“We must not allow ourselves to be separated,” Vani said, springing forward with Nim in her arms.

Farr followed after the T’gol, but Grace hesitated. Just a short while ago, for a few moments, she had returned to Earth by means of Farr’s silver coin. When they jumped into the abyss, there had been no time to consider where to direct the coin to take them; there had been only a split second to think of a place they both knew, they both could envision. One had flashed into Grace’s mind; with their hands clasped together, she had managed to transmit it to Farr over the last scraps of the Weirding. And that was where they had gone.

The Beckett-Strange Home for Children.

They two of them had stood there beneath the blue Colorado sky for only a few seconds. Grace had stared at the burnt-out ruin, unable to move or speak. The wind had hissed through dry witchgrass. This was where it had all begun. This was where she had first learned what it meant to be wounded. . . .

And where she had first learned the power of healing.

With that thought, the fear, the dread, and the sorrow within her evaporated. It hadn’t been a mistake to come to this place. Instead, it had reminded her of who she really was. Not a queen, not a witch, and not an heir to prophecy, but simply—finally—a healer. She had taken the silver coin from Farr, and with a thought they had returned to Eldh, to the bridge outside the throne room.

Grace left hesitation behind and raced after the others toward the dais. For a moment she had been terrified that if she stepped through the gate to Earth, she might never return to Eldh—to her fortress and her people. But it didn’t matter; she knew that now.

Grace had never meant to return to them in the first place.

She willed her legs to move faster. Travis had reached the top of the dais. He drew close to the throne.

A hand reached through the gate, groping.

Travis skidded to a halt short of the gate. The hand reached toward him, slender fingers extended. A woman’s hand. Several of the robed figures were clustered close to the gate, just on the other side. At their fore was the woman, a veil concealing her face rather than a hood. She was reaching through the gate. For Travis?

No. Her hand moved past him, toward the throne. The woman’s fingertips just brushed the arm of the golden chair.

Travis took another step toward the gate. The woman snatched her hand back through the blue-rimmed portal, and while Grace couldn’t hear it, she was sure the other had gasped in surprise. The woman had just seen Travis. But why hadn’t she and the others seen him before?

This room is dim, Grace, and the room on their side is much brighter. It’s like being in a brightly lit house and looking out a window into the night; you can’t see anything.

The woman threw her veil back. Her face was too sharp to be lovely, but it was regal, commanding. Blond hair was pulled back in a severe knot. Her eyes were gold as coins.

Those eyes had widened, and her mouth was a silent circle of surprise. She stumbled back, away from the gate, along with the others in black robes.

“Who are those people?” Larad called out.

“I don’t care,” Travis called back. “Now, Larad.”

And he jumped through the gate.

“Father!” Nim cried, reaching out a small hand.

But Vani was already moving, leaping through the gate a fraction of a second after Larad. Farr went next; Grace was the last. She did not hesitate, did not look back over her shoulder as she passed into the circle of blue fire.

She braced herself for the cold of the Void, and for a fall through darkness. Instead she felt a tingling sensation, like the touch of leaves brushing past her skin, and a moment later she was through, standing beside the others on a dais beneath a golden dome, in a building that, classical as its design was, bore countless, immediately detectable signs—from the electric lights glowing around the perimeter of the room to the switches on the walls and the muted whir of a ventilation system—that it had been built by modern, Earth hands.

Grace glanced back. Behind her, supported by thin arcs of steel, was an archway of stone blocks carved with angular symbols. Strands of blue energy coiled around the stones. Beyond she could just make out the dim outlines of the throne room in Morindu. Why hadn’t they fallen through the Void?

Because the worlds are close now, Grace. Very close.

She turned from the gate, facing the six figures in black robes. Their hoods were pushed back now, like the woman’s veil, and the faces of the five men—all as sharp and ageless as the woman’s—bore looks of mingled astonishment and fear. The woman’s look of shock, however, had changed to another expression: narrow-eyed rage.

“How can this be?” She pointed a finger at Travis. “How can you be here? We made certain you would not get in our way.”

Travis cocked his head, a puzzled look on his face. Then, slowly, he nodded, and Grace knew he had understood something, something the rest of them had not. She wished she could speak to him over the Weirding. Standing there, close to the gate, and the Imsari, and the Seven of Orú—who slept in their sarcophagi around the perimeter of the chamber—it almost felt as if she could sense the Weirding’s glimmering strands. But they were too faint, too fragile to grasp.

“Haven’t you read the reports?” Travis said. “I have a way of getting around.”

Never, in all they had been through together, had Grace been afraid of Travis, but she was at that moment. He wore a grin like a jackal’s, and in the golden light his skin seemed hot and metallic, like that of the beings in the sarcophagi. He stalked to the edge of the dais. The woman and the black-robed men all took a step back.

“You,” Vani said, and she was almost as fearsome as Travis, her gold eyes blazing. She held Nim tight in one arm, and with her free hand pointed at the woman. “You sent the Scirathi after us. You told them where to find my daughter.”

The woman’s hand darted inside her robe. She said nothing. The five men exchanged uncomfortable looks.

“You aren’t Scirathi,” Farr said, eyes narrowing. “So why were they working for you. Who are you?”

“What?” the woman said, her voice mocking now. “The great Seeker Hadrian Farr doesn’t know the answer when it’s right in front of his face? Your reputation must have been overly inflated in the reports we received.” She inclined her head toward Travis. “He knows who we are. Though I confess, I do not know how he can. All the same, he does. Go on, Mr. Wilder. Tell them.”

Travis opened his mouth, but before he could speak, another voice answered. “They’re the Philosophers, Hadrian! We can’t let them go through the gate.”

The voice was weak, ragged, but it echoed around the dome. Grace turned. To her right, a staircase led up to a mezzanine that ringed the chamber. A dark-haired woman stood halfway down the staircase, hunched over the rail. Behind her, a streak of red smeared the white marble steps.

The woman on the staircase was Deirdre Falling Hawk.

Everyone in the chamber stared, silenced by shock. Farr actually staggered, a hand to his chest. Joy shone on Travis’s face. However, after a second the joy flickered and vanished; he had seen the trail of blood on the stairs. The Philosophers, too, appeared surprised to see Deirdre standing there.

“Why aren’t you dead?” the woman snapped, her tone what a rich woman might use with a servant who had not performed some task swiftly enough.

Deirdre gave a pained smile. “I’m fine, thanks for asking.” She limped down several more steps. “The woman is Phoebe. She’s their leader, Hadrian. Stop her.”

Farr’s eyes were on the bloody stairs. “Deirdre, you’re—”

The sound of booted feet against marble rang out. A trio of men in black uniforms rushed through a doorway into the room. They held guns in their hands.