Sylvie let the shock of it wash over her, felt the rising sickness of guilt trying to claw into her belly. Maybe this wasn’t just another of Val’s melodramatic starts, a sneaky way to get out of a task she didn’t want to do. “Val—”

“What?” Val said. She saw a cab up the street and gestured. Sylvie saw her moment dwindling, while behind her Dunne and the sisters waited. She imagined Alekta’s heels tapping impatiently in the subway and the world suffering tiny seizures at each impact.

“You could still help,” Sylvie said. “You can’t use the magic, but you can still help me—”

“Like I’d want to,” Val snapped, and it sparked Sylvie’s quick temper in response.

“Fine. Don’t help. Then give me the name of a witch who will.”

“You’re cold,” Val whispered.

“No, I’m on the edge of disaster,” Sylvie said. “My only real lead just went up in colored smoke, and while it was pretty, it doesn’t make me happy. You’re hurt, you’re scared, you’re going to split, fine. I can’t blame you. If I could, I’d join you. I can’t. You said it yourself. Dunne’s gone nuclear, and there’s only me between him and a really big flash.”

Val’s face was streaked and blotched with tears, all her cool poise stripped bare. A memory jolt fed Sylvie, the image of Val on a sixth-grade playground, sobbing, while Sylvie fisted her hands and rounded on the class bully who had made her cry.

“I’m sorry, Val. I wouldn’t have called you if I’d known.”

“Yes, you would have,” Val said. The cab drew to the curb, and Val nodded at the driver, darted into the street to retrieve her misshapen briefcase, and climbed inside.

Sylvie put her hand on the cabbie’s door, a wait-a-minute. “Val—” she said. “Your abilities are really truly gone? Don’t abilities grow back, sometimes?”

“You think I’m making it up?”

“You did a lot of lying, in school.”

“This is a little different than avoiding essays. Fuck off, Sylvie.” Val scrawled a phone number on the spell fax and thrust it out the window at Sylvie. “Here’s your new witch. Anna D. A local power. Arrogant as hell. You deserve each other.”

The cab merged into traffic and disappeared, becoming one of many. Behind her, a faint shriek rose, as someone attempted to go down the station’s stairs and ran right into a nightmare, emerged again, shaking and breathless. Sylvie’s paralysis broke as the man ran by. She would apologize later. At the moment, there was simply too much at stake to worry about the damage already done.

Sylvie turned her back on the streets, and rejoined the monsters waiting below.

9

Finding Trouble

IN THE COOL DIMNESS OF THE STATION, THE SCENE HADN’T changed. Dunne stared at the destroyed oubliette, the greasy reminders of paint and malign intent, his expression as blank as a dropped doll’s.

Sylvie thought about that perfect, inhuman stillness and shuddered. People had thoughts; the thoughts reflected themselves on their skins. But Dunne, at the moment, seemed empty. Waiting for something, anything to wake him to movement and purpose.

Before him, Alekta and Magdala walked the oubliette, eyes closed, tracking something intangible to mortal senses.

Erinya winked into sight on the stairs, a punk mirage turning real, startling a shamed yelp out of Sylvie. It echoed the sound she’d heard earlier, the scared man who’d fled down the street.

Alekta raised her head to look at Sylvie, eyes reflecting silver-blue in the sputtering fluorescent light. She lunged forward like a Doberman, all the power in her shoulders, and vanished before she landed.

Erinya brushed past Sylvie and leaned into Dunne’s side.

Dunne blinked at her touch, but made no further movement, never moving his gaze from the stairs, as if he could draw Bran out by sheer attentiveness.

Maybe he could have, Sylvie thought, catching a glimmer of something behind the set stone of his jaw. Some tinge of guilt, self-condemnation. Maybe, if the spell had stayed active, he could have worked his way through whatever it was that shielded Bran from him. If Bran were—

“He’s not dead,” Dunne said.

“What?” Sylvie said.

“The witch thinks he’s dead. He’s not. Don’t let her plant doubts.”

“What, you’re a mind reader, now?” Sylvie said. She felt flicked on the raw. She’d cautioned herself before about assuming it was too late.

He turned his head and looked at her. Blank eyes. Inhuman eyes. Eyes that saw her as nothing more than a faulty collection of molecule and meat. A god’s eyes.

“Shit,” Sylvie said, under her breath. Mind reader, check. Probably went with the whole omniscient thing. Well, might as well hang for a sheep—“You sure ’bout that not-dead thing? Really sure?”

“If he were dead,” Dunne said, each word precise and cold. “If he were dead, the results would be unmistakable. If he were dead, I’d have a name and a face to blame.” His voice rose to a ragged shout; his jaw clenched until Sylvie imagined tooth enamel cracking. Beside him, Erinya whimpered and dug her head into his ribs, pushing hard enough to hurt.

Sylvie licked dry lips, twitching when Magdala vanished as Alekta had.

“Don’t doubt me, Sylvie.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Sylvie said.

Dunne’s hand rose, ruffled through Erinya’s spiky crest of dark hair. “Wrong trails,” she whispered.

“Is that what they’re doing?” Sylvie asked. “Trying to find the sorcerer who laid the spell?”

“As you said,” Dunne said. “I destroyed your lead. The sisters are trying to salvage it, but this is a busy station, and the feel of souls fades.” He tightened his mouth.

Hunting souls? Sylvie said nothing, not wanting to think about the damage that could lead to.

“I’m sorry,” Erinya whispered. “I can’t track as well as the others.”

He tangled his fingers back into her hair. “Not your fault,” he murmured. “I know you’re trying.”

Trying means you go down fighting, that’s all. Trying doesn’t mean you win. Sylvie paced a circle of her own, tired of waiting, sick of that voice in her mind, preaching bile and pragmatism in equal measure.

“We’re running short on time, Sylvie. In my search, I’ve played fast and loose with the rules, and it’s been noticed. They won’t let it stand much longer.”

“They? Other gods?” Sylvie said. Just what this whole mess needed. More powerful looky-loos.

Dunne nodded. “Zeus. Ostensibly, he commands me.”

“I know how that goes,” Sylvie said. “It’s amazing how underrated free will is.”

Erinya stutter-growled deep in her throat, an oddly warm sound. Was she laughing? It almost sounded like it. Erinya eeled out of Dunne’s grip. “I’m going hunting.” She smiled at Sylvie and disappeared.

Sylvie didn’t even recoil when Alekta reappeared at a jog, ducked her head over the circle, and vanished again.

Instead, she said, “What about time? You reversed it this morning. Why not just unwind the moment when he vanished? Or when you blew up our only lead a moment ago?”

“I should have done it when Bran vanished,” Dunne said. “But each hour that passed made it less of an option. Time is heavy and fragile. Rewriting that moment in your office was nothing, a heartbeat of time disrupted. Even so, more changed than you know. You never fired the bullet. It was the simplest way to convince you I meant business. But others had their moments rewound, their lives changed, too. There was a cop on Alligator Alley, pulling a car over for speeding. He was shot for his pains. I rewound your moment, and he went to the car with his gun in his hand. He shot first. His career is over.”

“His life isn’t,” Sylvie said. “Sounds like a win. Where’s the problem?”

“The driver wasn’t mine,” Dunne said. “Don’t know that he was anybody’s, but if he was, I’ve committed an act of contempt toward a fellow deity. In a millisecond of time, I made an enemy. To change two weeks’ worth of seconds—it would make the world unrecognizable, pit god against god, change everything. Even twenty minutes reversed would create a tidal wave of change, and for what? To show us the spell again with no guarantee of learning from it?”