It was me. He was scared of me.

I glanced in the rear-view, half expecting to see something strange in the mirror, but it was just my same old face, slightly flushed from anger.

Mystified by his reaction, I started the car and drove home. The whole way, neither of us said a word.

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Glossary of Places, Terms, and Individuals

Andy (Andrew) Duff: A Nolander who belongs to Cordus’s organization. An air-worker.

Baasha: The lingua franca of the Second Emanation.

Ben Ryder: Beth’s brother, older by ten years. He manages a hardware store in Dorf, Wisconsin. His wife is Justine Ryder, and his children are Tiffany, Jazzy, Lia, and Madisyn.

Beth (Elizabeth Joy) Ryder: A member of Cordus’s organization. Until age twenty-three, a receptionist at a doctor’s office in Dorf, Wisconsin, and severely afflicted with panic disorder.

Bob of Dorf: An ice man who lived in the graveyard attached to a Catholic church in Beth Ryder’s hometown.

Callie McCallister: A member of Cordus’s organization who lives in Dorf, Wisconsin. Gifted with prescience.

capacity: A measure of someone’s strength as an essence-worker.

carven strait: A set of two stones (or other objects) invested with the ability to transport people from the location of one to the location of the other. Their making is thought by Cordus to be a lost art.

caste: The level of essence-working ability attained by an individual (the term is thought inappropriate by some). Reaching the first caste means being sensitive to worked essence to the degree that one can “see through” a half-working and recognize the presence of a working; many workers never leave the first caste. One enters the second caste upon manifesting a gift. Achieving the third caste means becoming sensitive to natural (unworked) essence. A worker who has mastered a significant number of learned workings is said to have entered the fourth caste; few workers reach this level, which requires great time and study as well as natural strength.

Cordus: A great power born in Constantinople around the year 330 or 340. Gifted in mind-working. Styles himself “Lord.” His full name is Gnaeus Cornelius Marci Filius Cordus.

court: A formal reception space established by a power. Cordus holds court in a penthouse suite at the top of the Time Warner Center in Manhattan.

Dorf: The small town in north-central Wisconsin where Beth Ryder grew up. A strait is located nearby, at an old mill at Bilford Crossing.

Doyle Schumaker: An officer in the Dorf police force. His K-9 partner is a German shepherd named Abby.

dress code: At formal events, Nolanders are expected to wear black. This clothing distinguishes them from Seconds, who usually wear more colorful outfits. Nolanders must wear small amounts of white if they possess significant power; the greater their power, the more white they are permitted to wear.