She rolled her eyes. “We’ve been over this.”

“Precedent suggests we have no reason to trust you.”

“Does precedent suggest what I have to say to that?”

Then the gate opened and Tony’s knees buckled. Fortunately, Henry caught him before he reached the floor. He figured he’d used up his lifetime allotment of smacking into horizontal surfaces.

“You shouldn’t be so close.”

He struggled back into what was more or less a vertical position. “I need to see this.”

As darkness roiled down from an empty place by the ceiling—the Shadowlord’s reinforcements coming without being called—Arra lifted both arms over her head and rapidly sketched another pattern in the air. She looked like she always did, but she looked like a wizard, too. Acceptance, Tony realized suddenly. She looked like she’d accepted what she was and what that meant.

Pattern complete, she pushed it forward. There was a sizzle and flash when it hit the darkness. A hiss and a flash as it hit the gate. A distant scream as it disappeared and there was a flashback through the gate so bright Henry threw both arms in front of his eyes. Tony sagged back against CB’s momentarily comforting bulk.

He felt the gate snap closed. Arra was still standing there. He must have tensed because CB murmured, “She’ll go another time. There are things here that need taking care of.”

Right. Of course. “The cats.”

“Also the cats.” Chester Bane looked out over the soundstage and realized he had been a part of something remarkable. The defeat of an invading evil. The more significant defeat of personal demons. The discovery of a hero in an unlikely place. And the whole damned thing had put them seriously behind schedule. Still, he allowed reluctantly, it could have been worse. They could also be over budget. “Mr. Fitzroy, if you could assist me with . . .”

The bodies, Tony filled in silently.

Blinking away what must have been painful afterimages, Henry nodded at CB and turned again to Tony. “Will you be all right?”

Tony slid sideways until his weight was against the lid of Raymond Dark’s coffin. “I’ll be fine.”

Eventually.

As the two men moved away, another moved in.

Cradling his left arm against his body, Lee stared at Tony for a long moment. Did people always do this much staring or am I just noticing it now? He blinked, then asked himself, “Why not?” and stared back.

“That was . . .” The actor’s brows nearly met over his nose. “There were . . .” He swallowed and, looking as though he was maybe thirty seconds from a total meltdown, jerked his head toward the place where the gate had been. “There was light. What the hell was that?”

“This is television.” Tony swept his arm around in a gesture expansive enough to take in both cameras still pointed toward the center of the set. “It was a special effect.”