Tara gathered her Craft into a net to snare him, hooks to catch and draw him back. Shadow rolled over her, and she cast out her arm.

But a massive claw closed around her wrist, and Aev’s body blocked her view of Shale’s retreat. Tara’s lightning spent itself against the gargoyle’s stone hide.

“I can stop him,” Tara said. She pulled against Aev’s grip, but the gargoyle’s hand did not move. “Get out of my way.” Growls rose from the other statues, obscured behind the grand curve of Aev’s wings.

“His choice is free,” Aev replied. “We will not let you bind him.”

“He’ll spoil everything.”

“We are not bound save by our own will, and the Lady’s.” Again Aev made that thunder sound. Her claw tightened—slightly—around Tara’s wrist, enough to make Tara feel her bones. “Even Shale. One child, alone, cannot cause too much trouble.”

“Want to bet?”

“Police the city more tonight. He will have no prayers to answer.”

“That’s not enough.”

“It must be.”

She remembered a dead man’s voice: you have fused a chain around your neck.

Tara’s wrist hurt.

“Fine,” she snapped, and let her shadows part and her glyphwork fade, let mortal weakness reassert its claim to the meat she wore. Her skin felt like skin again, rather than a shell. The world seemed less malleable.

Aev let her go. “I am sorry.”

“Come to the meeting tonight,” she said. “I’ll see myself out.” She turned from the gargoyles and their unfinished heaven into darkness.

Somewhere a goddess laughed. Tara didn’t listen.

6

6

Catherine Elle and Raz Pelham sat in a dirty white golem truck in a parking lot across the street from a two-story building that was trying very hard to be nondescript.

She peered through a narrow gap in the curtains over the windows. “For smugglers and slavers, they’re not so good at this.”

“These guys just make the dreamglass,” Raz said. “The trafficking’s Maura’s job.”

“Still. Our den of villainy’s first floor is a sleepy little pizza place with a guy reading at the counter. One cook. They’re barely trying. I doubt they even have pizza. They’d get the biggest shock of their lives if I walked in and ordered a slice.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Watch me.”

“In or out of costume?”

“It’s not a costume.”

“I’m not up on the preferred nomenclature. What am I supposed to call your creepy addictive hive mind symbiont?”

“It’s less addictive now,” she said. “And it works by grace of Goddess. Goddesses aren’t creepy, by definition.”

“How many goddesses have you met?”

“Shut up.”

“We have a few back home in Dhisthra might change your mind is all I’m saying.”

“The one I do know’s more than enough for me. Maybe too much.”