Her destination was north on Colorado Avenue, in the old industrial section. The bright summer sunlight made her squint, trying to read the street signs, lancing into her head. She’d visited the offices of the Plodding Pony Express several times before; always discreetly. She was fairly confident of finding it again. Given the burden of bad news from all fronts, she wanted to make sure that she wasn’t followed or have rumors spark along her back-trail.

I’m pretty sure she’s still here. And she’s probably at the warehouse. I hope she manages to think fast on her feet. Though, when has BD ever been less than quick on the uptake?

Tiphaine found her steps wandering a bit along the sidewalk. A cowboy reached out to shove her away, met her eyes through the slit of the visor, clearly rethought his actions, and swerved around her.

Blowing the cover of the Meeting’s spymistress would be a bad thing. A rumor that the Grand Constable has a magical wound! God’s wounds! But she got out of that infiltration mission in Pendleton back during the Great Cluster-Fuck. That took real ability. And she’s supposed to be good at . . . the sort of thing I’m dealing with. Christ, off to a witch doctor, literally.

And did I really swear God ’s wounds, like some kid brought up by Society retreads who took a nosedive into their personas at the Change and never came out again?

That was funny too; Sandra was a Society retread, and she had slipped into her Catherine-de-Medici-Eleanor-of-Aquitaine persona . . . or slipped out of her twentieth-century one, like a snake shedding its skin. Tiphaine paused to pant and controlled the impulse to laugh at the way her mind had used the oath. It was a warm day, but she was shivering, again, like a winter chill that got into your bones after riding all day through sleet and the campfire afterwards smoking and hissing.

I’m not going back to Montinore until I know I’m not dragging fecal matter along behind. Delia might be able to handle this, but I’m not risking her or the children. Whoever or Whatever is out there, give me a hand here!

She turned in at the gaping purple and teal sheet-metal doors of the “Plodding Pony” headquarters into a warm fug of smells with horse and mule the strongest. The huge warehouse was dark and spots danced before her eyes as they tried to adjust to a light level much less irritating than the clear high-altitude summer glare in Bend. She made her way back through the gloom, dodging packed cases on pallets, carts, straw bales and unidentified miscellaneous pieces sitting ready to trip her up. At the far back she could see some stairs, lit by a few dusty windows of ancient glass. Hopefully, the offices were up there.

“Can I help you?”