“What are you talking about?”

“What day did you arrive here?”

“Saturday.”

“It’s Friday,” Daniel said quietly.

“What’s the date?” Stormy asked. He reached in his pocket, pulled out a plane ticket. “To me, it’s Thursday. I flew into Chicago yesterday. September ninth.”

“It’s Friday the eighteenth,” Daniel told him.

“Oh, shit.” Mark sat down hard on the couch.

“You think you’ve only been here for a day, but by my watch it’s been over a week.”

Laurie’s head hurt. No matter how much they talked, they were still in the dark. They could not pull their stories together, could not create coherence out of the chaos.

“So where are we?” she said quietly. “When are we?”

The door to the kitchen swung open and Billington? Billingson? Billings? Billingsly? Billingham? walked in, carrying a tray of hors d’oeuvres.

Daniel turned toward him. “What is this?” he demanded.

The other man chuckled.

“And what’s your name?” Norton asked. “We seem to have conflicting reports.”

“We’ll just call him Mr. Bill,” Stormy said.

Laurie felt a little bit better. Humor leavened the seriousness of the situation, made it not seem so scary, so solemn, so grave.

Grave.

“You can call me Mr. Billings,” the assistant said in a voice that brooked no argument. “That is the name by which I am currently known.” He put the tray down on the table.

“What’s going on?” Daniel asked.

“You want to know what’s happening? You want to know why you entered a House in Dry River, Arizona”—he nodded at Mark—“and you entered a House in Chicago, Illinois”—Stormy—“and yet you’re both here? Along with everyone else?”

“It had crossed our minds,” Stormy said dryly.

“It’s because the Houses are getting stronger. They are almost at full strength.”

Laurie stared at the assistant. She had to keep reminding herself that he was five different men, a different person to each of them, and that was a hard thing to fully comprehend. There were similarities, obviously, but there were differences as well: different dynamics in their relationships with him, different memories and histories, different names. It was, she supposed, like looking at the individual facets of a giant diamond from five angles. Or like the old blind-men-and-the-elephant story.

“I didn’t know there were other Houses,” Daniel said.

Billings smiled. “Perhaps I forgot to mention that.”

Stormy snorted. “I guess each House is a post of your electrified fence, huh?”

“Not a bad analogy, Stormy boy.” His expression darkened. “But lose the sarcasm, and please refrain from speaking to me in that manner. I am less than happy with that attitude.”

Stormy shut up.

“So where are we?” Laurie asked. “Whose House are we in?”

“All of them.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

He smiled at her. “It doesn’t have to.”