“But it’s your fault! You opened the gate to this world! You gave him a way to get here!” A small voice in the back of Tony’s head seemed to be suggesting that pissing off a wizard was less than smart. Tony ignored it. “If you run, eventually he’ll find that gate, too and he’ll think, ‘oh good idea, another world to conquer’ and you’ll have to run again. And again. You’re thinking of no one but yourself!”

Her lip curled. “And who do you suggest I take through the gate with me? Who chooses who lives and who dies? Do I take you and leave the rest?”

“That’s not what I fucking meant! How many worlds are you going to leave in ruins behind you?”

“Do you think I wanted it to turn out this way?” She surged up out of the chair with enough force to slam it back against the desk and shake the monitors.

“I think you don’t care that it has.”

“Caring means nothing!” Loud enough to echo, the word circled around them for a moment. When it faded, she took a deep breath and continued, back in control. “It didn’t then, it won’t now. It won’t ever! If I could have saved my world, I would have! If I could save this world, I would. But I couldn’t and I can’t, and if all I can save is myself, then I’m not going to sit around here and die! Tell the world if you want to. Give a news conference. Maybe someone in that one percent is a person in power and, convinced, will face the Shadowlord with soldiers and weapons. It still won’t matter. It didn’t and it won’t. He can’t be stopped. And if you need to hear it, I’m sorry. But that doesn’t matter either. He’s barely begun and the end is already in the can. You can’t stop it.”

“I have to try.”

Her snort spoke volumes. “If you go down fighting, you’re just as dead as if you lived out your final days happily ignoring the inevitable. I can make you forget again.”

“And that worked so well last time,” he sneered. “In fact, now that I think of it, your previous work was not exactly inspiring. We don’t even know if your potion did anything but drop Lee drunk on his ass. You said that sometimes the shadows have no effect. This could have been one of those times. So you know what? I’m going to take out those four new shadows my . . .”

“Seven.”

“What?”

“I counted seven shadows.”

“Fine. Whatever. Seven. I’ll take them out myself.” He spun on his heel, the rubber screaming against the floor, and headed for the stairs. “I don’t need you.”

“Good. Because I have no intention of watching another world die.”