Was there any point in denying it? Maintaining a carefully neutral expression—her emotional responses were hers alone—she picked up a pad of drawing paper and pencil. “Not entirely, no. He hasn’t found the gate. It only remained open for a brief time after I arrived. He’s used the research I left behind to reopen it. And the Shadowlord himself hasn’t dared to cross over. He’s merely sent shadows—minions—through the gate to see what he might find on the other side.”

“Merely? There’s no merely!” Anger pulled him up off the chair. “Nikki Waugh is dead!”

“And there’s nothing you can do about it. Rage will not return the dead to life.” The pencil moved over the center of the page with enough pressure to indent the lines into the paper. “Neither will sorrow.” The lead broke and Arra laid the pencil down, exerting all her will to keep her hand from shaking. When she finally looked up, it was to see Tony staring down at her. “Neither will guilt,” she continued as though there’d been no pencil, no pause. “Trust me that I know this, Tony Foster.”

“All right. Fine. You know.” He whirled around, walked three steps away, whirled again, and walked two steps back, hands opening and closing by his sides. “What are you going to do to stop it from happening again?”

Ah, yes, the sixty-four thousand dollar question, unadjusted for inflation. “There’s nothing I can do.”

“Why the fuck not? You’re a wizard!”

He said the word like it was an answer. Or a weapon. Stretching out an arm, she scooped a square art eraser up out of the clutter in her desk drawer. “Weren’t you listening? We lost. The Shadowlord cannot be defeated. Now he has tasted this world. The next shadow he sends will have more purpose.” The pattern she’d been doodling began to disappear. “It will find a host and use that host to gather specific information.”

“A host? What does that mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. The shadows are his spies, his advance scouts. They’re simple creations at first, but he uses the information they bring him to make each successive sending more complex. Nikki Waugh’s death will allow him to tailor a very complex shadow indeed.”

Tony’s brow furrowed. “He can make a shadow that can take over a person?”

“Yes.”

“A person here?”

“Yes. Here is where the gate is and these shadows—unlike the simpler versions—can’t travel far.”

“Close the gate permanently.”

“Research seems to indicate that the gate can only be manipulated from the originating world.”

“Research seems to indicate?” he repeated incredulously.

Fair enough, that had sounded a bit pompous. “It was one of the few things my order discovered that they were certain of,” she clarified.

“All right. Fine. If you can’t close the gate, then stop the shadow!”

Arra sighed. She lifted her head, met his gaze squarely, and, although it would weaken what she hoped to accomplish here, lied. “I can’t.”

“You can’t?”

“The Shadowlord was not affected by anything we threw at him.” And back to the truth. Such a small lie, like a single dropped stitch, could hopefully be ignored. Not that hope was something she had in great supply of late. The important thing was that all of Tony Foster’s questions be answered. That his curiosity be satisfied.