I grabbed two paperbacks from my bag and hurried around the corner. Deb and Lena stood in the hallway, battling to reach the server room.

Lena must have created another sapling to try to breach the door. She’d gone all out this time. The tree was eight inches thick and continued to grow, roots crumpling the floor while branches tore the ceiling. The thick metal door was bowed inward. Another cluster of branches held a clone two feet off the ground, her limbs twined in wood.

Bullets spat from behind the door. Dark blood soaked Deb’s thigh. Lena gripped Excalibur in one hand and the scabbard in the other. A bullet struck her shoulder, but even as it tore through wood and flesh, the scabbard’s healing magic flowed over the wound, pulling muscle and skin back into place.

‹Kiyoko and a group of at least ten armed soldiers are trying to break into Research,› said Talulah. ‹She knows where we are. I’m not sure how long we can keep them out. I’m going to try—›

‹You keep working,› said Vince. ‹I’ve got this.›

‹What are you—ooh, nice. Quarantine override. We’ve got doors slamming and locking all through the tower. That should slow them down.›

Another Kiyoko stepped through a broken door at the end of the hall. I hurled a gateway from Myke Cole’s Control Point past Lena and Deb. Three gunshots rang out, but the bullets vanished through the portal. Instead of using it to slice Kiyoko in half like I’d done with the Kagan days earlier, I forced the gateway around her like a blanket, sending her through to the other side.

As the “other side” was a nonexistent fictional world, it effectively erased her from existence.

“What took you so long?” Deb shouted. “Did you stop for lunch on the way?”

I stopped before reaching the doorway. Having failed to kill me in the stairwell, Kiyoko would almost certainly have switched to those enchanted bullets to make sure she penetrated my shield. “Call off the attack, Kiyoko. This can’t work. Too many people know the truth. We can help you, but you have to end this.”

The gunfire stopped. I blinked and turned to Lena, who shrugged. I wished I’d been able to read All of One, the book Kiyoko had come from. Was she independent enough to recognize a losing battle and surrender, or would her orders force her to fight to her own death?

I cast a quick spell on Smudge and opened his cage. He scurried down my leg, now invisible. “Go find someplace warm to hide, buddy.”

The oak creaked and bowed, further crumpling the door. Lena risked a quick glance through the opening, then beckoned me over. I saw Kiyoko—one of them—tossing a semiautomatic handgun to the floor. I yanked on her psychic connection to her clones, tying myself into that mental network.