Devorah found a small, quiet storeroom that was out of the way and hadn’t seen much use in recent years if the dust was anything to judge by. She arranged herself a pallet upon which to recline, under the window looking out upon the great Olytan Lighthouse. It was a massive tower around which the Olytan Fortress had been built. She stayed in her storeroom during the day, wrapped in the power of the Cosmos, awaiting the Twilight Intersect. She could smell it, like rain on the horizon.

The northernmost port of Khulanty, Olytan Lighthouse was a bustling city rife with opportunity and squalor. Every night, Devorah let her mind roam the shadows of the city, drifting secret thoughts: unrequited love and furtive infidelity, anxiety about the White Army of God and the war with Kempenny, struggling to eat day to day and hoarding flour, sugar, salt. There was little Devorah could do about the worries and corruption of the people of Olytan Lighthouse, even holding to the purple-tinged Cosmos as she was.

What she could do was let her mind rest briefly on those undead she found and undo the snarl of Body, Mind, and Soul, that imbalance, keeping them here instead of drifting on. She wandered the quiet, shadowy halls of the fortress on whisper bare feet while its denizens slept, avoid guardsfolk and late night wanderers by flowing the the shadows. She exorcized ghosts: lonely and angry, unintelligible and hungry, vengeful and sorrowful; there were more ghosts than vhamps in Olytan Lighthouse. She remembered being young and small and ill at her aunt’s manor house for all those years and wondered if this was better.

She found the library and read by moonlight: Giessel, Python, Silverstein. It was there she passed Winter Solstice, untired, uncold, unbothered by the coming armies of black-clad, unicorn-bearing warriors of the Mountain Kingdom, warriors she’d sent against the High Cleric’s army. And at the back of her mind, a part of her worried that she’d put this endgame in motion to little effect. What good would come from the looming conflict? Pawns upon a chessboard, pushed toward an inevitable conclusion, unable to break free of the bounds of the board.

“Are you a ghost too?”

Devorah started and dropped the book she’d been staring through. The boy who’d addressed her was short and small, perhaps six or seven years old. He wore a surcoat with a stylized lighthouse upon the chest, marking him a servant of the fortress. He had the gentle, cold smell of death about him and was faintly see through in the speckled moonlight.

“No,” said Devorah.

“Oh. Well, you don’t look alive.”

“I suppose I’m not.”

“So, what are you then?”

Devorah shrugged. “I’m not certain.” She pulled her legs up under her and crossed them where she sat on the couch. The two regarded each other for a time.

“If you’re not a ghost, then what are you doing here?” the boy asked.

“Reading.”

“In the dark?”

“Yes.”

“I used to like it when Teacher would read to us. But then I…” His voice faded and his eyes shimmered red and form took a hungry tone. Devorah felt the power of her necromancy, a stolid, steady, inevitable power, tingle along her skin, but then the boy came back and sighed.

“What’s your name?” Devorah asked.

“I don’t remember. What’s yours?”

“Devorah.”

“Did you know it’s Winter Solstice?”

Devorah nodded. She’d never cared much about the Khulanty holydays, steeped as they were in the Church of Khualty’s stories and nonsense, but she didn’t say that. Instead, she said, “Would you like me to read to you?”

The ghost-boy’s form strengthened and brightened and Devorah was glad she wouldn’t have to exorcize him, at least not yet. He asked for the Epic of the Sky Wars and Devorah was happy to comply.

They found the first volume of nine amongst the other epics, then settled onto the couch to read. Devorah noted that the couch cushions bent under the boy’s weight, for all that he was a ghost. She crossed her legs under her again and the boy did the same. He smiled expectantly and Devorah found herself smiling again.

“A long time ago, in a land far, far away…”

Devorah had only ever read to herself. When she did, the people, places and events unfolded in her mind whether history, fantasy, or poetry. She knew she was no kind of performer, but she did her best to give the epic the gravitas and levity it asked for. Next to her, the ghost who could not remember his name sat with rapt attention, eyes wide and smile bright. By the time they arrived at the climactic confrontation between the Trade Empire’s faceless soldiers and the Garden Palace’s scrappy resistance, the boy had shifted from sitting to reclining to laying down with his head resting in Devorah’s lap. His head was both substantial as starlight and heavier than duty. And when she read the closing lines of the first volume, her voice dry with use, describing the victory of the Queen, the funeral of the Mentor, and the ascension of the Child, the boy fell asleep, and released himself from undeath.

Devorah felt the snarl of imbalance loosen and let go. The ghost disappeared. She smelled a storm on the horizon and sighed, alone again.

• • •

Several days later, Devorah perched upon the top of the great lighthouse, staring out at sea. Just below her, the lighthouse’s sweeping beam of light signaled to the incoming ships the safe harbor of Olytan Lighthouse. Wherever the light swept, her senses through the shadows were blinded, but more of the world was dark than not and would be for several hours more.

The time between when she’d freed herself from Radden and now had evaporated like ink in a fire. Like an engrossing book, she found herself at the end without knowing where the time had gone. This was it. The Intersect approached, and so did three ships from the north, from the Empire, even now preparing to make berth in the harbors below the lighthouse.

And among them was the Diviner of Winds, Princess Gitonga Sankar. Devorah knew the curve of her mental shield, the subtle taste of her hidden thoughts. For all that she stood just this side of undeath, Devorah’s heart hammered with anxiety. The Intersect would be dangerous, people would die. Devorah wanted the princess far from the coming conflict, but also yearned for one last chance to talk with her.

She stayed upon the peak of the lighthouse, following the movments of the visitors from the Empire from the shadows, using every lighless place as her eyes and ears. Within the hour, Princess Gitonga was shown to a suite equal to her station, her small retinue housed nearby and a trio of guards outside her door.

Devorah found deep shadows in the curtains shrouding the balcony off the suite’s sitting room and pulled at the shadows until she stood there.

The room was well lit and Princess Gitonga’s secret thoughts were hidden behind her mental shield. Devorah felt blind and vulnerable. It made her squirm and she quite nearly ran away. Her abandoned store room was small and dark and cozy. Gitonga puttered around the sitting room for a moment before going into an adjoining room. A few moments later, Devorah heard the distinct sound of a tap being turn and water rushing into a tub. Biting her tongue for courage, Devorah parted the curtain and stepped into the sitting room. It was well furnished if a bit overdone. Large pieces of furniture with thick legs and overstuffed cushions filled most of the space. A thick rug covered the smooth, stone floor.

The room to the hallway, where the guards stood, their secret thoughts quiet and mundane, was closed firm and locked. Devorah stepped up to the bedroom door. It, too, was well furnished with a four-poster bed, curtains drawn, an ornately carved wardrobe, and another thick-legged couch. Beyond that was a bathing room where water rushed from copper pipes into a large, porcelain tube.

Gitonga stood at the tub, hands behind her back, watching the water flow with interest. Devorah wondered how far along the Grand Architect had gotten in the Empire, whether Gitonga had had the pleasure of indoor plumbing yet.

She cleared her throat gently to announce her presence. Princess Gitonga spun, hair flaring, eyes wide, and a scream past her lips before Devorah could raise a hand in protest.

They stared at each other a moment before Devorah leapt for the bed and the shadows beneath it. She sank through the darkness just as the door to the hallway opened, and tumbled into her small, abandoned storeroom. Her heart beat so hard her chest hurt, the pulse in her throat fairly vibrated, the hollows beneath her eyes ached.She pulled at the cosmos without wrapping herself in it, without losing herself to it, and her body settled.

She went still and silent, listening to the secret thoughts of the guards.

A mouse?

Such a fuss for nothing.

Efeete nobles…

Devorah waited, the guardsmen’s thoughts continued to grumble, and several moments later Gitonga’s thoughts blossomed in her mind, a gentle call.

“Devorah? They’re gone. You can come back.”

With a careful deliberatness, not allwing herself to second guess, Devorah took hold of her power over shadows. It flowed around her like ink from a pen, and she quietly stepped back to Princess Gitonga’s sitting room. Gitonga knelt beside the bed, peering under it.

“Please don’t scream this time,” Devorah said, as gently as she could.

Gitonga gasped and stood and whirled, but managed not to scream. “That is so unfair,” Princess Gitonga whispered.

“I wasn’t trying to frighten you.” Devorah matched her whisper.

“I believe you. But you could have just let your shield down and let me hear your thoughts.”

Devorah winced. “I didn’t…”

“It’s fine. Really.” She gestured for Devorah to join her in the bathroom with her. “The sound of the water will cover our conversation.”

Devorah put her hands behind her back, not quite at attention. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m an envoy for the Princess Council. “I’m here on an initial diplomatic foray to strenghting our ties with the Queen of Khulanty.”

“The Royal,” Devorah corrected.

“Quite right. Even after Madam Iyabo died, the council followed her recommendations to negotiate with Loreamer rather than Kempenny.” She gave a small shrug. “I’m sorry. We’re not backing you.”

Devorah nodded. “The war will end soon anyway. In fact, the last conflict will be here, at Olytan Lighthouse. You should leave. Come back in a week when it’s all over.”

“I can’t do that. We’re all set to meet with dignitaries. If I turn back now, no only will the alliance be in peril, but so will my standing with the other princesses.”

Devorah bit her tongue and nodded. She fully understood the precariousness of machinations. “Do you know about the Intersect?”

“You’re talking about the Twenty-Seven Realms? I’m vaguely familiar with the concept.”

“The Twilight Realm will Intersect with the Prime Realm within days.”

Princess Gitonga nodded and Devorah was grateful she accepted her word.

“Will it be dangerous?”

“Yes. Frederick Vahramp is coming. He intends to use it to increase his already considerable power. High Cleric Marcus Radden is here.”

“He’s one of the dignitaries we’re meeting with,” Gitonga interrupted.

“Don’t,” said Devorah. “He’s as dangerous as the Intersect. He gave me these scars.” Princess Gitonga nodded. She’d noticed. Of course she’d noticed. How could she not? That’s why she’d screamed. It must be. But she hadn’t said anything. “The Princess Council should want nothing to do with him,” Devorah tried to keep her voice steady. “He’s raised an army in an effort to recapture me, and to take Royal Loreamer and Cleric Piety as well.”

“I will put off meeting with him,” Princess Gitonga said. “And I won’t be alone with him.”

“If you have to stay…” Devorah paused. Would the fortress of Olytan Lighthouse be safe in the coming battle? Would the warriors of the Mountain Kingdom breach the walls and loot the city? “The mercenaries I secured, of the Mountain Kingdom, they’ll be at the walls soon. Are you certain you can’t get on a ship and…”

Princess Gitonga shook her head. “I apprecate your concern. My guards will keep me safe.”

The tub was nearly full. Devorah reached for the tap and turned it off. Steam rose off the water.

Even though she could force Gitonga back to the safety of the Empire, subdue her physically and shove her through the shadows, she wouldn’t. At least not as a first option.

“Devorah, when this is over, could we maybe… talk? Gitonga pitched her voice low.

Devorah didn’t expect she had a good chance of surviving the conflict, but she didn’t say so. “I’m sorry. I… I should have taken more care with your feelings. So, yes. When this is all over, it would be nice if we could talk.”

They looked at each other for a time. Eventually, Princess Gitonga cleared her throat.

“I’m cold and I’m dirty and I’m going to take a bath now.” It had the sound of a polite dismissal, then Gitonga blushed and looked away. “Unless… unless you wanted…”

Devorah blushed and it was hot against her cold skin, her silvery scars. “Um, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

• • •

It did not snow so far north as Olytan Lighthouse, a city whose primary feature was a gargantuan lighthouse protected by a stone fort at the edge of a cliff on the north-most tip of Khulanty. The lack of snow reminded her of Taranaki and its warm, seasonal rains. She remembered huddling in Madam Iyabo’s hut, cursing her sore thumbs. She remembered Madam Iyabo’s death and undeath and her own duty to release her irascible old mentor from this world. She wondered now if she should do so for herself.

She wondered, if she were to manage to destroy Freddy Vahramp, would she then un-snag herself from this Realm, or would she find some other excuse to remain?

Though it did not snow, it did rain. Even now, tall storm clouds boiled in from the west, their towering sides fluffy and white, their flat undersides dark and ominous. And inbetween, the silver lining made legend in over worn idiom.

“Here comes the storm,” Devorah whispered.

Devorah took a deep breath, taking in the scent of coming rain. Though most smells she enjoyed before undeath had become inconsequential at best and nauseating at worst, the scent of rain was still pleasing. She’d always enjoyed a good storm, and it seemed the day of the Intersect would be host to one of the largest Olytan had seen in a long time.

She took ritual care in tending her weapons. Her favored rapier, a multitude of daggers, and the revolving fire-arm with a box of gold-washed bullet-cartridges. It was impractical that she should carry them all into battle. But, if she left them here in this darkened room and covered them with several blankets, they would remain in shadow and therefore immediately accessible.

An explosion stole her attention.

Her gaze snapped to the lighthouse.

The lighthouse had been lit for the storm, its flame a blazing beacon over the city. And above the lighthouse, in the grey stormclouds, she saw reality rent. A grey fissure opened in the sky, spilling grey light into the world, cloaking the world in inbetween.

The Twilight Intersect was upon them.

Devorah reached for the shadows but found her reach met with little, like searching a nightstand for a book no longer there. The Intersect had washed away the shadow as well. Mostly. She cast her mind through the twilight and found the grey was enough conduit for her senses, just not enough to travel. And through those misty shadows she felt the hunger-blind minds of vhamps suddenly crawling over the city. They pulsed, howled, tore with the fury of their bloodlust, and though she could not pick him out, Devorah knew Freddy Vharamp was among them.

She pulled harder.

Slowly she drew shadows from the grey of the Intersect until she had enough to shadowalk. Unable to determine which vhamp was Freddy, she decided she’d just have to kill them all. She pulled at the shadows, focusing on a point of bloodlust, and pushed through the thin shadows to its side.

With her sword through its heart, she touched its cheek and reduced it to dust washed away by the rain in a moment. The rain pounded down and she only noticed she was soaked a moment later.

A sudden mental pressure focused upon her. That pressure quickly lengthened into an infinitely sharp point, readied to pierce and destroy a mind.

Devorah threw her hands up as though the blow was physical. She put all her concentration into her mental shield. In her mind’s eye, a shining poniard of light thrust down at her. It struck her liquid shield and though it slowed, it did not stop. It pushed through the shield until it was just the other side, a single pinprick of light that sent Devorah spinning, dizzy and disoriented. She pulled hard at the smoky grey of inbetween until she had enough shadow to walk to the source of the attack.

Mother Piety Churchstep, stood in the middle of a street, all around her were the rain-swept remnants of vhamps, their victims slowly recovering thanks to the power of the Light Cleric. She stood clad in brilliant white. A subtle halo surrounded her, as though the rain wouldn’t dare touch her and so turned aside in deference. Devorah moved to the shelter of an awning, feeling like a drowned rat next to the other girl’s grace.

“What are you doing here, little sister?” Devorah asked, though she had a pretty good idea; the cleric was hunting vhamps.

Mother Churchstep whirled to face her and Devorah prepared for another mental strike. Though it did not come, the young cleric narrowed her eyes.

“Devorah. I was hoping you would respond to my letter. You need to call off this attack.”

Letter? What letter? But aloud, Devorah said, “The Mountain Kingdom warriors don’t answer to me.” It was a lie, but only barely.

“Then why are you here?”

“Same as you, I’ll killing vhamps. Freddy Vahramp in particular. He survived.”

The Light Cleric gave a curt nod. “I’m aware.”

“He’s here for the Intersect. It will make him more powerful. I plan to kill him before that happens. Will you help me?”

But the cleric looked around at the rain-washed street, the downpour leaving her untouched, a distant look in her eye, like she was distracted, like she was detached from this world, like she drew power from the cosmos. Devorah bit her tongue on a curse, knowing the cleric would deny her.

“I need to help Hirrom first. The Twilight Realm will remove the bloodlust.”

“Hirrom? Hirrom Berek?” Devorah was stunned. She hadn’t expected Piety would be helping a vhamp. “You can’t do that. Didn’t you hear me? It’ll make him more dangerous.”

“I have to.”

“No, I won’t let you.”

“I’m sorry.”

Frustrated, Devorah slashed at the air with her sword. “I’ll stop you.”

Piety shook her head. “I think you’ll have your hands full, big sister.”

Freddy leapt down at her, but Piety’s warning was just enough to let her spring aside in time. She slipped on the wet cobbles and nearly lost her footing. Freddy sprang at her and she reached for him, physically and mentally, grasping for the knot of power that held him to this Prime Realm. Freddy realized his mistake, and his preternatural reflexes twisted him away from her.

They stood for a moment, rain pounding them, war surrounding them.

Freddy spoke. “I can feel it. The Twilight Realm. My pet called it a place of in between. Why does it call to me?”

“Because you’re between life and death.” Devorah didn’t know why, but she was certain.

“You could come with me, Kempenny. We could touch it together.”

Devorah lunged with her sword, but Freddy was too fast. He leapt to the rooftops and sprinted for the lighthouse. She drew hard at the shadows, but the shadows did not come. She pulled harder, but the grey of inbetween resisted. She knew the only way to give chase was to pull from the cosmos. In a blink, she slipped to the mindspace, but rather than throwing herself into the cosmos, she pulled the cosmos to her. And the shadows that weren’t responded to her will.

She gave chase.

He leapt from rooftop to rooftop. Devorah had no need to leap. Calmly, she reached through shadow to the tower room. The revolving fire-arm felt good in her hand like an old friend, a favorite book. She aimed and fired, and the gold-washed bullet flew true. But Freddy ducked so that the bullet only grazed his shoulder. A spray of blood was quickly doused in rain and though his skin smoked from the gold, the wound quickly healed.

Devorah shadowalked to a rooftop in front of the vhamp aimed, and fired again. This time he anticipated well enough to dodge entirely. So Devorah shadowalked again, this time to his left flank, and fired again. This one took him through the hip, and he slipped and fell, sliding off the rain-slick roof to the city floor. Devorah followed. They stood in the courtyard of an old, well-tended abbey.

Freddy struggled to his feet, his wound healing already. He smiled at her surprise. “Don’t you know why I came here, little bitch?” He raised his arms. “Put as many holes in me as you like, they’ll heal in a blink, for I am favored of the Twilight Realm.”

He leapt to the top of the abbey.

Devorah prepared to follow, but her necromanctic sense snagged on a knot of vhamps not far away, and she knew Piety was with them. She couldn’t let her little sister go through with her misguided plan, but neither could she allow Freddy to achieve the Twilight Realm.

The solution, of course, was shadow. Though thinned to grey, the Twilight Intersect had bathed everything in shadow. With the power she pulled from the cosmos, she could use the Twilight grey to both chase Freddy and face Piety.

She focused on the familiar mind, Piety, and spread herself through the shadows.

• • •

Devorah found Piety floating beneath the rent in the sky. She held a vhamp, someone other than Hirrom. Devorah knew what her little sister would do a moment before she did it. Piety was between Devorah and the vhamp. Devorah hoped Piety’s powers of healing were fast enough. She thrust her rapier through the Light Cleric, aiming for the vhamp’s heart, but the creature was gone before her sword struck it.

“Hells,” Devorah cursed. She withdrew her blade. “Piety, please—“ but her voice was cut off by a crushing force gripping her head to toe. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. She pulled at the shadows but was only able to walk a short distance. It was enough.

“You’re being foolish,” Devorah gasped. “Freddy’s stronger just in its presence.”

“Have you killed him yet?” The cleric’s tone was cold, calm.

Devorah sighed. “I’m working on it.”

• • •

An efficient reload of the revolving fire-arm was all she needed before she walked to just in front of where he would land, on the wall of the fort that housed the lighthouse. He was so startled he lost his footing, and she put three gold-washed bullets in his chest.

Lightning split the sky and rent her attention a third way. The secret thoughts of the High Cleric jabbed from the rooftops.

She thinks too much of others. She won’t risk killing the delegate.

The delegate, Devorah knew, was Princess Gitonga.

What is she doing here? Devorah demanded of the cosmos.

The cosmos did not answer.

She drew at the shadows and spread herself thinner.

• • •

Using the shadows of everywhere and nowhere to stand on the roof of the fort, she appeared next to Royal Loreamer. She pulled at her hidden weapons and cast a dagger at the High Cleric’s head, just above Princess Gitonga’s left shoulder just before the three realized they’d been joined.

The High Cleric pushed Princess Gitonga forward and gathered his own power, separating the smallest pieces of reality, building pressure in the space between his hands.

Devorah’s dagger clipped Princess Gitonga’s collar, driving it just enough off course to miss the High Cleric entirely. Devorah opened the shadows beneath Princess Gitonga and pushed her into the tower room. The princess would be safe enough there.

Royal Loramer grabbed her wrist then and in a blink they were elsewhere, a large, dry sitting room.

Devorah blinked. “Hello, big sister.”

Royal Loreamer glowered at her. “Little sister. What are you doing here?”

“Killing vhamps. And you? I assume you’re here to kill that bastard.”

Royal Loreamer nodded. “I could use your help.”

Sundered by three, Devorah’s focus began to fracture: She faced a cleric, a royal, a vhamp…

• • •

Before her stood Piety Chruchstep.

The cleric teleported but Devorah could see her wake in the shadow and followed. She landed on the war-torn mud just outside the gate of Olytan city. It was a clever ruse. Devorah spent a precious moment parrying the blow of a pike-wielding zealot. But she anticipated and appeared back at the space beneath the rift just as Piety did. She slashed at the girl’s throat expecting Piety to halt the blow with telekinesis. But her sword struck the other girl’s throat and tugged through with sickening ease. Bile rose in her throat as blood sprayed from Piety’s, even as it healed a moment later.

“I enjoyed our chess games, big sister. I wish we could have gotten to know each other better.”

Devorah swallowed hard even as she anticipated her little sister’s next move and found the vhamps on the west wall. They had not expected her. She attacked the nearest, taking off his arm before her could react and was prepared to run him through when power twisted her wrist painfully. Her rapier spun out of her hand and disappeared, buried under miles of ocean in the darkest of depths. She snatched it from the shadows.

“As did I, little sister. I was always one step ahead of you in those games, wasn’t I?”

Devorah thrust her rapier into Piety’s shoulder. She withdrew and struck again, even as the shoulder reformed, and pierced Piety’s her left knee, screaming though the cosmos as her attack rent her own heart. Piety fell to the stone floor of the wall.

“Yes. Until the end you were always one step ahead. But I won that last game.”

Her third blow was stopped by Father Hirrom Berek. He grabbed the sword around its blade and tried to jerk it from her grip. Devorah, almost absently, twisted it from his grip and struck him so he fell over the side of the wall. She thought to follow and finish him, but hesitated, for she was now alone with Piety on the wall. She cast her gaze skyward even as she shadowalked to the spot just in time to see them all tossed into the Twilight Realm.

She spent a moment staring into the Twilight, the grey nothingness of elsewhere, immutable, constant, rigid, and hoped that Piety was right.

In the next moment, she and Piety stood on the wall again. Devorah looked over its edge to where Hirrom Berek, a vhamp, clung desperately. She could unhook him from here of course, but that required concentration she couldn’t spare with the Light Cleric at her back.

“Leave him be and I’ll help you kill Frederick.”

Devorah hesitated.

“Please.”

Devorah turned. “How?”

• • •

Before her stood Isabel Loreamer.

The royal held her hand out to Devorah and Devorah grasped it firmly.

In another instant they stood on either side of the High Cleric while the thunder from his lightning rumbled off the rooftops of Olytan Lighthouse.

Devorah felt the months-old panic push at the edge of the cosmos. She saw the light, heard the calm voice, felt the blades in her skin. She struck, tossing daggers at the High Cleric. He wasn’t as adroit as either Piety or Freddy and a dagger took him high on his left shoulder.

From behind him, Isabel put a hand on either of his shoulders and he fell to his knees.

Devorah stepped forward, dagger in hand, and before he could say a word she…

She tried…

She wanted…

The white-tiled panic gripped her and she froze. Dagger still in hand, she wanted to kill him. She tried so hard to kill him. Though she could see the lines of scars on her arm and the hand holding the dagger, she could not kill him.

• • •

Before her stood Frederick Vahramp.

She fired three quick shots, reloaded, and fired three more, and though each gold-washed bullet struck and smoked and hurt the vhamp, none was a direct hit, none pierced his heart, and he spun and danced and laughed across the ramparts of the fort to the lighthouse as she struggled to kill him.

She felt Piety’s mind reaching for hers.

Though the shadows she reloaded the fire-arm.

She fired at Freddy again and opened her mind to Piety.

It was a simple plan, really, Piety would hold him, Devorah would shoot him, a heart shot.

It would take specific timing. Devorah would have to keep him focused on where she was just now in this space, not where she would be a moment from now as she stood with Piety. So she drew upon the weapons in the shadows, fired, slashed, fired, thrust, and fired, leaving only moments between.

• • •

There was immense pressure. Devorah fought to keep her feet while her ears popped. A silver-lined doorway opened somewhere inbetween thought and dream and a stream of molten fire burst from it, catching the High Cleric in the chest. Isabel gestured harshly with her left hand, and before the High Cleric could scream, could flinch, could do more than widen his eyes in surprise, he dropped through a sudden doorway beneath him that closed with a snap on his neck, leaving only his head behind.

Isabel sighed and sobbed and bent her head in exhaustion.

• • •

She knew a moment of disorientation before she stood in only one spot.

Just above her, Freddy leapt from the top of the lighthouse for the Intersect. Devorah felt Piety’s thoughts.

“Now.”

She put her weapon against his chest and pulled the trigger. In the same moment, Piety appeared in a blur and snagged him in power and arms, holding him so he could not twist aside like every other time she’d tried to kill him. Piety held him close and the bullet burst from Devorah’s barrel even as she tried to stay it. It cracked Freddy’s chest and tore through his heart and hurtled through his back.

Piety’s eyes closed gently.

Freddy did not shout—he whimpered. his eyes going wide, baring his fear to her. The whimper reverberated off Devorah’s shield as no scream could have, and jerked her from the cosmos.

High above, the Twilight Realm passed on, the Intersect done.

They fell from the height above the lighthouse, and Devorah pulled the shadows to put them on its roof. Vahramp shivered, turned brittle, and was washed away by the storm. Piety lay curled on her side, a bullet hole in her chest. The wound did not heal.

Stunned, Devorah knelt and nudged the girl.

“Piety?”

Devorah dropped her weapon and took the girl by the shoulders to turn her over. Piety’s eyes were open but she did not see. “Little sister?”

“Devorah!”

She didn’t turn at the shout. She just knelt in the rain, staring at the blood-soaked hole in the front of Piety’s dress. Part of her hoped that Isabel would strike her down from behind and end it all.

Then came the light. It came from the slain girl lying on the stones before her, a spot of light at the wound just under her left breast. The wound stopped bleeding and filled with light. Slowly at first, and then with gathering speed, the light shone from under Piety’s skin. Devorah stood and backed up several steps, her skin smoking faintly, until she backed into Isabel. Isabel put an arm around her shoulders protectively.

The pain of the light was enough she had to look away and weather its sting. And when it faded away, so had Piety.