Dechamp shook his head, screwing the lid back on his flask. “My gramps always said, never share your booze with a man who ain’t shared his with you.”

“But that way, nobody’d share their booze with anybody!”

“No,” Dechamp said. “It just means I get twice as much.” He rested his hand on his shovel, looking into the grave. Without the steady rhythm of his work, the graveyard was silent.

They had to be close to the bodies now. The next part would be unpleasant—sorting through the corpses for one that was in pieces, then checking that to see if it contained a spike. Her stomach churned at the thought. Wayne took another bite of his sandwich, hesitated, and cocked his head.

Then he grabbed Marasi under the arm and heaved, flipping her into the grave. The impact knocked the breath out of her.

Gunfire sounded above a moment later.

14

Marasi gasped as Wayne slid into the shallow grave, flopping down square on top of her. It knocked the wind out of her again.

Wayne grunted, and the gunshots stopped a moment later. Still trying to recover, Marasi stared up at the black sky and swirling mist. It took her a moment to realize that the mist was frozen in place.

“Speed bubble?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Wayne said, then groaned, twisting to the side and putting his back to the earthen wall so he wasn’t lying directly on her. His shoulder glistened with something wet.

“You’ve been hit.”

“Three times,” Wayne said, then winced as he turned his leg. “No, four.” He sighed, then took a bite of his sandwich.

“So…”

“Give me a sec,” he said.

She twisted in the grave and peeked up over the earthen lip. Nearby, Dechamp fell slowly—as if through molasses—toward the ground, blood spraying from several gunshot wounds, droplets hanging in the air. A vanishing muzzle flash from the darkness revealed the origin of the gunfire: a group of figures on the path, shadowed and nearly invisible. Bullets zipped through the mist, leaving trails.

“How’d you know?” she asked.

“They made the crickets stop,” Wayne said. “Dechamp musta sold us out. I’d bet Wax’s hat that he sent that boy to fetch these fellows.”

“The Set was here first,” Marasi said, her stomach sinking.

“Yeah.” Wayne poked at one of the holes in his shirt, wiggling it around to check that the wound had healed. With his other hand, he stuffed the last bite of sandwich into his mouth, then joined her in peeking up over the lip of the grave. Above, a lethargically moving bullet hit the invisible edge of Wayne’s speed bubble. In an eyeblink, it zipped across the air—barely a foot over Marasi’s head—before hitting the other side, where it slowed down again.

She cringed belatedly. Anytime something entered a speed bubble, it was refracted, changing trajectory. While it was unlikely one would get bounced so radically that it would point downward toward them, it was possible. Beyond that, Wayne’s bendalloy burned extremely quickly. He’d have to drop the bubble before too long.