“What?”

“Your new ride. This is going to be a real growth experience for him, right?”

“Jesus,” said Mick, “who put a burr under your sa—”

It took me an instant to remember the end of the expression, as it had him. The sound I made was a substitute for laughter. “Let’s do ’em all and get it over with. Shall I take the bit between my teeth? Or you could look a gift horse in the mouth.”

He looked away.

“I haven’t any horse sense. I kick over the traces. I’m mulish. I’m given to horseplay, nagging, and feeling my oats. Have we locked the barn after the horse got out, or is this a horse of a different color?”

“Stop.”

“Whoa?”

“I’m sorry,” Mick said. “Whatever it was I did. Only I’m betting it wasn’t me.”

I sighed. “Well, the thought of you doesn’t lead me to remember several years of my life with vague embarrassment.”

“What?” he said again. “You’re starting to sound like Frances.”

“That’s almost an insult.” I turned and walked back to where he stood. “Are you part of her invasion plan?”

He lifted one shoulder. “I don’t know.”

“Why are you still here, then?”

“Why are you?”

“I don’t know. Sorry, that wasn’t meant as mockery. Last I heard, you and I were to be protected.”

He looked out toward the sunset, which was gone. “Would you join the invasion?”

Here was the opening to say that I knew Ego, that I knew Albrecht, that I’d be useful. “I can’t imagine why.”

After a moment he said, “Because nobody’s as good at looking out for themselves as Frances thinks she is.”

That was nearly as hard to figure out as the sentence of mine that he’d complained about. “Then maybe she’ll get killed. Ask anybody in this household if they’d weep at the thought.”

“I would.”

“Then go pick up your flamethrower and enlist.”

He smiled, reluctantly. “I don’t think a flamethrower would help.”

“Whatever. What does she have to do to get Worecski?”

Mick scuffed the gravel, drawing patterns in the pale stone with his toe. “It’s all brute strength and speed. At least, it always was. Christ, two Horsemen in a head fight is an ugly thing. You can keep somebody from switching rides, from shifting to a new body, if you move on him fast and hard, as if you’re gonna ride him.”

“What do the real owners of the bodies do while all this is going on? Referee?”

“They’re not necessarily there,” he said with an odd expression.

“Where are they?”

“A Horseman seals up the host personality and uses the rest of it: memory, conscious and unconscious motor control, learned skills. But… if you’ve got a horse you want to keep, and you want it to stay where you left it when you ride somebody else… it’s easier if the host isn’t there anymore.”

I felt a chill. “You kill it.” He could have killed me.

“It can happen by accident, if you ride too long. The personality dwindles away, like a candle going out. But you can snuff it right away, too, if you need to. If you want to.” He dropped his gaze to the path.