“Paul’s mom died when he was ten,” Bryce began, then his face hardened. “His dad, a cop, beat the shit out of him about a year and a half ago. Almost killed him.” Cold anger rose in his eyes. “No siblings. Any other family is distant with no contact or interest. He was on his own in a little basement apartment when we took him.”

“Damn,” I breathed. “Paul told me his dad beat him up, but that’s all.” I scowled. “Why? Paul seems like such a quiet guy.”

He glanced back over his shoulder toward the hallway, spoke quietly. “His dad found out Paul was gay. Lost it. I mean, totally fucking nuts lost it. Whaled on him for a while, left him for an hour or two then went back for more.”

My right hand tightened into a fist. “Where’s his dad now?”

“He got killed,” Bryce said after the barest of hesitations. “I drove Paul to the funeral about eight months ago.”

I heard the edge to his tone. “Got killed how?” I asked, attention fully on him.

Bryce rubbed his eyes, sighed. “A hit. Farouche ordered it. Set up to look like an arrestee recently released from prison did it.”

“You do it?”

“No.” He jerked his eyes to mine, denial firm within them. “No,” he repeated. “Jerry Steiner made that hit. Same guy who took Idris’s sister to get murdered. Paul doesn’t know, and I intend to keep it that way.”

“Yeah.” I gave a slow nod. “I can understand that.” Hard to believe I almost sort of barely agreed in a mildly sociopathic way with Farouche on this particular issue. “He won’t hear it from me.”

“I’ll be honest,” Bryce said. “I’d have pulled the trigger on the motherfucker and not lost sleep.” He let out a low snort. “That’s one of the reasons the hit wasn’t assigned to me. It would’ve been personal, and Farouche doesn’t operate like that.” He picked up the legal pad that had his security camera system proposal on it. “In retrospect, I’m glad I wasn’t the trigger man.”

“Keeps it a lot cleaner between you two.” I gave him a sympathetic wince. “As clean as it can be given the situation.”

The buzz of the gate alarm preceded the telltale crunch of gravel beneath tires. I shoved up from the sofa and tweaked the curtain aside to peer out. Zack’s Impala.

“I need to talk to Zack for a few,” I told Bryce and received a nod of acknowledgment. I headed out front and waited at the bottom of the steps as Zack parked.

He climbed out of the vehicle, keys and laptop case in hand, and quirked a smile at me. “Welcoming committee?”

“Yeah, it’s a new Kara’s Kompound perk,” I said. “Oh, and everyone gets a pony too.”

“I like it,” he replied with a chuckle. “Except for the part about who has to clean up after the ponies.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Okay, maybe no ponies. Anyway, you got a sec? I need to talk to you.”

“I have a ton of case files to go through tonight, but I always have time for you,” he said with a broad smile. “What’s up?”

“The super ultra mega big news is that we know Farouche is holding Angela Palatino—Idris’s mom—at his plantation.” Excitement flickered, but I did my best to hold it in check.

He let out a low whistle. “That’s definitely super ultra mega,” he agreed.

“Right. If we can get her to safety, it takes away much of the Mraztur’s hold over Idris.” I put a hand on his arm. “I was hoping you could give us some special help.”

Zack went still, tilted his head. “What sort of special help?”

“Special help as in going and getting her out.” I gave him a hopeful smile. “Demahnk help.”

In an instant his face slipped from open and relaxed to grim and haunted. “Kara, I can’t.”

My smile melted, and I slumped. Even though I’d known his cooperation wasn’t a sure thing, the pang of disappointment remained sharp. “I don’t understand.”

He shook his head. “I know you don’t. I’m sorry.”

“Can you at least try to explain it to me?” I asked, baffled.

He looked away and remained silent.

My confusion increased. He’d helped us in so many ways before. Even though Zack had initially balked at bringing Mzatal to the warehouse, in the end he had done so. Why was this so different? “Zack, all you have to do is go get her and bring her back,” I said. “What am I missing?”

“I can’t,” he repeated and met my eyes again. “It’s complicated.”

I gripped my head, certain it might explode from frustration. “Would you please stop doing that?” I snapped, far more harshly than I’d intended. Releasing my head, I smoothed down my hair, tried again. “Please stop evading me. Please stop giving give me lame shit like ‘It’s complicated.’ I’m not a child, so could you grant me some basic courtesy and at least help me try to understand?”

I expected him to look defensive or chagrined, but instead his entire posture slumped into apparent weary sadness. “Even that crosses the line.”

Time to regroup my thoughts. “All right, then let’s take a step back,” I proposed. “Tell me what the line is.”

He regarded me for a second, then swept past me to his car. At first I thought he was walking away from the discussion, but instead he yanked the driver door open and dumped his laptop case onto the seat. He closed the door with a little more force than necessary, though his demeanor made me think it was more general frustration than anger at me. He jerked his head toward the back of the house, then briskly strode off.

I followed, though at a more ordinary pace. No way could I match that long-legged stride without running. As I rounded the corner of the house, I saw him heading toward the pond trail. Mzatal sat motionless on the mini-nexus as I passed, and I sensed him deeply involved in the flows. Sparrows twittered their business in the trees as though all was right with the world, and a crow announced its presence with a raucous triple caw. When I reached the pond a ripple of potency touched me, like a breeze through an open window. On the far side of the water, Zack crouched beside the valve and worked his hands over it in unfamiliar patterns. I felt shifts in the potency, but othersight revealed nothing more than transparent shimmers in the air above the coruscating blues and greens that marked the valve itself.

Puzzled, I slowly made my way around the pond. “What are you doing?” I asked quietly.

“Pulling some potency before I collapse,” he told me with a low sigh that I realized was born of exhaustion. After a moment he looked up. “I created this branch valve. It’s one of thirty-three off the valve trunk in the north of Rhyzkahl’s realm.” A sad, nostalgic smile touched his mouth. “The first full system in place after the cataclysm.”

Zack had to have been in a near-constant state of damage control since that catastrophic event centuries ago, I realized. And now he had the care of Szerain on top of that? No wonder fatigue seemed to permeate his every cell—far beyond any sort of normal tiredness.

He continued to work his hands over the valve. I sat cross-legged beside him, reminded of an orchestra conductor as I watched him move. After a time he brought his hands together, and the rippling potency breeze died away, as though he had closed the window.

He sighed softly, lifted his eyes to mine. “You asked what the line is,” he said. “It’s those ancient agreements, oaths, and decrees that frustrate the hell out of you.”

Decrees. That implied an enforcer. I filed that away. “That’s an understatement,” I said with a wry smile. “I’d like to move beyond that.”

He shifted from the crouch to a sit with one knee up. “You’re right.” He rested his forearm on his knee as he regarded me. “You’re not a child. Not anymore. You’ve grown so much, through betrayal as well as love.”

“I’m not the same person I was a year ago, that’s for sure.” My throat tightened. “Sometimes I’m not sure who I am anymore.” I shook my head, scowled. “And not because of Rhyzkahl’s stupid rakkuhr virus either.”