“You two listen to me. I’m going to release you. We’ll go find the others and then go back. You have a dispute with me, it can wait till we’re out of here. You spill anything to Abelard, I’ll leave you behind. You kill or disable me, none of us gets back, and that’s the truth. Do you understand?” Han waited, and of course they didn’t do or say anything in their immobilized condition, but he knew they weren’t idiots, so he gave them the benefit of the doubt and disabled the charm.

They levered to their feet, slapped their hands on their amulets, and eyed him like he was a wild beast.

“Come on.” Without looking back, Han strode down the street toward Crow’s wall of flame, which had died to nothing in his absence.

“Alister!” A tall, angular figure walked toward him, carefully stepping over the scorched site of the wall. “You’d better have an explanation for this.”

It was Dean Abelard, her hand wrapped around her amulet. The others trailed behind, all except for Gryphon, who rushed ahead to take Fiona’s hands and peer anxiously into her face.

“Are you all right?” he said. Fiona nodded wordlessly. Gryphon slid an arm around her when she seemed in danger of falling.

“Alister!” Abelard repeated, her voice flinty. “What happened?”

Han shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “I wish I did. This never happened before, not any of the times I crossed over. I never saw anyone I didn’t plan to meet or bring with me.”

“You’re injured,” the dean said, looking at each of them in turn, her dark brows drawn together.

“That cove tried to kill us,” Han said. “Just laid into us like a mad tom, sending flames flying and spouting one charm after another. We held him off, but it was touch and go, even three on one.” He shuddered. “Then finally he just blinked out. Disappeared. He must’ve run out of power.”

Abelard frowned. “You don’t know this man? You never saw him before in the real world, either?”

“I never did,” Han said. He shot Micah and Fiona a warning look. “You ever?”

They just shook their heads, eyes wide, their faces pale as plaster.

“We didn’t know where you were, or if you were—if you were still alive,” Hadron said, looking up at the Bridge Street clock. “It’s been a lot more than ten minutes—thirty, at least.”

“Proficients deVilliers and Hadron attempted to go back on their own when we knew it was past time for us to return,” Abelard said. “They were unsuccessful.”

They were all white-lipped and scared to death, except for Gryphon and Abelard.