“I’ll be back soon.” He let go of me and went for the door.

He didn’t hear me. How could he not have heard me?

He stepped through the door.

Wait. Don’t go.

It closed behind him.

Wait.

Wait for me.

* * *

I sat on the porch, watching late afternoon slowly bleed into the evening. Maud had put my favorite robe on me, the blue one that our mother made. I looked like an innkeeper even if I didn’t feel like one. My sister had decided I should have the front row seat, so I would “snap out of it.” Beast lay on my lap. At first, when Sean had brought me in, she hid as if she didn’t recognize me and it scared her. Then, little by little, Sean coaxed her into my bed on the third night. Now she sat with me, sad and occasionally trembling.

Caldenia sat in a chair on my left. My sister stood on my right, holding my broom in one hand, and her sword in the other. In front of us the backyard stretched with the clearing behind it. Helen sat by my feet, holding her knives. The Hiru waited in the kitchen, out of sight.

Sean would come back. He promised to come back.

The corruption waited above me. It had flowed through the inn, filling the spaces between the branches. Gertrude Hunt had tried to stop it, but it escaped the inn’s grasp. Everyone forgot about it, but it was there, biding its time. It wanted something.

Maud, feel it. You will feel it if you just reach out.

Helen hugged herself by my feet and looked up, at the inn.

Maud!

“It’s about time,” Maud said.

“Are you up to this, my dear?” Caldenia inquired.

“I’ll have to be. What about you? Is all that plotting and talking you’ve been doing ever going to pay off?”

“All in good time.” Her Grace smiled, showing sharp teeth.

Maud looked at me. “Dina, please help me.”

I was trying. I was honestly trying.

A rift opened in the middle of the lawn. The werewolves from Wilmos’ shop walked out of it dragging a big metal box. They waved at us, planted the box on the ground, and the brown-skinned werewolf armed it through the panel on the side. The box unfolded like a flower, sending out a complex antenna-like structure made of shiny small cubes and triangles, each rotating in different directions.

“What is that?” Caldenia asked.

“That’s the projectile dampener,” Maud said. “It disrupts the path of kinetic projectiles and negates energy and heat weapon targeting. Very short range and outrageously expensive. We’re renting it for the next two hours. It cost us an arm and a leg. If… when Dina wakes up, she’ll kill me. I wiped out her budget. But if the Draziri want a piece of us, they’ll have to fight for it in my sword’s range.”

She bared her teeth.

“Were do you want us?” the female mercenary asked.

“Here is fine.”

They took up positions around the porch.

“Damn the Assembly,” Maud muttered. “We could’ve used help.”

“For all the reverence Dina shows for the ad-hal, I have yet to see a demonstration of their power,” Caldenia said.

“Trust me, you don’t want to witness that, Your Grace.”

I struggled to rise. My sister was preparing to repel an assault on my inn and all I could do was watch and scream into the silence wrapped around me. I had to move. Even if I could just twitch a finger.

A pale light ignited in the middle of the field, elongating into a glowing filament, like the wire of a lit lightbulb. The fabric of space ripped and Sean’s parents burst through the gap, two massive werewolves dripping blood, one dark, the other lighter. The darker one carried an Archivarian slung across his back.

They ran across the lawn. The rapid staccato of high tech rifles chased them. None of the projectiles landed.

Move. Stand up. Do something! I had to do something. I dug my fingers into the darkness and strained to rip it.

Sean’s father shook the Archivarian off at Maud’s feet. My sister focused. Gertrude Hunt responded sluggishly, swallowing the Archivarian.

The two Hiru walked out onto the porch, slow, ponderous, and stopped next to me.

“What are you doing here?” Maud said. “We agreed you would stay safe in your room.”

“We’re the reason for this fight,” Sunset said.

“Let them see us,” Moonlight said. “We are not afraid.”

“We will give them a target, so the Archivarians can be retrieved,” Sunset said.

Maud sighed and called out, “We’re about to get rushed.”

The werewolves pulled out their knives.

One moment the woods were empty. The next, Draziri leapt from the branches in unison, like a flock of predatory birds taking flight. So many… They landed and sprinted across the open ground on their elegant legs, like weightless dancers, Mrak in the lead brandishing a wicked silver blade.

I tore at the darkness. It held.

Caldenia studied her nails.

A tall Draziri, his hair the same white as Mrak’s, buried his knife in Mrak’s back. Mrak cried out. The other Draziri pulled the knife free and flipped it in his fingers, falling into a fighting stance. Mrak spun around. “You dare!”

“You are unfit to lead!” the other Draziri snarled. “You’re weak. You failed again and again. We’re bankrupt, hunted, and dying, all because of you! It’s time for a new power to head this flock.”

They clashed, their blades meeting together with a sharp clang. The invading Draziri broke, splitting. Two-thirds tore into each other. The rest kept running toward us.