Jean-Pierre wished more than anything that he could help facilitate the emergence of more WOTBs, but nothing at present had transpired to hasten the process.

Once at the grid, he stepped back and let Fiona do what she did the best. She checked each of the anomalies that the grid-keepers found, searching for a special shading that only Fiona could see, which had in the past five months never failed once to produce a blood slave facility.

A few minutes later, she turned back to him and shook her head. She shifted to lean to her right then waved. When Jean-Pierre looked over his shoulder, he saw Alison through the windows that flanked the hallway as well as the grid room. She smiled, stopped, then waved an arm forward, beckoning Fiona to join her.

Jean-Pierre accompanied Fiona to the room Alison had decided to use to begin the strange sort of obsidian flame training. Once inside, he closed the door, but he moved to the glass windows that fronted the hall and turned the two closest blind slats up so that he could see movement in other parts of the facility. He might not be able to see everything, but he could make certain assessments just by watching who travelled the halls and at what speed.

* * *

“What’s wrong?” Fiona asked. The moment she had taken a good look at Alison, she knew she had to ask.

Alison rolled her eyes but she turned in a complete circle, threw her hands wide, and said, “You were a young mother once, right?”

All the tension Fiona had been feeling drifted away. She had expected something about death vampires—or worse, Endelle, since Alison worked most days as the scorpion queen’s executive assistant. But babies? Yes, she knew something about that.

“It’s hard, isn’t it?” Fiona offered.

The office was bare of furniture except for a handful of chairs against the wall nearest the door. Alison moved to sit in one and crossed her arms over her chest. “I never thought I’d feel this way. I mean I always wanted a baby, but I didn’t expect this.” She lifted her eyes to Fiona, her lovely blue eyes rimmed with gold. She put her hand above her heart and rubbed. “I ache when I’m away from Helena, and it’s really getting to me.”

Fiona chuckled. She had raised two children. “That’s so we bond really well with them. It’s a beautiful trick of nature, because in about two years, you’re going to want to kill her.”

Alison smiled. “The Terrible Twos.”

“Or Threes. Some children don’t assault your humanity until they’re three.”

Alison leaned back in the chair and took a couple more breaths. She relaxed her arms and let them dangle at her sides. “It’s just that this is a really hard time to bring children into the world.”

There was so much Fiona could have said, about how she’d lost her beloved Peter forever when he was eight, how she’d lost 115 years with Carolyn. But she went to something else. “A friend of mine and her three children died of typhoid fever in 1883. I know that most of the diseases from my era have been eradicated on Mortal Earth in the United States, but I can remember saying exactly what you just said, so I would suggest this: When has it ever been truly safe to bring a child into the world?”

Alison shook her head. “Never, I suppose.”

Fiona moved to sit beside her and took her hand. They shared a few things in common. They were both powerful in ways neither had expected to be.

More than once, Alison had talked about her ascension experiences, stunned by what she had accomplished and what she was supposed to accomplish in the future.

And now Fiona was grappling with something called obsidian flame.

They also had their men in common. Warrior Kerrick had immense power in his own right. His preternatural speed was unmatched.

Fiona glanced at Jean-Pierre, but he wasn’t looking at them. He held the vertical slat aside with two fingers and scanned the activity in other parts of HQ. She wasn’t quite sure if he did this to give them some privacy or because he was in a constant state of concern about issues of security. She suspected the latter.

“Endelle says Helena needs to learn to be tough so that I shouldn’t worry about being separated from her this much.”

Fiona started to laugh and couldn’t seem to stop.

Alison finally said, “Hey, what’s with you?”

Fiona giggled some more. Tears ran down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, but that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time. Do you really think you should take parenting advice from a woman who’s never had children, who wears a mini skirt that I’m pretty sure was taken from an animal that likes to roll around in the mud, and who is known to use the oh-so-elegant expression, damn my pussy?”

Alison sported a smile that turned into a bout of laughter. This led to a discussion about how, during the few days surrounding her ascension, Endelle had worn a bodysuit made entirely from some kind of weird gray snakeskin.

And so it went, until Fiona was doubled over and Alison expressed her fear that if they didn’t stop, she was going to pee her pants.

“I hear she’s into embroidering leather,” Alison cried, wiping her face and barely able to get the words out, “because Owen Stannett wears embroidered leather.”

This sent Fiona into whoops, until she was slapping one hand against her thigh repeatedly.

Fiona remained beside Alison for a good long while, chuckling when Alison chuckled, catching Alison’s eye and laughing some more.

Finally, Alison said, “Well, I guess we’d better find out what the hell an obsidian flame is.”

But this only caused Fiona to laugh all over again. This life of hers was just so freaking weird.

As Fiona wiped away another set of tears, Alison addressed Jean-Pierre. “You must think we’ve lost our minds.”

He now stood facing into the room and smiling. His eyes held a beautiful light. He leaned against the closed door, his arms over his chest. “I love that you are both laughing. I think it wonderful. We do not laugh enough in this world I think?”

Alison sighed. “No, I guess we don’t.”

Fiona stared at Jean-Pierre. Her heart squeezed tight. This was something she loved about him. He always knew the right thing to say, and he said it.

Alison stood up. “All right, ascender, we’d better get started because the moment we’re done here I have to report to you-know-who. I also need to relieve Kerrick on babysitting duty before he heads to the Borderlands tonight.”

Fiona stood up as well and blew the air from her cheeks. So this was it. With any luck, between the two of them she would learn exactly what it meant to be the gold variety of obsidian flame.

* * *

Caz materialized into the grand black marble foyer of Greaves’s penthouse in Geneva. Rith waited for him next to a freestanding holy water font.

So Rith had foreseen this meeting. He couldn’t explain the man’s presence otherwise.

“You been dipping into the future streams again?”

Rith just stared at him. All that Asian stoicism. He certainly didn’t smile. He was so odd looking, straight black hair almost to his shoulders, a wide forehead, broad nose.

Still, no answer, not one word.

Caz flexed his pecs, something he did when he was plain mad. He had no patience for this ass-licker. He cleared his mind—the specialty of Fourth ascenders, so that anyone with powers approaching Third level wouldn’t be able to read his thoughts or his intentions. Only then did Rith show a sign of emotion, a faint startled ripple that swayed his black hair in a wave right to left, very faint, barely a movement at all.

Caz walked toward him, holding his gaze then burrowing into Rith’s brain, sort of a mind-fuck, something he loved to do. But damn if this bastard didn’t just sit lotus-style in the middle of his head, forearms balanced on his knees, thumbs and fingers touching.

He wasn’t sure which emotion struck first, more anger or plain old disgust. This man didn’t live. Maybe he had never lived. He sat in his head, cool as a cucumber and twice as useless. But with just a little preternatural magic, Caz mentally walked over to the meditating image and gave him a solid karate kick to the head, one solid foot-jab.

Caz withdrew from Rith’s mind and wasn’t surprised to find the bastard spread out on the floor, screaming and holding his head. At last. A little emotion.

“Let’s talk, shall we?”

Rith looked up at him, his dark eyes darker still. More emotion? Fancy that.

“Did I cause you distress?” Caz asked.

Rith gained his feet. A sheen of sweat covered his face and neck. “What do you want?”

“You’ve been in the future streams, my friend. You tell me.”

Rith pinched his lips together. He looked away from Caz, his eyes shifting back and forth. When they settled, staring at some object on the wall, he said, “You wish to know about the woman, Fiona. You wish information from the future streams. What I can tell you is that you must seek the other obsidian flame first, the one who was beside you while you levitated above the outdoor chapel in Prescott Two.” He paused and met Casimir’s gaze. “Does any of this make sense to you?”

Caz nodded. “Where do I find the woman?”

“Her name is Marguerite and she is locked up in the Creator’s Convent. There is one man who has access to her, however. High Administrator Owen Stannett.”

“Stannett? Fuck.” Just to be sure, he added, “Of the Superstition Mountains Seers Fortress?”

Rith nodded.

“Now, was that so hard?” Caz asked.

But a strange light entered Rith’s eye and a smile curved his lips. “Do what you will, make as many bargains with the devil as you will, but you are not long for this world, Casimir of Fourth Earth. You are not long for this world.”

Caz rolled his eyes. “Fuck off, Seer.”

He lifted his arm and got the hell out of there.

When he landed outside the tall, rusted iron doors of the Superstition Mountains Seers Fortress, he shook his head. Another shithole. What was wrong with these powerful administrators that they insisted on squalor?

He sent his voyeur window on a quick hunt for Stannett and found him in … well, what do you know … a nicely appointed office. Pieces of Stannett’s character fell into place. Clearly, the man saved the best for himself.