”

  “I appreciate your concern. Keep your attitude to yourself.”

  Olivia shook her head and gave a frustrated sigh. “It’s your funeral.”

  “Indeed it is.” Irene turned to Saul. “Do you know somewhere I can rest?”

  “Just the mansion.”

  “Thank you,” Irene breathed.

  “Thank me once we get the bleeding stopped.”

  Another sigh made him turn to Olivia.

  Her eyebrow arched. “Seriously?”

  “That’s perfect.” Irene ignored Olivia and looked down the street. “It’s not far away. I can manage it.”

  “Good. I don’t think either of us wants to carry you.” Olivia started past Saul down the street, gloved fists clenched.

  The door to the coffee shop opened behind them. The students who had been sitting by the door walked out into the street, the big guy with the glasses, the redhead, and the little one with the crush. Saul turned with Irene and the two of them followed Olivia down the street toward the mansion.

  Irene looked at Saul. “She is disagreeable.”

  “Only because she thinks you’re an enemy,” Saul said.

  “Oh?” Irene smirked. “So she knows the truth. About makers.”

  “You know she does. She knows about us too.”

  “Why did you tell her?” asked Irene.

  “Don’t go down that path.” Saul scowled ahead for a moment. He could not help but add, “I needed help to deal with you and Luther.”

  “Now who is going down a bad road? You care about her opinion. That’s obvious. But do you care about her?”

  Saul grunted. “That doesn’t matter. I still need her help, and I’d like yours too.”

  They trudged on in silence for a few moments. Beyond the sounds of their footsteps, Saul heard three more pairs of feet following them, even after they crossed from Main Street to the road where Saul’s house stood a few blocks ahead.

  “You want to fight Apahar,” Irene said.

  “Yes. What else can I do?”

  “It’s always the big things with you, Saul. We made a world together just a few months ago. Could we talk about that?”

  “Fine. Once Apahar is beaten.”

  “Not after. If you want my help you’ll talk to me now.”

  “We’re talking.” Saul exhaled into his cupped hands.

  “Do you know where it is?” Irene asked.

  “Somewhere between realms,” Saul said.

  “So, no.”

  “Guess you could put it that way.” Saul stuffed his hands back into his pockets. “I think it’s better this way, for now.”

  “Most worldmakers would not leave their new world to develop for months without them.” Irene folded her arms and looked down at her feet. “They grow quickly at this stage.”

  “You’re right. But I didn’t have a choice.”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “You could have stayed.”

  “I could say that for you, but you’re wrong. Apahar is back. He’s going to try to rejoin his old body under Gatewood Hall, and I need to be here to stop him.” Saul had to admit, telling Irene the whole truth felt good. They had been friends for years before they had been lovers, and lovers before they had become enemies.

  “So this wasn’t about her?” Irene motioned with her shoulder at Olivia. “What she wanted?”

  “No.” Though I’m sure she wanted to come home. “Not at all.”

  “Good.” Irene’s lip curved into a small smile. “I’m glad you haven’t gotten soft.” She reached out with one pale hand and touched his shoulder. Her hand lingered, and her touch reminded him why he cared for her the way he did, why he had loved her like he had.

  Before.

  They walked onto the block where the mansion stood and approached the driveway. Irene took her hand from his shoulder. She stopped before the icy lawn and looked up at his house. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d live in the house your father built.”

  “I haven’t had a lot of options these past few years.”

  Olivia, who stood in the driveway, glanced back at them. She did not say anything, but her cheeks were flushed from the cold and her gloved hands were folded before her. Saul caught her eye and nodded to her.

  “Go ahead. We’re right behind you.”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about,” said Olivia. She pointed to the frosted hedge row on the side of the lawn near to Saul and Irene. “Someone’s hiding back there.”

  “You’re sure?” He knew she had excellent hearing and keen eyes, but he sensed no taphic presence where she directed his attention.

  Saul and Irene caught up with Olivia in the driveway.

  Irene scowled. “I sense nothing.”

  “Well, I’m not a maker, but I have ears. And I’m used to finding things other people don’t notice.”

  Irene raised an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

  “My father was a magician.”

  “A mage?” Saul scowled as he recalled William, the exile mage who had worked with Luther. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Not a mage. A stage magician.” Olivia threw up her hands and sighed. “He made things appear and disappear. Point is—There’s someone behind that hedge.”

  The cold pressed in around Saul. “A person? You’re sure?”

  Olivia nodded. “Definitely sounded like one.”

  “Are you a magician yourself?” Irene asked Olivia.

  “No, but I know a little.”

  The hedges rustled. Olivia’s arm extended and she twitched her hand. Saul knew Olivia’s coat to be loaded with a kit of gern-fighting equipment. Electric weapons. Tasers, stun guns, and a cattle prod, all proved effective at piercing the monsters’ protective integratos. A taser leaped from Olivia’s sleeve and into her hand, launched by a spring from up her sleeve.

  Saul glanced at her, annoyed at his own lack of weapons beyond the oven rod in his coat pocket. “Is it a gern?”

  “Wouldn’t we smell it if it was?”

  “Only if it cuts its way into the world nearby.” Saul’s brow furrowed. “I don’t think we were followed.” He craned his neck and looked back the way they had come. On the sidewalk they had followed from the coffee shop, one of the students, the little guy with the crush on the redhead stood by the end of the driveway, looking at Olivia and her taser with wide eyes.

  There was no sign of his friends.

  The student said, “Olivia?”

  She glanced in his direction. “Morrie, you shouldn’t be here.”

  “I was walking with Cecilia and George, but then they vanished. Did you see them?”

  Saul grunted. “We don’t have time for this.” He did not like to think what could have happened to the two other students if either guardians or gern were on the hunt nearby. Whether they had been attacked by makers or gern, they would not survive long, and this boy would likely be next.

  Irene nodded in agreement with his words, her face a chill mask.

  Olivia glared at both of them. “Stop acting like aliens. People might need our help.”

  Saul’s gaze flicked to the door of the mansion. His armory was at the top of the stairs in a sealed chamber. Beyond that, there were probably a few more oven rods in the workshop. He licked his lips. “We should get inside.” He turned and waved toward Morrie. “You, don’t just stand there.”

  He was beginning to make a habit of helping exiles. Saul grimaced.

  Morrie stared at him. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing good.” Olivia kept her eyes on the hedge row. “But listen, it’s only gonna get worse if you don’t follow us.”

  “Look I—”

  A pair of shadows sprang over the hedge. One was big and wore dark clothes, the other smaller and wore white. Both had long cloaks and beaked masks of the same color, with feathered edges, and both brandished blades. Though they were humanoid and lacked any presence to Saul’s mind, the eyes behind their masks gleamed with impassive coldness Saul rarely saw among exiles. They raced toward Olivia, Irene, and Saul.

  Olivia shot Morrie a glare more intense than Saul had ever seen on her face before, brows bent, eyes dark. He would have remembered if he had seen that one. “Move!”

  Morrie lurched into the driveway, eyes wild and movements shaky, and slow, far too slow.

  Saul leaped out and grabbed the student by the forearm. “Faster than that, if you want to live through this.” He tugged Morrie toward the door of the mansion.

  Olivia aimed her taser at the bigger of the two as the black-clad figure charged over the lawn, somehow uninhibited by inches of snow on the ground. Saul pulled Morrie past Olivia. Irene sprinted ahead of them and headed toward the door of the mansion.

  Olivia pulled the trigger. The prongs of her taser jumped out on the end of their lines. The black-clad figure lowered his dark greatsword and flipped a long-bladed dagger from under his cloak. The weapon intercepted Olivia’s taser prongs in midair. Electricity crackled.

  Saul’s feet pounded up the steps of his porch. He pulled the keys from his pocket. He fumbled them in his cold hands. Light footfalls crunched closer on the snow, telling him the white-clad figure was headed toward the steps.

  Irene shouted. A bird cry answered her. In a flurry of red feathers, Hush, Irene’s bird child, appeared. Unlike the last time they had met, when Saul and Irene had created their new world, Saul was glad to see him.

  Hush flapped past Irene, beak open to reveal the hilt of a sword in his mouth. Irene reached for her weapon.

  The white-cloaked figure thrust the blade of a rapier at Morrie.

  Irene blocked the bright rapier with her ignition blade, diverting the stroke from Morrie.

  Saul jammed the key into the lock. Metal clunked in the door, as blades rang against each other behind him.

  The white cloaked figure darted back from Irene, slender blade extended between them. White-cloak moved with fluid grace, clearly a skilled fighter. She, it was definitely a woman beneath the cloak and mask, announced nothing by her presence except lethal intent.

  Olivia backed toward the doorway, away from the black-clad figure with the heavy sword.

  She would not see if white-cloak decided to turn and attack her.

  Saul pulled the door open. “In!” he yelled.

  He tugged the oven rod from his pocket and jumped down the steps. His feet skidded on the icy pavement between the porch and the driveway. Irene zagged away from him, blade held between herself and the white figure before her. The white mask betrayed no emotion. The woman behind it thrust her sword at Saul.

  He staggered sideways and stumbled on the slippery concrete. He tried to keep the oven rod ahead of him, but as he shifted and slid he lost that contest with the ice. The woman’s rapier blade slashed across his forearm, but then he crashed against her on the left, opposite her sword arm.

  Despite her obvious athleticism, she could not finesse his two hundred pounds of impact. She spun to one side. Olivia stepped past Saul’s back, dropping her spent taser behind her.

  Her other arm extended and a short length of metal rod burst from her sleeve. The rod telescoped into a two-foot-long cattle prod. The black-clad man sidestepped the prongs of the prod and swiped with his sword. Olivia ducked back.

  Saul found his footing before the woman in white.

  He and Olivia raced to the porch. She gained on him. His legs ached from his leap and impact on the icy driveway. Irene backed into the entryway of the house.

  Olivia raced inside. Saul followed her through and slammed the door behind him. He slipped over the welcome mat. The point of a black blade splintered through the door behind him, a few inches of deadly steel. He stumbled forward and then whirled to look back. Blood dripped from his torn coat sleeve at the forearm.

  He took a deep breath. “What the hell was that?” he said.