Jess grabbed Wolfe’s shoulder, but the older man shook himself free with an acidic look Jess remembered all too well from classes. “I’m fine, Brightwell,” he said.

Jess drew his small sidearm and handed it over. Wolfe looked at the weapon with what Jess was almost sure was longing, then shook his head. “If I’m not armed, my death’s much harder to explain,” he said. He turned and scrambled lithely through the broken window, avoiding the sharp edges, and dropped inside. Jess cursed under his breath and shoved the hand weapon back in place before following. He didn’t manage to avoid all the shards, and felt the hot kiss of a cut along one cheek as he plunged after Wolfe.

He found Wolfe only a step inside, standing very still, and Wolfe’s arm went up to block his path when he would have pushed forward. “No,” he said quietly. “Wait.”

“Why?” Jess was acutely aware that his back, Wolfe’s back, was to the open street, and took a step slightly toward the man, to try to block a shot if one was coming. “Get to cover!”

“Listen.”

Jess heard it then: the soft moan of someone in pain. It had been Helva who’d come in here, he remembered; he hadn’t heard her signal clear. “Get down!” Jess barked, and shoved Wolfe behind the fragile shelter of an overturned table. “Stay there! Glain, Helva’s down!”

Glain’s voice from outside sounded clipped and calm. “Secure the Scholar first.”

“Secured,” he said, and fixed Wolfe with a look. “Stay that way. Sir.”

Jess took out a small sealed bottle, twisted the cap, and shook it, and a soft yellow glow formed inside as chemicals mixed. A milder version of Greek fire—a reaction that produced light but not explosion. He held it up and off to the side, in case someone should be aiming at the glow, but though a few bullets still flew outside, nothing came his way.

He saw Helva down near the back of the small, cluttered room. Her eyes were open and she was still breathing; he could see the rise and fall of her chest. “Helva!” She didn’t move, not even to turn her head toward him, though he thought her gaze shifted his way. Whatever was wrong with her, it was serious. Jess pointed at Wolfe. “Stay here.”

Wolfe nodded. Jess moved carefully through the clutter in the way—broken, dusty furniture; bolts of rotten cloth; unidentifiable bits of shattered lives that had been dumped here for show and to make their job harder. He didn’t see any enemies lurking; there wasn’t room for them. One door at the back, still closed, though he supposed someone might have shot Helva through it, then shut it again. He rattled it, to be thorough. It was securely locked.

He knelt down next to her, put the light down, and checked her for signs of trauma. No blood. No, wait—a small trickle of it running down her hand . . .

Something moved in the crook of Helva’s arm, and for a bizarre, insane moment Jess thought she’d grown a third arm, until some screaming, instinctive wisdom in the back of his mind recognized the sinuous way the thing moved as it glided over her chest.