The Borderkind

CHAPTER 20

T he cold mountain winds blew across the cradle formed by the meeting of those three high peaks. As the sand skittered across the grass and across the bones of Detective Halliwell, it began to snow.

Kitsune raised her hood and from its shadow peered out at the activity around her. The Sandman’s pagoda castle-so reminiscent of the styles of old Japan, from which her own legend hailed-remained standing. The doors had been torn away. She kept close to the castle, kept still, and simply watched.

Oliver and his sister celebrated their reunion. He fussed over her, making certain she was not badly injured. The captain of the soldiers had turned out to be Damia Beck, the new advisor to King Hunyadi. After attempting to murder Oliver and Kitsune, the Atlantean advisor to the king of Euphrasia had been removed and executed.

Captain Beck gave Collette Bascombe a change of clothes and her own cloak, so that after a few moments out of sight she had emerged clothed in a dark, heavy tunic and too-long trousers and a black cloak with the crest of Hunyadi upon it. When Collette returned, she thanked Captain Beck profusely, thanked all of Hunyadi’s soldiers who had ridden with Julianna and the late detective Halliwell to aid her.

Over the course of these long minutes-slices of eternity-Kitsune had been forced to witness a second reunion. With Collette seen to, Oliver had turned his attentions to Julianna, who though only human was far more beautiful than Kitsune had imagined. Her long auburn hair gleamed darkly in the celestial light. Tall and slender, she had a formidable air about her.

Kitsune could have killed her in seconds, torn out her throat and had Julianna’s blood dripping down her chin before any of them could react. She was only human, after all.

But, hidden within her fur cloak, she only watched as Oliver and Julianna held one another close and cooed apologies and promises. Her ears were keen, and she heard most of what they said to one another, heard Oliver’s regret and the passionate crack in his voice as he rasped his love to her.

At long last the Bascombes-the Legend-Born-and Julianna said their good-byes to Captain Beck and her soldiers and came back to the massive open doors of the sand castle, where the wind whistled in the vast dark hollow of the place.

“You said we can pass through the Sandman’s castle here and come out in any of his other castles, right?” Oliver asked.

His eyes were alight with new passion and hope and courage.

Kitsune bared her sharp little teeth. “That’s right.”

Oliver looked at his sister and his fiancee, and they nodded their consent before he turned to Kitsune again.

“Then we ought to be going to Yucatazca now, don’t you think? Whatever lies Frost may or may not have told, I still believe he is my friend, that he’s trying to do his best. And he kept his vow to me, to find Professor Koenig. It’s time for me to keep my vow. Captain Beck and her soldiers can’t come with us. The treaty between the Two Kingdoms forbids it. But whatever help we can be to the Borderkind, we’re going to stand with them.”

Kitsune stared at him, eyes narrowed. She smiled, and wondered if he even saw the edge to it. “And while you are in Palenque, if you and Collette can earn a pardon from the king, all the better.”

“True enough.”

But a look of dark and painful regret passed between Oliver and Julianna then. Collette, looking on, glanced away as though crestfallen.

Kitsune understood. Even if Oliver and Collette could earn the pardon they sought, and were able to travel back to their own world without fear of persecution from beyond the Veil, Julianna would have to remain behind. Unlike the Bascombes, she had not been carried here by a Borderkind. She had touched the Veil.

Julianna would be trapped here forever, one of the Lost Ones.

What would Oliver do now?

The irony was cruel.

Kitsune had the cunning heart of a fox and the mischievous soul of a trickster. Love had touched her for the first time in centuries and now it had curdled into bitterness. She had always hoped and believed that Oliver would come to love her, in time, but Julianna’s arrival had ruined any chance of that. Her heart felt dark and heavy now. She saw Julianna’s misery and Oliver’s pain, and she relished it.

“Let’s go, then,” the fox-woman said. “Frost and the others need our help.”

They all spared a final glance and a wave at Captain Beck and her soldiers, who had mounted their horses and gathered now by the castle doors to see them off. Then Kitsune led the way back into the howling shadows of the Sandcastle, into the darkness, shielding her eyes from the windblown grit, nursing her bitterness at the truth that she had learned.

For she understood now that Oliver could never have been hers, no matter what he may have allowed her to think.

He had hurt the woman in her, quite deeply.

But it was the fox in her that now wished very much to hurt him back.

For a moment, Blue Jay allowed himself to think that it was all going to go smoothly, that Ty’Lis was not prepared for their arrival. Lost Ones and Yucatazcan Borderkind surrounded the palace in the circle at the center of Palenque. In the flickering gas and electric lights they were a sea of curious and angry faces. When Frost gripped the sentry by the throat at the top of the stairs, they were all with him.

The other guards attempted to intervene, but Li snapped at them and sketched a line through the air. Where his hand passed, the air itself lit on fire, a streak of flame suspended above the ground. He held one hand at his side and fire spilled from his palm, forming itself into the shape of an enormous tiger. He staggered with the effort, no longer the legend he had once been. The blazing tiger-thing opened its maw and a gout of flame roared out.

The guards kept still.

Frost released the guard he’d throttled. The man reached up to touch the frozen flesh of his throat where the winter man had clutched him.

“Let them pass,” he rasped.

The three Mazikeen were arranged around Frost as though they were his honor guard and several of the sentries stared at them and whispered to one another. One in particular, an imposing soldier whose face was scarred from a lifetime’s survival in battles that had claimed others, watched the Mazikeen with cold eyes.

“You must be announced,” the scarred sentry said, and it was clear from his tone that he would not be so easily intimidated.

Cheval Bayard threw back her silver hair. “Then announce us.”

The grim, scarred man nodded, took one last long look at Frost and the Mazikeen, and then turned to hurry into the palace. The two massive doors had been built large enough for gods and giants to enter the palace, but given the rarity of such occasions-and that the king was a god in name only-there was a pair of smaller doors set into the larger. The scarred sentry disappeared through one of those and it slammed shut behind him.

Cheval seemed pleased with herself, but she had a reckless air about her, as though she no longer cared what fate held for them all. Perhaps, with Chorti dead, that was the truth.

Beside her, and several steps below Frost, Grin smiled. Soon, his expression seemed to say, they would have their answers. They weren’t alone now. Instead they were surrounded by others demanding the same answers, demanding justice.

Blue Jay remained several steps below the others, watching the crowd, watching the skies, watching the palace itself.

This did not feel right.

Only a fool would have allowed himself to think it would be this simple. He cursed his own momentary lapse.

“Frost,” Blue Jay said, moving up the steps past Cheval and Grin, pushing between two of the Mazikeen. The eyes of the sentries watched him carefully. “This isn’t going to be-”

The winter man looked at him with a weary, knowing gaze. Too easy.

People began to shout at the foot of the stairs. A woman screamed. Blue Jay spun. A sentry reached for him and with a single, solid kick he sent the man tumbling off of the stairs, turning end over end until he struck the cobblestoned street far below.

Soldiers flooded into the plaza around the palace, streaming out of buildings on the main thoroughfare and from every alley. Doors in the base of the palace banged open and hundreds of armed men erupted from the bowels of the massive structure.

“Bloody Hell!” Grin shouted.

The boggart grabbed hold of the nearest sentry, twisted, and hurled the man down the stairs, even as some of their allies raced up after them.

A light, damp snow whistled and eddied around those who had gathered at the top of the palace steps. The winter man ran at the huge doors, sliding through the air, driven by an arctic breeze. A guard grabbed at him and Frost chopped the edge of his hand down-honed to a razor blade-and sheared the man’s arm off at the biceps.

Screams and jets of blood gouted as the sentry staggered back. Cheval grabbed the nearest sentry and drew him to her, mouth tight over his. He struggled and kicked as she lifted him off the ground. When she dropped him, his head tilted to one side and water spilled from his gaping lips. She had drowned him with a kiss.

Two sentries came for Blue Jay. He chanted a few short, guttural syllables deep in his throat, moved his feet in time with a rhythm only he could hear, and as he did he spun, raising his arms. The night blurred with an indigo shimmer beneath his arms, and the magical wings he’d summoned knocked the two men back, cutting them both, nearly slicing the nearest of the two sentries in two.

With an earth-shuddering shriek of metal and wood, the god-doors swung inward, yawning wide, creating an entrance almost forty feet across.

Blue Jay spun and stared past Frost and the Mazikeen at the two towering figures that stood in the open doorway, backlit by torchlight in the palace’s entry chamber.

“Oh, shit,” he whispered.

The giants were the most hideous things he’d ever seen, their greenish-white flesh marking them instantly as Atlantean. Blue Jay had never heard of Atlantean giants, but that did not seem to matter now. Particularly as the giants were not alone. Dozens of Yucatazcan soldiers charged from the entry chamber onto the stairs, and there were dozens more behind them.

The three Mazikeen surged forward, moving so swiftly they passed Frost, and joined hands. The night blurred around them and a ripple of golden light speared forth, creating a wedge that drove through the midst of the guards, between the two giants, and thrust them all aside. The magic of the Mazikeen had opened an alley amongst their enemies.

Frost glanced back at Blue Jay.

The trickster waved him on. They both knew there was only one way to end all of this, and that was with the death of Ty’Lis or King Mahacuhta, if indeed the Atlantean sorcerer had acted on the king’s orders. In the midst of battle, it would be impossible for them all to reach the royal chambers.

But one…perhaps.

The winter man raced through the alley of shimmering golden light. Sentries tried to attack him, but the magic of the Mazikeen kept them back. In moments, Frost had disappeared within the palace’s vast entry chamber. The last glimpse Blue Jay had of the winter man was of him swirling into a storm of wind and sleet.

The heat had drained Frost. In his weakened state, Blue Jay wondered how far he would get.

The winter man was lost in the crush of soldiers coming out of the palace. Down in the plaza there were shouts and cries as the Lost Ones and the Borderkind of Palenque were attacked by the king’s guard. A single glance told Blue Jay that his worst fears were being realized. Far too many of those who had followed along in support were being driven out of the plaza, back into the maze of the city’s streets, back to their homes.

Even some of the southern Borderkind were fleeing.

Fools. We can win this, he thought. Whoever had sent the Myth Hunters had to be destroyed, but even without that final victory, they could still win. The king’s guard were human. The Atlantean giants were the only legendary creatures amongst their enemies. If all of the Borderkind would stand and fight-

“Filthy myth,” a voice said.

Blue Jay spun and saw a sword slicing the air toward his neck. He ducked the blade with the quickness and luck of a trickster, grabbed his attacker’s wrist, and twisted it, snapping the bone. The soldier screamed and Blue Jay hauled him close.

“Thanks for the warning, friend,” he said.

Then he blinked in surprise.

The sentry had greenish-white skin, like the giants. With his colorful leather armor and helmet he had been lost amongst the others-amongst the ordinary human soldiers-but this man was no Lost One. He was Atlantean.

Grimacing in pain, the Atlantean sentry jerked in Blue Jay’s grasp. A sliver of pain shot through the trickster’s abdomen and raced all through his right side. He glanced down and saw the Atlantean’s free hand, and the dagger with which the sentry had stabbed him.

Blue Jay snarled, reached around to grab the back of the Atlantean’s helmet, and rammed his forehead into the man’s face, crushing his nose and cracking his skull. The trickster’s long hair fell across his face. He thrust the dead soldier away, the dagger sliding out of his wound, still clutched in the Atlantean’s hand. Warm blood dripped down his hip. Blue Jay shook his hair-and the feathers tied in it-away from his face. One of the feathers was flecked with Atlantean blood.

He spun, hand over his wound, even as other sentries rushed at him.

The three Mazikeen had begun to hum loudly. Golden light pulsed around them. Once again they reached out to join hands. Arcs of light darted out from their aura, striking various guards dead on the spot. The dead men stiffened, a purple-black glow enveloped them for an instant, and then they fell over like abandoned marionettes.

Blue Jay began his dance, swinging his arms, blue light shearing the night around him.

One of the giants bellowed in fury, lifted his leg, and stomped on the nearest Mazikeen. The hum stopped, the golden aura flickered and died. For a moment, Blue Jay stared, sure that a Mazikeen could not be murdered so crudely, but all that came out from beneath the giant’s foot was a stream of dark blood that sluiced down over the white palace steps.

The other two Mazikeen were staggered, but quickly stood together and began to chant something. The darkness coalesced around them, blacker than night, and whatever magic they were up to now would be ugly. Of that, Blue Jay was sure.

Li would not wait.

Little more than fire and ash himself, the Guardian of Fire had crafted his massive tiger from flames, a blazing memorial to his fallen comrade. Now the fire-tiger sprang half a dozen steps in a single leap and landed in front of the murderous Atlantean giant.

Fire spilled from Li’s eyes. He opened his mouth in a roar like that of his tiger and flames gouted from his throat. The effort rocked him and he seemed to diminish further, his burning cinder body thinning. Before the giant could react, Li shot a stream of fire up at the monster. Its green-white Atlantean skin charred and blackened and the fire spread along its flesh hungrily. In moments, it was engulfed.

The giant beat at its burning flesh wildly, trying to put the flames out. It staggered backward, off the edge of the steps, and plummeted eighty feet to its death. The whole plaza shook with the impact.

The other giant paused and stared in shock as the Guardian of Fire turned on him and began a faltering advance, grinning, liquid fire spilling from his lips and dripping from his hands. Transformed as he was, Li looked more like a demon than a man.

The king’s guard-and he wondered how many Atlanteans were hidden amongst them-began to back up.

From the crush of soldiers that had come out of the palace, four new figures stepped forth. Each wore a robe of deep crimson, fringed with black, and had hideously thin features and a familiar greenish-white pallor.

The two surviving Mazikeen ran at them, a wave of black sorcery spilling forward, dark tendrils lashing at the newcomers. The four Atlantean sorcerers raised their hands and silver light sprang from their fingers, erecting magical shields that turned away the Mazikeen attack.

For all of his cunning, Blue Jay had been slow to see the truth in the midst of the chaos. Now he swore and twisted his body. One blurred wing deflected the blade of an attacker even as he leaped up and kicked the other in the head, sending the man tumbling down the stairs. Nearby, Leicester Grindylow and Cheval Bayard were fighting the king’s guard. Li faced the surviving giant.

Below in the plaza, at least half the crowd had already been dispersed. The bloody bodies of jaguar-men littered the bottom of the stairs where they had been slaughtered trying to come to the aid of their fellow Borderkind. Other Yucatazcan Borderkind were also dead or had fled. His instinct was to think them cowardly, but now he changed his mind.

“Cheval!” he shouted.

Blue Jay leaped into the air. He did not shift into the shape of a bird, but the spirit-wings beneath his arms let him glide down fifteen stairs to land at her side. He snapped the neck of the guard nearest her and she turned, eyes wild.

“It’s Atlantis,” he said. “Somehow, it’s Atlantis. Either the king’s in with them, or they’ve taken over, or something. We’re not prepared for this. It’s much bigger than we thought.”

Cheval’s silver hair framed a blood-spattered face. “But Frost-”

“He’s in. And he’s our only chance,” Blue Jay said. “If he kills Ty’Lis, maybe this is all over. If not, we need help. We need to get word to King Hunyadi.”

With a nod, she shouted to Grin. The boggart ran to her as she transformed, growing and stretching, bones popping, until she had taken her equine form again. Grin leaped onto Cheval’s back and she started down the steps. Before she reached the phalanx of soldiers coming up at her, a kind of rip appeared in the fabric of the Veil, and Cheval and Grin crossed the border, vanishing from the Two Kingdoms into the world of man.

Blue Jay leaped into the air, spreading his arms, and in a moment he was a bird again, a tiny jay speeding toward Li and the Mazikeen. Seconds later, all four of them did the same, leaving the king’s guard and their Atlantean allies behind, leaving the bloody battle on the steps of Mahacuhta’s palace, leaving Palenque…

Leaving the winter man to his fate.

The Sandman’s castle felt hollow, as empty and dead as an ancient ruin. The only sound was the whisper of the wind as it blew scattered grains of sand across floors and walls. Already, the sand had begun to drift and erode, obscuring edges and wearing at corners.

Collette recalled the feeling of the sand falling away at her touch, at the way she had sculpted it and carved a doorway with her hands. She had thought because of that she might feel a kinship with the place. If there was something of the mythic in her heritage, she must certainly have tapped into that.

But now, with only whispers there, she felt no connection to the Sandman’s castle except as her prison, and she wanted nothing more than to leave it as quickly as possible. Whatever had allowed her to carve the sand, to manipulate the substance of the place, seemed to be gone.

Kitsune had led them back into the Sandcastle and through that vast entry hall. Collette showed the way to the stairs she had used to escape from her prison and soon they were navigating the seemingly endless corridors and staircases of the castle, whose interior seemed far vaster than its exterior would allow. They took care to keep to the outer walls, never entering a corridor or room that did not have windows.

“I hate to just leave him here. It doesn’t seem right,” Julianna said. Despite her obvious elation at reuniting with Oliver, the shock and grief of witnessing Halliwell’s death was eating at her.

“We have no choice,” Collette told her, each time she brought it up. “If it’s at all possible, I swear to you we’ll come back. We’ll bury him.”

Such reassurances did not erase the haunted cast of her eyes.

When they had reached the highest point of the castle, they found the tower where Collette had been a captive. She shuddered and hesitated to go any nearer, remaining upon the top step.

Julianna gasped at the sight of the panorama visible from that pinnacle. Her reaction came not only from its beauty, but from the abrupt shift of the view. The landscape was no longer the trio of snow-capped mountains, but instead the ocean on one side and the steaming jungle of Yucatazca on the other.

Oliver came to Collette and held her hand and reluctantly she went with him. Stepping carefully, they moved around the edges of the pit that had been her prison, only darkness visible through the arched windows that looked down into that hole. The Sandman might be dead, but still she did not feel safe here. Her pulse raced and she bit her lip. There were several stairwells leading down from this tower, but they chose the one directly opposite that which they had ascended.

“I don’t care if this gets us where we’re going,” Collette whispered to her brother as they went down again. “I’m not coming back here.”

Oliver hugged her gently and kissed her head. Flanking her, Julianna reached down and took her hand. Oliver fell back to make sure they weren’t followed, and up ahead, the fox-woman led the way, her harshly beautiful features hidden in the hood of her cloak. At times she turned corners and they lost sight of her for a few seconds, and each time, Collette found herself both anxious at being left alone and relieved to be away from Kitsune.

Their descent proved as uneventful as their climb upward had been, save that through every window now their view was of Yucatazcan jungle or the crashing surf. The air had the salty tang of the ocean, and even in the night they heard the distant cry of sea birds as they passed the windows. There had been no physical awareness of this shift between one kingdom and the other, but at first every time Collette glanced out a window the sense of dislocation rocked her. The Sandman’s castle was an extraordinarily powerful bit of magic and she wondered what would happen to it, now that he had been destroyed. Would it collapse or erode, or would it stand open from that moment onward as a portal that travelers might use to move from one place to another?

A mystery for another time.

When at last Kitsune led them back into the vast entry hall, it seemed entirely unchanged, except of course for the view from the windows and the salty tang of the air. Collette remembered all too well the hideous appearance of the sand-creatures that had been summoned by the Sandman and crafted to be her doppelgangers. No trace of such things remained except for the shifting sands of the floor of that great hall.

The doors hung open. The chill of the mountains of eastern Euphrasia was gone, replaced by a thick, humid heat that was uncomfortable at night but would undoubtedly be unbearable come morning.

“Kit, how far from here to Palenque?” Oliver asked.

The fox-woman flinched at the sound of his voice, or perhaps at the familiarity of his tone. Collette watched her as she paused and turned to face them, and something in the Borderkind’s bearing troubled her. When Kitsune and Oliver had come to rescue her, Collette had sensed only warmth and courage and nobility in the fox-woman. She did not understand what had changed.

“I am not certain,” Kitsune replied, as Oliver, Collette, and Julianna caught up to her, the four of them standing in the midst of that vast hall, whose ceiling was lost in the darkness. “Palenque is a full day’s ride on horseback from the ocean, but there is no way to know where along the coast we will emerge.”

Julianna slipped her hand into Oliver’s. “It’s a shame we couldn’t have brought horses through.”

Kitsune turned away, jade eyes hidden beneath her hood, but before she did Collette saw the venom in her gaze, a hatred directed at Julianna. Only then did she finally understand that the fox-woman had fallen in love with her brother.

This is trouble, she thought.

But then Oliver was talking and Kitsune had started for the door again, back to the rest of them, and Collette became more concerned with their survival and their journey than with inconvenient matters of the heart.

“I know we could probably all use some rest, but-”

Collette shot him a hard look. “I’m not camping here, Ollie.”

He nodded. “I know, Coll. I wasn’t going to suggest it. But we’re all exhausted, and if we’ve got a long journey ahead of us, we should try to get some rest.”

Julianna did look tired, dark circles forming under her eyes, but she stretched and smiled and her eyes were alert. “I could certainly use some sleep. But I’m all for waiting until we’ve put a lot of distance between us and this place.”

A ripple of sadness passed across her face and she glanced at the ground. They all knew she was thinking about Halliwell.

Oliver put his arm around her. “There was nothing you could do, Jules. Nothing anybody could do. He was past listening to anyone-”

“He went a little crazy,” Collette said quietly, looking around them at the various doors, remembering the one where she had been trapped with the Sandman with the cries of his victims so close by. “But it’s hard not to lose your mind a little in this place.”

Julianna shook her head. “He wasn’t crazy. He was just…done. There was so much anger in him, just horror, and frustration over never getting the answers he wanted, and sorrow over things he’d never been able to say or do with people he loved back home. When we found out we were trapped here, he just…”

She gazed at Oliver, sad and lost. “He thought you could help him find a way to get home.”

Kitsune had reached the doors and she stood silhouetted in the moonlight that streamed in from the humid night. She turned toward them, little more than a shape with those gleaming green eyes peering at them.

“You’ve crossed through the Veil. There is no way home for you.”

Cold. Harsh. But as callous as Kitsune’s words seemed, no one argued, for they were true. Oliver hugged Julianna close.

Collette shook her head in disgust at the fox-woman’s cruelty and turned away. She glanced around again at the many doors in the chamber, studying them in the moonlight. A frown creased her brow. One door in particular drew her attention and she wandered toward it, even though she knew that they had to leave this place.

When she reached the door, she stared a moment. A symbol had been etched upon it, a shield emblazoned with the figure of a winged serpent wrapped around a sword, and spreading out from either side of the shield, the wings of a bat. The shield had been dyed red and white, the serpent green, its eyes gold, and the sword a glittering silver.

“Collette?” Julianna called.

“Wait,” she said, almost to herself. Then she blinked and cleared her throat. “Oliver. Come over here.”

In moments, all three of the others had joined Collette at the door.

“What is it?” she asked.

Kitsune stepped forward and traced her fingers over the symbol. She turned and studied Oliver’s face. “It is the royal emblem of King Mahacuhta of Yucatazca.”

Oliver shook his head. “Come on. You’ve got to be kidding me.”

The fox-woman spared not a glance for Collette or Julianna. Her entire focus was on Oliver. “This is a place of doors. The magic of the Sandman brought him almost anyplace he wished, and not merely the bedrooms of small children in the ordinary world. That was his power. If he wanted a door to Palenque-”

“Are you serious?” Collette said. “Isn’t this just a little convenient? Like, freakishly convenient?”

But Kitsune was not listening. She slipped her hood back and tilted her head, sniffing the air. Her eyes narrowed and she glanced down, then dropped into a crouch. Her fingers reached out into the shadows just to the right of the door and she plucked something from the ground. Only when she stood and held it up in the moonlight did Collette see what it was.

A green feather.

She shivered with the memory of the Hunters she had seen crouched around the rim of her prison, those scarecrow-thin creatures with their long, black talons, their heavy antlers, and wide, green-feathered wings.

“Perytons,” Kitsune said.

“What are they?” Julianna asked.

“Atlantean Hunters,” Oliver replied. He glanced at Kitsune. “The Falconer said the Hunters had been sent by Ty’Lis.”

“Pretend that some of us don’t know who the hell that is,” Collette told him.

Oliver ran a hand through his hair, eyes wandering as he sorted out his thoughts. “Atlantean sorcerer. Main advisor to King Mahacuhta. If he sent the Hunters, including the Perytons, then he was also the one who set the Sandman free, sent the fucker after us.”

Collette stiffened. “The one who gave the order to murder Dad.”

“Yeah.”

“So it would make sense if the Sandman made a door that would take him right to his new master,” Julianna said. She stared expectantly at Kitsune, and a glint in her eye suggested to Collette that the fox-woman’s jealousy had not gone unnoticed.

“Yes,” Kitsune confirmed. “It does make sense.”

“But we have no idea what’s on the other side of this door,” Oliver warned her.

“Then it’s a good thing you have that sword.”

Julianna turned, taking her hands from her pockets, and reached for the door. Collette tensed, awaiting some horror. Kitsune snapped that she should wait. But Julianna did not even pause. She swung the door wide.

On the other side was a well-lit, empty corridor of limestone and wood. Shouts and the sound of people running echoed along the walls. Julianna started forward but Kitsune grabbed her arm. The two women stared at one another icily, and then Oliver slipped between them and stepped into the corridor on the other side of the door.

He glanced both ways, then beckoned for them all to follow.