"We think that thing"—Mac gestured at the rune Pritkin still held in his fist—"is a do-over.”

"A what?”

"It carries the caster back in time about twenty minutes. So if you get in a tight spot, you cast it and have a chance to redeem a mistake.”

I sent Pritkin a less-than-friendly glance. "Something that might have been very useful where we're going.”

"I'm sure it will be," he commented, tucking it out of sight inside his coat.

I would have reminded him that the rune was mine, except that he would almost certainly have replied that I'd just stolen it first. I glanced at Billy and nodded slightly toward the mage. He floated over while I started an argument to distract Pritkin. "Well, it's useless now, at least for a month.”

"We could not risk employing it without first learning what it does," Pritkin insisted, his eyebrows drawing together in their usual expression. "If it has not been used in as long as we think, it should be possible to cast it again soon.”

"But you don't know that," I pointed out angrily. "You can leave rechargeable batteries plugged in as long as you want, but they only hold one charge. Maybe the rune works the same way.”

"Permit me to think that I know a little more about magical artifacts than you," Pritkin replied with disdain as Billy slipped an insubstantial-looking hand into his pocket. A few seconds later, my rune floated out as if levitated. It made its way to me and I surreptitiously pocketed it. "I am reasonably certain it will work," the mage added. "Now, if you have finished having hysterics, we should be going.”

I said nothing but retrieved the backpack from Mac and took out my gun. It was fully loaded, but I checked it anyway. Pritkin's lips thinned out even more as he watched; pretty soon he wasn't going to have any at all. He obviously didn't like the idea of my carrying a weapon—maybe he was afraid I'd shoot him in the back—but he refrained from comment.

He struck out across the desert and I followed. Mac and Billy Joe trailed after us as soon as the mage again absorbed his mobile business. Not a word was said for half an hour, until the dim outline of MAGIC spread below us.

The complex is designed to look like a working ranch, just in case any norms with a little talent wander by and manage to see through the perimeter wards. But it's centered in a canyon with high sides, far away from any tourist facilities, so that isn't likely. Not to mention that there are all kinds of metaphysical keep off signs everywhere, starting about a mile out, that make norms very uncomfortable.

The starlight had turned the landscape into something like the moon's surface—all mysterious dark craters and endless silver sand. MAGIC itself was dark and quiet, with all the external lights off and no movement among the buildings. It looked like whatever was happening tonight was taking place underground.

I collapsed onto a relatively rock-free piece of sand while Mac and Pritkin debated approaches. The hike had been a bitch. I'd stumbled through the growing darkness, stubbing my toe about every fourth step and falling on my face twice. The coat kept getting tangled around my legs and made me feel like I was carrying another person on my back. I'd been too busy lately for regular gym visits and it showed. Running for my life was obviously not giving me enough exercise.

"Is he in there?" Billy asked, hovering a few feet off the sand.

I hugged the coat around me, grateful for its thickness now that the desert had started to cool off. "I don't know.”

"Want me to check it out?”

"No." If Mircea was there, I didn't want to know. With luck, we'd escape into Faerie before he figured out that I'd been crazy enough to drop by.

"Is your ghost here?" Pritkin interrupted to ask. He surprised me by being cautious for once—maybe the idea of breaking into MAGIC scared even him. He had Mac describe his guard friends to Billy, who agreed to go see whether anyone had changed the duty roster unexpectedly. He streamed off across the sand, quickly becoming invisible against the night. In the meantime, we waited.

Once upon a time, when I was a child reading fairy tales, I'd ached to have my own adventures. Not that I'd wanted to be some drippy heroine languishing in a tower, awaiting rescue. No, I'd wanted to be the knight, charging into battle against overwhelming odds, or the plucky country lass who gets taken on as the apprentice to a great wizard. As I got older, I'd found out the hard way that adventures are rarely anything like the books say. Half the time you're scared out of your mind, and the rest you're bored and your feet hurt. I was beginning to believe that maybe I wasn't the adventurous type.

Billy returned after half an hour with news. The guards fit the descriptions Mac had given him and, lucky for us, there was a major uproar in the vamp area. "It's like a circus, Cass—everybody's there. The rest of the place is practically deserted!”

"Well?" Pritkin was looking impatient. "What does he say?”

"It's okay—the right guys are on duty." Billy, I noticed, was looking way too pleased about something. Maybe it was just relief that our job might be easier than we'd thought, but I doubted it. I knew his expressions almost as well as I knew my own, and he was practically ecstatic. "Okay, out with it.”

Billy grinned and twirled his hat around an index finger. For some reason the finger was less substantial at the moment than the hat, so it looked like his headgear was doing a giddy little jig all on its own. "It's too perfect," he crowed, his grin threatening to split his face. "Talk about a good omen!”

"What are you talking about?”

"Is something wrong?" Pritkin demanded. Billy and I both ignored him.

"I know your birthday doesn't start for a couple more hours, Cass, but you're getting your present early.”

"Billy! Just tell me already.”

He laughed delightedly, to the point that it barely missed being a cackle. "It's that bastard Tomas. He was captured early yesterday morning. I think they're trying to decide what would be the most painful way to execute him. That's why everyone's crowded into the vamp section—they want to see the show." Billy threw his hat up into the air jubilantly. "I wouldn't mind taking a peek myself, if we had time.”

The only thing that saved me from falling was that I was already sitting down. Tomas was about to be executed and might already be under torture? I sat blinking at Billy as my brain tried to comprehend it, and whatever showed on my face he didn't like. His grin faded and he started shaking his head violently.

"No. No way are you doing this! He deserves this, Cass, you know he does. He betrayed you—hell, he almost got you killed! For once, fate is taking a problem off our hands gratis. Let's smile, say thank you and stay the hell out of it!”

My face felt numb. I wondered vaguely whether that was due to the night breeze or to horror. I was betting on horror. "I can't.”

"Yes, you can." Billy flickered like a candle flame in his agitation. "It's easy. We walk into MAGIC's nice, quiet halls, make our way to the portal and pass through. That's it, that's all. No biggie.”

"Yes biggie." I stood up, wobbling a little, and Pritkin caught my arm. As usual he wasn't gentle, but this time that was a plus. I barely kept my balance even with his iron grip. "Very much biggie.”

"What are you talking about? What's going on?" Pritkin was talking, but I barely heard him. All I could hear was Tomas' voice raised in agony, all I could see was him tied down like an animal, waiting for Jack.

If I closed my eyes, I could see a different scene. It was Tomas in the kitchen of our Atlanta apartment, frowning in puzzlement at the stove. It hadn't cooked the brownies he'd intended as breakfast for me, possibly because he hadn't known to turn the thing on. He'd been wearing one of my aprons, the one that said does not cook well with others, over the smiley face pajama bottoms I'd bought to keep him from sleeping in the altogether. We'd had separate bedrooms, but just the thought of Tomas down the hall wearing only his skin had been keeping me up nights. I'd explained how the range operated and we'd eaten the whole pan of brownies before I went off to work, resulting in a sugar buzz that lasted most of the day.

That was the first time I'd let myself begin to hope that he might become a permanent fixture in my life. He'd already been my best friend for six of the happiest months I'd ever known. Against all odds, I'd actually started to create a more or less normal existence. I'd liked my sunny apartment, my wonderfully predictable job at a travel agency and my gorgeous roommate. Tomas had been a dream come true—handsome, considerate, strong, yet vulnerable enough to make me want to take care of him.

I should have remembered the old phrase about something that looks too good to be true, but I'd been too busy enjoying the gift fate had dropped in my lap. What followed had proven that the gift had been more of a curse, and the normal life only a mirage. All those rosy dreams had come crashing down around my head, leaving scars that hadn't even scabbed over, much less healed. I realized with a jolt that the brownie incident had been only a few weeks ago. That seemed impossible; it had to have been at least a decade.

Pritkin was shaking me, but I barely noticed. I opened my eyes, but it was Jack's pale face and crazed expression I saw. The Consul's favorite torturer loved his work, and he was very, very good at it. He'd probably had plenty of firsthand instruction from Augusta. I'd seen him in action on one very memorable occasion, and no way could I leave Tomas in his hands. No matter what he'd done; no matter how furious I was with him. There was no freaking way.

It looked like I got to be the knight on the white horse after all. Only never in my wildest dreams had I planned on the odds being quite this bad. There was such a thing as a heroic challenge and then there was suicide, and I had no doubt into which category this fit. If Tomas' death was being made into a public show, most of MAGIC would be there: vamps, mages, weres, maybe even a few Fey. And somehow we not only had to get past them and snatch him from under the Consul's nose; we also had to battle our way to the portal afterward. It was worse than a nightmare. It was insane.