Basin House Coffee, where Olivia worked, was situated in downtown Kerenger. The coffee shop took up the first floor of one of the tallest buildings in town apart from those at the college.

  Four stories high and made of reddish brick painted on one side with a mural of two giants playing chess, the building would have been dwarfed by virtually any notable structure Saul could think of built in a city on Hidria.

  Makers did not often air on the side of subtlety when in their element. There were small towns on Hidria, but Saul had not spent as much time in any of them as he had in Kerenger. He opened the front door of the coffee shop and walked inside, escaping the winter chill.

  The place roared with the sound of music, customers, and baristas. Students from the college made for a sizable portion of the people in the room, young and quiet with their screens and books. Only one table of students did not seem focused on the current semester’s work.

  Two young men chatted with an athletic red-haired girl at the table closest to the door, one tall and pale with rimless glasses, the other small and slim with a face nearly as red as the girl’s hair. Judging by how he looked at the girl he had some kind of attraction to her. The color of his face made Saul think that fact remained unstated. He walked past the students toward the line of customers that stretched backward from the counter where Olivia was working.

  She took an order from the man at the front of the line. Her fingers moved down along the screen of a tablet mounted on the counter. Saul’s gaze moved upward past her apron and hooded sweatshirt to her face. Months ago, when they had traveled to Hidria, he had thought her fairly pretty for an earth-born exile. Her hair was tied back except for a few strands on either side that concealed the pale scars along her ear. Soft brown eyes, fine features, his thoughts trailed away.

  The new guardian, Simon’s arrival in Kerenger put her in danger.

  He had been thinking the way the short student by the door looked. Forget attraction. An exile, whether born on earth or not, whether she knows the truth or not, is never going to truly care for a maker the way things are. And even if Simon did not try to kill Olivia for her knowledge of the truth, this was certainly not the time to be distracted by a pretty face.

  Of course, there was another factor to consider. That pretty face belonged to the only earth-born Saul knew with the skills to fight abei-gern. He resolved to say nothing of his feelings, as long as he needed her help to fight Apahar.

  The line moved in front of him. Saul stepped to one side. He had no need for coffee. With a taph at nearly full reserve a maker with his training could endure days without rest, and recently Saul had been able to sleep every night to replenish that energy.

  A woman bumped against his side, short and skinny with a pair of metal pins in her light hair twisted into shapes to resemble Celtic crosses. She stumbled and the cup in her hand splashed coffee on Saul’s arm. The heat of the liquid barely reached him through his coat. He turned in surprise.

  She regained her footing and then looked down at his arm. “Excuse me. I’m so sorry.”

  He met her eyes. “No, excuse me. I didn’t see you coming.” He recognized her after a moment as she steadied the cup on its saucer. She worked as a barista here too, Kari… something.

  He didn’t know her family name.

  “Well,” she frowned at his arm. “Does that hurt?”

  It was nothing compared to what the same arm went through a few months ago, being carved in a spiral by razor sharp claws and then burnt in the same pattern with the wound still open.

  He shrugged. “No problem. Just got my sleeve.” He continued to one side by an empty table.

  “Hey, I know you.” She smiled at him. “You’re Saul, right?”

  “That’s my name.” He returned her smile. “And you work here. Your name is Kari?”

  “Yep. I’ve seen you around a bit.” She glanced toward Olivia. “I’m taking over for Olives in ten minutes when she goes off-shift.”

  Nat’s fur prickled against the back of Saul’s neck, still hidden by his collar. The little art-child had grown to like Olivia over the time she and Saul had traveled together. Part of him wondered if Nat could sense Saul’s altogether different attraction to her.

  “Olives?”

  “That’s what I call her.” Kari shrugged. “It’s better than OJ, I’d say.”

  Saul chuckled. The name, Olivia Jordan, apparently presented a few opportunities for nicknames. “True.”

  Kari sat down at the table near the counter. She set her cup and saucer in front of her and then patted the tabletop. “Care to join me while you wait for her?”

  He hesitated for a moment but decided that talking to her probably wouldn’t hurt. “Sure.” Saul took the seat opposite Kari, facing away from the counter where Olivia still worked.

  Kari’s gaze moved to his face. “Something bothering you?”

  “Nothing big.” Only life and death, gods and monsters, Saul thought. “What makes you ask?”

  “Well, I don’t really know you, but I don’t usually see you in here until the moment Olives’ shift ends.”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Was he really that predictable? How close had this woman been watching him? Saul frowned. “You noticed that?”

  Kari’s face flushed. “Sorry, sorry. I’m not stalking you or anything. I’ve just seen you in here a few times, but usually you cut it closer to when she leaves.”

  “Just a good sense of time.” Saul tried to relax. The last thing he needed was to become paranoid about exiles spying on him. “Don’t know what threw me off today.” Except for those two unexpected visitors back at the mansion.

  “How is Olivia?” Kari asked.

  Saul shrugged, glad for the change in direction. “I wish I knew.” He had not spoken to Olivia for over a week. Not since he had followed her on patrol for gern near the college. They had driven a pack of abei-gern back into the gray between worlds, and afterward, Saul had occupied himself with making more art-children to enhance his surveillance network around town.

  Kari frowned at him, thoughtful for a moment. “She hasn’t said anything about you lately. You two fighting?”

  “Not really,” said Saul. The gern they had encountered last time had not been prepared for violence.

  She sat back and rolled her eyes. “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing is serious yet.” Saul shook his head. If the new arrival, this Simon Cardwynn, chose to go after Olivia, which would be an ordinary course of action for a guardian, Saul would have to be ready to get in his way even if it jeopardized his personal chances of rejoining maker society.

  “Huh.” Kari sipped her coffee.

  He refocused his attention on her. “I’m sorry. I’m a bit distracted.”

  “You seem that way.”

  His eyes flicked toward the twisted cross-shaped pins in her hair. “Nice hairpins.”

  Kari set down her coffee cup. “Don’t take this the wrong way. You’re an odd guy, Saul.”

  “I know,” he said. “But I really am interested in those pins. Nice pattern.”

  A glimmer of a smile lit her face. “Thanks. I made them myself.”

  “Good job.” Exile arts were an interesting thing. They appeared useless compared to the construction of art-children that makers could do, but many exiles possessed creative skills easily a match for any maker’s talent in the art itself. The only thing they lacked was the ability to breathe independent intelligence into their creations.

  Kari fiddled with one of the pins, adjusting the position of the silvery cross in her hair. “I like to make stuff. Olives told me you were an artist too.”

  Saul nodded. “A sculptor. It’s kind of my job.”

  “That makes three of us. Olives paints, you know.”

  She mentioned that to me once.” Saul sighed, and then glanced over his shoulder at Olivia.

  Kari sipped her coffee. “She told me you were pretty good at what you do.”

  “I’m passable, I suppose.” Saul turned back to Kari. A memory flickered into his mind, a memory of shaping a newborn universe with his every thought. It had been months since he had

  ignited the aleph splinter, and he still had not heard that the wandering world he and Irene had shaped had been located by the council. Until there was a positive fact in that regard, he would go on hoping it stayed that way.

  Kari nodded. “Do you do commissions?”

  “Not at the moment. I’m working on some personal projects right now, kinda living off prior earnings.” In reality, he owed his comfortable lifestyle on Earth to a combination of his parents’ wealth. Both of them were worldmakers and controlled nearly unlimited resources they could bend toward acquiring Earth currency. “I get along fine,” he added.

  She finished her coffee. “Well, good luck.” Kari smiled at him. “You’re living your dream.”

  “Perhaps I am.” He smiled back at her.

  She stood and glanced at Olivia. Saul followed her gaze. Olivia had left the counter and was making her way past the coffee machines in the bakery. She undid the tie on the back of her apron. Saul’s smile slipped. He had promised to help her deal with the guardians. He would do just that.

  Kari glanced at him. “I’m her friend,” she said. “Be nice to her.”

  Saul frowned. “Hey, I…” …Have never exactly practiced that kind of thing, he thought. “Won’t. Don’t worry about that.”

  She nodded to him and then walked back toward the door that led to the bakery. She left her cup and saucer in a box of used dishes as she passed. Saul watched her go until she passed through a door and out of sight. A few seconds later, Olivia emerged from the same doorway wearing a long coat. She walked to the table where Saul sat.

  “Hey.” Olivia sat down across from him. “What’s up?”

  He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Jackal’s gone.”

  She looked hard at his face for a moment. “Good.”

  “For me, yes. But there’s a new guardian. He’s not corrupt like Jackal, and he might come after you.”

  “Do you still think Apahar is coming back?”

  “He’ll definitely come back.” In the histories and legends, Apahar craved taphic power. To not have the abilities of his full body, would surely irritate the beast.

  Olivia frowned. “Then, what should I do? I’m not going to stop patrolling or fighting gern.”

  Of course, she would say that now. Saul took a deep breath. “I’m glad. We’ll need to work together to keep Apahar back.”

  “What about this new guardian? Any chance he could help us?”

  “Maybe. He said he was here to investigate the situation, but he seemed skeptical.”

  "Even after what happened when we went to Hidria?” Olivia scowled.

  Mortressa had seen countless abei-gern attack when Olivia and Saul had passed through. Saul would have hoped the other governments of Hidria would take that mess seriously.

  However, given the fact that Tori Hemmire had dethroned the previous city lord and taken over, the scrolls and crowns of the other nations would definitely be asking other questions first.

  Just as the worldmaker council seemed more interested in verifying the new creation shaped by Saul and Irene, Hidrian leaders paid attention to their neighbors first.

  Never mind the old legends, the horrors of Apahar’s ancient invasion, the potential for utter disaster.

  Saul nodded. “Even now, makers are more worried about each other than they are about gern.”

  Olivia sighed. Her scowl slipped away. “We need to convince this guardian of the truth.”

  “Yeah.” Before he moves in and tries to kill you, Olivia. Saul’s mouth went dry. “We’ll find a way.”

  Her gaze moved to his face. Their eyes met. Years ago, Saul’s face might have flushed and given his feelings away, but not at that moment. He might not be able to still his hands from shaking when angered, but he could hide attraction. This was not the time for thoughts like that. She reached across the table and put her warm hand on his.

  He withdrew his hand and then coughed into his fist. “Alright. Can you go back to my place so we can make a plan?”

  Her brow furrowed for an instant, then smoothed again. She stood up. “Okay. I’ve got my kit with me.”

  “Here?”

  “I’m a little paranoid these days.”

  “Good.”

  They left the table and walked toward the doorway of the coffee shop. A few feet from the exit, the door opened. A woman in a dark coat and hood, with a long black scarf, stepped inside, head-down. She looked up at Saul, one hand pressed to the scarf at her collar. Irene’s face looked very pale.

  “Saul.” Irene sounded breathless.

  Olivia stepped back from Saul’s side, nearly colliding with the red-haired girl who still sat with the two boys by the door. The girl glanced at her. Olivia muttered a quick apology.

  Saul stared at Irene. “Irene. Why are you here?” In Kerenger. On Earth.

  Irene’s gaze matched his. “I’m here to warn you. There are gern on the way. We have to go.”

  Saul’s brow wrinkled. He could not trust her, he was certain, but he also couldn’t risk a gern attack in the coffee shop. “Fine. But you’ll have to explain yourself as soon as we get moving.”

  “Suits me.” Irene turned to the door. Saul exchanged a glance with Olivia. He took a deep breath. They followed Irene outside.