Yes, yes—I’ve dreamed those things before. Move on!

Take me out into the Chaos—send me to the False City—abandon me—get it over with!

The women gathered around the stove. None could sleep. “How long do we have?” Agazutta asked Bidewell. She had recovered her dignity, but there were dark circles under her eyes, and her red hair was in complete disarray.

Bidewell handed them all cups of chamomile tea.

Miriam came last into the darkened, stove-lit room, having checked on Jack and Ginny, and—she murmured to Ellen—having made sure that Daniel and Glaucous were in their closet. Bidewell held his answer until all the women had gathered. Most sat on the old wooden chairs—Agazutta remained standing. Farrah lay back on the overstuffed chair, languid as always, but her eyes flicked at every noise, and her hands clutched the padded chair arms.

“Not long,” Bidewell said. “I haven’t told the children. From this point, things will decay rapidly. I have deeply valued your company.”

“But not our judgment,” Farrah said with a sniff. “Letting those bastards in. Why?”

Bidewell stared up at the high rafters and shook his head. “The stones choose.”

“How do you know Glaucous?” Agazutta asked.

Bidewell made a disgusted grimace. “Him I could have predicted.”

“If he’s a hunter, why let him in?”

“No answer I give will ever suffice…but the sum-runners pick their companions.”

“More like createthem, right?” Ellen asked, her hands making small lost movements to her cheek, her chin. They all jumped at another sharp crack and grind from outside the walls.

“Not to be known,” Agazutta said wearily.

Bidewell looked down and there were tears on his cracked, rugged cheeks, which shocked them all. “I know this much. The shepherds as confirmed by Mnemosyne are by text, out of text—text is central. The sum-runners have mazed their courses throughout all the world-lines, traveling all possible avenues, even the most unlikely, and now they have arrived, summed—come to our attention…and out of themselves, vaster than anything we can imagine, they have made guardians. Even Daniel, though that is not certain.”

“A false one, perhaps,” Miriam said.

“We do not know that,” Bidewell said. “Though his proximity to Glaucous—worrying, certainly. For centuries, there have been rumors of a bad shepherd…But I have never met him, or her.”

“What’s a bad shepherd?” Agazutta asked, combing her fingers through her hair.

“A traveler working his way forward, through other shepherds. Using them. Bringing more than just a stone—bringing something else, for his own motives.”

“Sounds charming,” Farrah said.

Bidewell held his hands over the iron stove, then examined his fingers. “As always, I apologize for my ignorance, ladies,” he murmured. “But as you say, our time is limited. I sense restlessness. I can assure you the opportunities outside are very limited.”

“They’ve made up their minds,” Ellen said.

“Who is going?”

Agazutta raised her hand. “Children, grown and moved out—France, Japan, far away, but maybe they’ve left messages for me at home. Maybe there’s still a way to speak to them. I have to try.”

Miriam raised hers. “I need to get back to the clinic—if it’s still there. My patients must be scared out of their wits. My staff…They’ve been with me for years.”

Farrah stood and stretched. “I’m alone,” she said. “But I’ll go with Agazutta and Miriam, just to watch out for them.”

“I’ll stay,” Ellen said. “Whether I’m needed here or not—no one out there needs me.”

“Not even us?” Agazutta said. “Is this the end of the Witches of Eastlake?”

“It’s been good,” Ellen said. “You are all the best friends, the finest adventurers one could hope for.”

“Well, it ain’t over…”

“Until I sing,” Farrah said.

The women exchanged hugs. More tears were shed. Then they took up their bags and purses, and Bidewell escorted them to the northern door.

“You have your books?” he asked. “Do not lose them. Keep them close at all times.”

They gave him wry looks. “Slender tomes,” Agazutta said.

“What does 1298 mean?” Farrah asked.

“They are your stories, dear ladies,” Bidewell said, “penned long ago in Latin, by your obedient servant, copying from even older texts—scrolls that were burned at Herculaneum. So long as you keep your stories near, you will be afforded some protection. I do not suggest reading ahead or skipping to the end—not yet.”

“Will we get out of this alive?” Farrah asked.

Bidewell lightly snorted, but gave no answer.

Miriam opened the door to the outside. The air over the city had cleared a little. “Oh, look,” she said with a sigh. “It isn’t raining.”

“What will happen to the rest of you?” Agazutta asked, taking Bidewell by the elbow as they walked down the ramp side by side.

“ Thatis well known,” Bidewell said. “I am marked. I have been in the fray too long to go unnoticed, and so…I fear all our fates hinge on the outcome, and before that arrives, we must enter a kind of storage, along with this city—all cities, all histories, all times. The world out here is not the only record, and not the final version in the edit.”

Agazutta shook her head in wistful irritation. “I’ve never understood you, or why we did all this.”

“I’m a seductive fellow,” Bidewell said.

“That you are,” Miriam said, and kissed his cheek.

The gate was opened, and three of the Witches of Eastlake departed into the grayness, holding bags or purses, and their books, before them. They left their youngest, Ellen, standing beside the ancient man with wet cheeks, who looked even older now.

“We should go back in,” Ellen said, peering after the figures. They were limned by barely visible halos, and the flickering of the sky—the leaning and grinding of the walls—slowed as they departed.

“It will not long matter where any of us stands,” Bidewell said.

Ellen grasped his face and looked straight into his eyes. “You didn’t tell them. You think things have gone wrong.”

“In the short run, now equal to any long run, we are all together. There are only two fates, two paths remaining. We shall all be moved along one path or the other—to be reconciled and ordered in our conclusions by Mnemosyne, or played with by the Chalk Princess as she sees fit. And it is our visiting children who will steer us, ultimately.”

He pulled himself straight and waved his hands at the curtain of gloom where the women had passed. “I wish them well,” he said. “It is cold out here.” He closed the door but did not shoot the bolt home. “We have been dealt all our cards.”

CHAPTER 76

The Chaos

The branches swung aside as this Pahtun—he had no other name—led them deeper into the trees. Tiadba knew they would never be able to find their way out. The branches had parted reluctantly, and then tried to enclose them, perhaps as defense. And the armor no longer responded to her commands to close up and form a seal. Obviously, the Tall One was in charge, and seemed to know what he was doing.

Macht wore a steady scowl, and Denbord had frozen his face in a look of insolence, though he said nothing. They had already been through too much.

“Did you try out your claves?” Pahtun asked. “How effective were they?” The Tall One spun about, arms extended, and the tips of the branches overhead brightened almost into wakelight.

“We tried them,” Denbord said. “They were hard to manage. But some of the old marchers fell back—the dead ones, I mean, whatever they were. They fell apart.”

“Echoes, no doubt. They’re thick around here.”

“Were they dead?” Tiadba asked.

“Perhaps not dead, but most unfortunate. They might have been versions of youwho made wrong choices and got trapped, their fates snared and looped by the Typhon. The Typhon uses whatever it captures or finds. Not a pleasant end. No end at all, from what I’ve seen over the past few tens of thousands of wakes. I work out here, save what I learn, and pass it along to such as get this far.”