"Seven days …" I started to protest as there was a louder thump, wet and horrible, and then the skitter of racing paws. I looked down; I couldn't help it. Hurriedly, I looked back up, tasted bile, and hoped I never saw a rat, dead or undead, again as long as I lived.

"Go." The glow was returning to Wahanket's hollows of bone.

I went.

A week … I only hoped Robin lived that long.

I went back into the maze, wandered far enough away from Wahanket that I felt a little more comfortable, and then I did it again…once more doing what I'd told Nik I wouldn't. I sat on the dusty floor, cross-legged, and held out my hand. I focused, twisted that focus, and it came. I kept it smaller than a full-sized gate as I had before, but went for just a little bigger this time. From the size of an orange to that of a basketball. And I then focused harder. The gate, nothing but the gate. No thoughts of Tumulus or the Auphe. No thoughts of feeding someone to them. No thoughts that weren't mine. It wasn't going to happen. I wouldn't let it. Maybe I wouldn't even admit to having them in the first place.

The gray light swirled and eddied like a particularly dangerous riptide and it glowed like flesh-melting radioactivity. It was still ugly as hell and clamped down on the base of my brain like a vise. It hurt, it felt cold and wrong, and here I was doing it anyway.

Why? Because like I'd thought before, it could save my life someday. It could save Niko's life. That made it worth doing. It made the pain, the blood, and the sense of teetering on a chasm hungry for just one misstep worthwhile. The Auphe had never given me a damn thing I wanted to have or know, but if some genetic trick of theirs could ever save my brother or anyone else I cared about, then some good would come out of the horror show they had tried to make of me and the world.

I really wanted that bit of good. I'd saved Robin and myself before. I wanted to be able to do that again if push came to shove. Niko lived a life of monsters and madness because of who I'd been born. And he held his own—we both did, but if I could have that emergency exit available, I'd feel better. I'd feel maybe a fraction less responsible for the mess the Auphe had made of both our lives.

If only I could get a little goddamn better at it.

Despite my determination, the chasm whispered at me. It said things…bad things. It wanted things too, things even worse. I could almost touch those things, taste them, feel them…

Shit.

With a massive effort, I shut them out. They were gone and I felt a slight sense of satisfaction … a very wary satisfaction. I wasn't stupid.

The pain spiked and with a hiss at the sharp ache, I closed the doorway. The light faded away and I wiped my nose with the dish towel I'd brought for the occasion. It worked better than the paper towels had. As I did, I thought it was nothing. Just things I imagined the Auphe thought and felt. I was in a creepy as hell basement doing an even creepier thing and who wouldn't imagine some crap in that situation? It was a fluke the first time and my imagination this time.

The blood kept coming and I wadded the cloth and held it against the flow for nearly ten minutes before it stopped. My ears were okay. Only that big gate I'd made to escape the sirrush had set them off. Wiping my face thoroughly, I fished the Tylenol out of my pocket and swallowed two. The headache, the blood, it was all still there. Practice didn't seem to be making perfect. That super gate I'd opened while fighting the Hob months ago had definitely gotten down and dirty with whatever I used to open those rips in reality. I could almost feel the blockage in my brain. Like a damaged area, hardened…thickened like scar tissue. I'd have to get around it or push through it.

Or, as Niko had said, my brain would come oozing out my ears. Either or. If he found out what I was doing, that might just be the least of my concerns.

I made my way back upstairs, getting lost about as many times as I expected. Once there I kept my head ducked down and made my way to the nearest bathroom to check for any leftover blood on my face. Ever try to check your reflection without actually looking into a mirror? Not so easy. I took some paper towels and soap and scrubbed first, then took a look that lasted about a fraction of a second before quickly turning my head away.

It was nearly as huge an accomplishment as shredding a hole in space itself. Phobias are tricky things. I knew a demon wasn't going to come out of a mirror and take me. I knew because I'd killed that demon, but that was the first glimpse I'd had of myself in a mirror since Darkling had crawled out of one to gobble me up.

How did I look?

Guilty as hell. Niko was so going to kick my ass.

When I showed up at Promise's apartment twenty minutes later, I'd tucked the guilt far out of sight with the natural acting skills Sophia had shown her marks over the years. In other words, I pasted a big fat lie on my face. If I was half as good as she'd been, I might just pass. At the apartment door I pulled up half a step behind Robin's housekeeper, Seraglio. She took one look up at me, shook her head, and fished in the pocket of her coat to hand me crackers and peanut butter in machine-wrapped cellophane. "A stiff wind would blow you over, sugar, and we're about to face a big gusty hot one now. Eat up." She had a small suitcase with her. Some of Robin's things, I thought, but…

I opened the crackers eagerly, took a bite, and said around it, "Where are the rest?"

"The taxi driver is bringing them up, all five of them," she sighed as she knocked on the door. "And for one mess of change, you'd better believe. God forbid he should help a lady out of the goodness of his tiny shriveled heart." Shaking her head impatiently, she had lifted a small fist to knock again when the door was flung open and out came Ishiah in one hell of a temper. That wasn't the surprise. He was always in a temper, a hot-blooded guy to look as if he should be sporting a halo. The surprise was that he was there—that Robin had opened the door for him. Wings out of sight, he moved between Seraglio and me, didn't look at either of us, and strode down the hall toward the elevator.

Shrugging, I took the suitcase from Robin's housekeeper and followed her into the apartment. Robin was in a robe, probably one that had belonged to one of Promise's past husbands, eating breakfast. "Your crap, sir." I flopped the suitcase on the dining room table. "Tips are appreciated, you cheap bastard."

Fork suspended halfway between mouth and plate, he looked at the case and demanded instantly, "That's just the hair care products. Where's the rest?"

Seraglio was already leaving, preferring to meet the cabdriver halfway rather than to deal with her employer. I didn't much blame her. Changing my mind about breakfast, I sat at the table and snatched a honey-dribbled croissant from his plate and ate it. "I saw Ish in the hall." He'd been trying to talk sense into Robin, have him tell us what was going on, I knew. Ishiah wouldn't tell us himself, but he could use his time to endlessly prod Robin into telling us himself. "He seemed pissed. Even more pissed than usual." Which meant Robin hadn't cooperated.

I licked my fingers clean of the sticky sweetness from the bun. "He also seemed worried about you. Seriously, Robin, who is he? He knows you, and I mean really knows you, the good and the bad. Not many people can say that." Niko and I couldn't, not entirely—not with Robin holding back on us.

He hesitated, pushed the food around on his plate, then exhaled. "What is he would be more appropriate. A recruiter for the good and noble life, you could say, one with a moral code even more stringent than that of your brother." He gave a mock shudder at the thought. "It's uncanny. Unhinging might be the better word. Far too many Boy Scouts in the world." The mild annoyance deepened to something darker. "We have a history, Ishiah and I do. One of him pushing and pushing and utterly pissing me off. He'd have me give up everything that makes me the magnificent specimen I am."