She sidles slowly to her left, taking care to appear to be the exact opposite of a person who is running away.

She bows to them. “I must apologize. However inappropriate, you are in my home. May I invite you into the parlor for refreshment? We can discuss these matters further in comfort there.”

She backs through the archway leading into the parlor, then turns and walks slowly past the receiving sofas and chairs to the buffet upon which many bottles of wine and spirits are kept.

Ginnix follows her, the other two agents keeping a respectful distance from her heels.

“I appreciate the offer of hospitality, but I’m afraid there’s nothing left to discuss. You’ll be coming with us now.”

Lexi, her back to them, caresses the long neck of a large bottle with fingers that are beginning to tremble.

“Am I under arrest?” she asks in an even tone.

“Again, we’ve reached the end of civil pretense,” Ginnix reiterates. “You are coming with us. We will utilize you as needed. It’s that simple.”

“I am not a thing,” Lexi says, barely above a whisper.

Her hand closes tightly around the bottle’s neck.

“You are a national resource. And this is how that resource serves your nation at this time.”

Ginnix steps forward, leaving Jindo and Nils in the archway. She strides past the ornate and lavish furniture, black-gloved hand coiled around the handle of her dagger in its scabbard.

Lexi listens to the approaching footfalls, steeling herself to swing the bottle.

Ginnix has closed half the gap between them when a sudden, awful gargling sound stays her feet and snaps her attention back to the parlor arch.

Nils’s shoulders are flung back and his stubby arms splayed awkwardly. His eyes have gone wide and have rolled far back to expose the spidery red veins of their underbelly.

The agent’s body twitches to one side and a head of dark hair and two burning eyes rise above Nils’s stumpy height.

It’s Daian. He’s left his sickbed, and not only managed to replace his trousers and boots and make it down the winding tower stairs, he’s somehow summoned the strength to creep up behind the agent and end him.

By now Lexi has turned around as well, and the sight of him causes her to forget all about the bottle and using it as a weapon.

The blade of Daian’s dagger has impaled Nils at the base of the agent’s skull, piercing his brain and scrambling it like the contents of an egg in a frying pan. With nothing left to control his limbs, the only thing keeping his rotund body aloft is Daian’s grip on the dagger.

“Three black eagles, all in a tree,” Daian intones in the cadence of a child’s nursery rhyme. “Count them down and see how they bleed.…”