Rult raised the door back into place with his invisible taphic arm. Saul had been lucky the child’s taph had developed the ability, considering he had made Rult in such a rush. Taphs formed by rings and lines and arcs, carved into a child’s clay could change as the child grew, which is why most makers did not design children to mature over time.

  Static powers were more reliable. Usually, Saul made his children in adult forms like he had Nat, but he had crafted Rult in a hurry.

  He made a face as he looked at the hole Vulture’s arrow had left in the wall, right where he had repainted it after his fight with a gern in the mansion just a few months ago. The arrow itself had dispersed into gray mist just moments after Saul reentered the front hall.

  Traces still hung in the air. That mist resembled the white mist that departed from Cecilia when Eagle fell, except for being darker in color. There might be some clue as to the nature of these art-children in the mist, but the hole in the wall remained.

  The door would be harder to replace with anything nearly as good, what with Saul’s exile making it impossible to ship anything from Escala. Despite the wind that whistled through the cracks broken open by Crow’s sword, Saul felt less of the winter chill with the door standing in the frame once again. He replaced the broken hinges in their spots connecting door and frame.

  The bolts were broken. He replaced them with new ones from the workshop. The mangled lock would be tougher to fix.

  One thing at a time.

  When he finished with the repairs, such as he could, Saul turned back toward the workshop where the others were recovering. “Guard the door, Rult.” He set a few spare bolts on the floor beside a rod Rult brought with him from the workshop.

  “I hope they come back.” Rult purred and sat back on his hind legs facing the door. “We could finish this faster.”

  “Don’t be so sure. Now that they know your powers they’ll be more careful.”

  “Let them try me. They haven’t even seen my best.”

  “Don’t get overconfident, Rult. We don’t know much about them, either.”

  “Yes, master.” His tone remained confident. He kept his eyes on the door.

  Saul trudged back into the workshop, Nat on his shoulder.

  After letting Morrie out of the armory, Olivia had brought a sheet down from one of the guest rooms on the second floor and retrieved the first-aid kit from the small kitchen Saul used for his meals. When Saul entered the workshop, Morrie sat on the floor beside the unconscious form of Cecilia, covered up to her neck by the sheet. Evidently, Olivia had not been able to awaken her yet.

  Saul walked past Morrie and Cecilia, to Olivia beside the chair where Irene sat before the table. The still forms of pigeons still covered most of the table. First aid supplies took up the rest.

  Her scarf and black coat lay discarded on the floor behind her chair. The wound along her collarbone was freshly bandaged, and color had begun to return to Irene’s cheeks.

  “How you feeling?” he asked.

  “Better.” She smiled at him. “And you?”

  He looked down at his forearm, where the cut Olivia had bandaged for him in the entrance hall just a few minutes ago was beginning to turn the wrapping red from beneath. “Still bleeding.” He elevated his arm.

  Olivia frowned at Saul. “It shouldn’t be. Such a small cut.”

  “Sharp sword.” Saul turned to Olivia. “I’ll try not to get cut again.”

  “I was hoping you had more of that stuff you used when we went to Hidria.”

  “Temper sap from my father’s garden.” The thick plant material could seal any cut without a scar. “I wish I did, too.”

  Irene sniffed in annoyance at Saul and then glanced at Olivia. “How much do you know about Hidria?”

  Olivia scowled back at Irene. “Only what I saw, and a little more that Saul told me months ago. I know you keep people like me as slaves.”

  “Not me,” said Irene. “I’ve never owned another human, exile or not.”

  “Not personally, maybe.” Olivia glanced away from Irene and toward Morrie and Cecilia by the wall. “But that doesn’t mean much to me.”

  “Not very reasonable, is she, Saul?”

  “I’m right here. Talk to me, not about me.”

  “Fine. I’ll concede you probably have some knowledge of what’s going on, and if Apahar returns to Earth you will be a valuable ally. Now, please, discard your indignation. It is not useful.”

  Olivia grunted and turned away from Irene. She walked over to Morrie and Cecilia.

  Saul folded his arms. His eyes moved toward Irene. “Was that necessary?”

  “What? Do you think she should be angry with me?”

  “Not for keeping slaves, I suppose. I know your father releases any exiles sent to him, and you never accept such gifts, but most makers aren’t that principled.” Saul frowned at Olivia’s back. “She’s not wrong to be angry at makers, not in general.”

  “She’ll become a slave too, once Simon or some other guardian kills her here on Earth.”

  “I know,” Saul muttered. The two students were in the same situation as Olivia now. And they did not have the skills she did from gern hunting. He closed his eyes, shook his head, then walked over to Olivia, Morrie, and Cecilia.

  The red-haired girl began to wake as he approached. Her eyes opened and she looked at the three of them. “Where am I?”

  Saul stopped beside Olivia. “This is my house,” he said.

  “Who are you?”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “My name is Saul.” He took a deep breath and glanced at Olivia.

  Morrie leaned toward Cecilia. “Do you remember what happened after we left the coffee shop?”

  “We were walking with George. You said something funny… Can’t remember now. I don’t know after that. Where is George?”

  “I looked back and you two both just vanished. I haven’t seen him since.” Morrie shook his head.

  “Olivia,” said Cecilia. “From the coffee shop.” She sat up, not showing any trace of the pain from the blow Rult had dealt Eagle with the thrown rod. She slipped on the smooth wooden floor. Morrie caught her shoulder and eased her back to the pillow where her head rested.

  Olivia turned to Saul. “You should tell them.”

  “Tell us what?” Cecilia asked.

  Morrie looked up at Saul, his hand trembled, still pressed to Cecilia’s shoulder.

  “Everything, I suppose,” Saul said.

  * * *

  Morrie paced the workshop in front of Saul as he finished speaking.

  The short student ground his teeth together. “This is crazy. This is crazy.”

  “Yeah,” Cecilia sat on the floor, her back propped against the wall near where she had lain earlier. She seemed to be recovering well from whatever had happened to her, but still appeared a bit concussed, which made sense if she had in fact been part of Simon’s Eagle in some way.

  “I’m sure it sounds that way,” Olivia said. “It was tough for me too.”

  Not as tough, Saul thought. She already knew about gern before she ever met him. He stood at Olivia’s side, near the table Irene still sat beside. The afternoon had worn on as Saul had explained the nature of the known worlds to Cecilia and Morrie. To their credit, they had listened, though neither of them had seen anything like what Olivia had experienced a few months ago.

  Cecilia put a palm to her forehead. “So these… ‘guardians’ are secret agents. They take out anyone who learns the truth.”

  Saul nodded. “That is one of their jobs. It helps keep the makers in power.”

  “It sounds like a conspiracy theory to me,” said Morrie.

  “Nonetheless, it exists,” said Irene from behind Saul. She had listened with steadily more apparent impatience as time wore on. “Not to sound rude, Saul, but do you have anything to eat here?”

  “In the small kitchen. Check the refrigerator.”

  She sighed, stood up, and then left the room for the entrance hall. Her footsteps receded toward the other side of the house.

  Saul returned his attention to the students. “Trust me, I’ll do my best to see you through this.”

  “Even though you say you’re a ‘maker,’ that doesn’t mean a whole lot to this new ‘guardian’ you told us about,” said Cecilia. “Sounds like he already sent those things here to kill Olivia.”

  “Art-children,” said Saul.

  “Right.” Morrie grunted. “These creatures you say you can make out of clay.”

  “Not just clay,” said Saul. “Any art can serve as the medium for an art-child. I’ve seen children etched into metal, painted on canvas, even woven into the notes of songs.”

  Morrie scowled. “Suppose we believe that, and suppose we believe people go to this other world when they die, what do we do?”

  “We work to keep you in this world. That’s the best we can manage right now.”

  “Are you serious? That’s no solution at all.” Morrie sat down beside Cecilia. “And we still don’t know where George is.”

  “He’ll be alright.” Cecilia squeezed Morrie’s arm. “He’s tough.”

  “Just because he plays football doesn’t mean he can handle this mess on his own. Sorry.” Morrie shook his head. “I don’t know if I can handle this either.”

  “You can. All three of us can,” Cecilia said.

  Saul thought back to the big guy with glasses at the table in the coffee shop. He clenched one hand as he considered how easy it would be for Simon to have snatched him up, given how his children moved so fast and with apparent stealth among the exiles.

  “I hope you’re right,” he said. “In the meantime, I think it’d be safest if you two stayed here for now. I have a few extra rooms in this house.” He turned to Olivia. “You too.”

  “Me? Saul, I can handle myself.”

  “Those three children would have beaten all of us if Rult hadn’t surprised them.” Saul glanced over the table in the middle of the room toward the smooth, unfinished face of the towering sculpture he had started with hopes of defeating Apahar. He sighed. “We need more muscle for the next fight. As much as possible.”

  “So you want to fight them again?” Cecilia frowned at Saul. “I agree with Morrie. What kind of plan is that?”

  Saul closed his eyes. He had not yet explained Apahar to the students. “The plan is to buy time. There is one thing I haven’t told you about the situation yet, but it is important.”

  Nat poked his head out of Saul’s collar. Nat’s furry head nuzzled into Saul’s chin. “Saul, one of the pigeons on campus signaled me.”

  Saul’s eyes flew open. “What is it?”

  “It’s gern, and not just any gern.”

  “Apahar?”

  “Not sure, but whatever it is, it’s very powerful.”

  Saul turned to the table and searched among the incomplete pigeon bodies for the pair of hooded glasses he used with the finished birds he sent on patrol. He found them and put them on, then tapped one side to activate their powers.

  An image from a darkening street in Kerenger appeared on the inside of the lenses. He cycled to the view from the next pigeon, saw nothing, then cycled again.

  Cecilia and Morrie exchanged looks of confusion.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Scouting,” Saul said. “I can use these glasses to see what my pigeons see.” He switched pigeons until he reached the one that circled the center of campus on one edge of Kerenger.

  Through those eyes, he spotted the three shapes on the campus, making their way between buildings in the gathering gloom. One looked like a man, but the two that flanked him did not.

  The pigeon circled lower and Saul caught a good look at the body that belonged to Luther Mansard. He wore a heavy winter coat, and his face was sallow. His curly black beard had grown out a lot. Saul couldn’t imagine Apahar would ever care to trim it, though Luther had been clean-shaven last time he had been in control of his own body. Saul shuddered as he wondered if the man was still in there with the monster that now controlled him.

  As if to illustrate the horror of what had bonded with Luther, the gern on his left was massive, the size and shape of a bull, except that where a bull’s head would have been, a human torso connected to the thick bovine body. Even that was not the worst of it. An additional set of arms attached to a set of joints were grafted onto the back of the human shoulders gave the creature a total of four legs that ended in hooves, four big human-like arms, and a single short tail that whipped back and forth over the snowdrifts. Only the head and face of the creature did not look terrible, simply resembling that of an ordinary man, though its presence on the doubled shoulders seemed perverse.

  That one must certainly be disguised somehow by its skin of lies, though the pigeons saw through such illusions. Even exiles would notice such a beast if it was not. As Saul watched, students walked past it along the footpath without comment.

  The other gern was more difficult to see, perhaps because it possessed some sort of veil in addition to its guise. Saul could not distinguish much about it except for a humanoid shape and a confident walk that nearly matched Apahar’s stride. The three gern were exploring the campus, and Saul would not bet on the wards that protected the doors of Gatewood Hall against Apahar’s power, even separated from his original body.

  Saul tore the glasses from his eyes. “There are three gern on campus.” He turned to Olivia. “Apahar is one of them.”

  “What do we do?” Olivia asked.

  Saul slipped on his coat, and then picked up his sword from where he had set it on the table while explaining to Cecilia and Morrie. “Nat,” he said.

  The little child shivered against Saul’s neck.

  “Saul.” Olivia frowned. “Don’t—”

  “I have to keep them from getting into Gatewood Hall.”

  She reached for his arm. “You can’t take on Apahar alone.”

  He pulled away from her. “Nat, hop.” Nat pulled him into darkness and transported him out of the mansion. The little art-child could spread darkness, and teleport himself through shadows, along with a passenger or two. Saul appeared in the cold down the street from the mansion in the shadow of a wooden fence, opposite the setting sun. He held the poorly weighted sword in one hand and cursed inwardly.

  “When trouble comes calling it always brings friends. Nat, take me to campus.”

  “Yes, master.” Despite the conspicuously formal tone hinting at disagreement, Nat obeyed.

  He transported Saul through the dark again.

  A few hops later he walked out from the shadow of a building and onto the path ahead of Apahar and the gern that flanked him.

  One of his birds still circled overhead. He sometimes let them rest during the winter. But he had designed their feathers to turn pale with the season so they would be less noticeable during the cold months.

  Saul glared at Apahar. A pair of passing students kept their distance from Saul. Apahar met Saul’s eyes and grinned with Luther’s mouth. “Well, I didn’t expect to see you here,” said the gern in Luther’s voice.