“This isn’t the one we’re watching for,” Quinn said, stalking across the room. He was wearing tactical camo instead of period clothing. The woman hovered near the doorway. She’d been sent to get him when I arrived. They’d been expecting me.

  No, not me. This had been a trap for Ryan. And I’d fallen into it.

  I raised my hands and dropped my staff, backing away. “Oh, hey Quinn. Uh…how’s Tacy?”

  “Cut the pleasantries,” he said. “You realize the boss wants your balls, don’t you? What were you thinking? Stealing from Ulric himself?” He paused, then laughed. “Wait. This is the code you copied? You tried to hide in this dimension? Johnny boy, you’ve made terrible decisions in your life, but this one is precious!”

  Oh, hell.

  “Not even bright enough to destroy the original key,” Quinn said. “Not that it would have mattered, with the backups. But tell me honestly, Johnny. Did you have any idea what you were doing when you leaped in here?”

  “I’m…not one of you,” I said. “I’m a cop.”

  “A cop? You’re barely a door guard, Johnny. We’ve purchased real cops in the force; why would we need a dropout?”

  Dropout.

  Damn. It was true.

  I sank down to the floor, against the table beside the wall. Another big chunk of my life slid into place.

  I wasn’t a detective. I’d washed out after six months. I’d left the academy, disgraced. Just like I had with art school. Just like I had in everything I’d ever tried…

  I’d tried to make ends meet, but failed, so I turned to petty thievery and grifting. I’d spent years on a downward spiral, until I’d ended up sleeping—literally—in a gutter.

  Then, ten years ago, Ulric had invited me in.

  This dimension was supposed to be my escape, I thought, mind dull. I wanted to get away. Go someplace where I wasn’t a failure a dozen times over…

  After Jen’s death…I ran away. Stole a code.

  Came here.

  Jen always wanted to visit one of these dimensions. And Ulric had hundreds stashed away in case he needed somewhere to hide. I’d thought surely wouldn’t miss one, or even notice…

  Quinn was still chuckling as he turned away from me, helping himself to a mug of ale on Wealdsig’s table. He pulled something from his pocket—a phone? How on earth had they gotten those to work here?

  “Should we be worried?” Wealdsig said, gesturing to me. “He has powers, like your kind.”

  “What, Johnny?” Quinn said, looking up from his phone. “You’re kidding, right? Does he look dangerous?”

  “You all look weak to me,” Wealdsig said.

  “Johnny wasn’t even dangerous when he was supposed to be.”

  Quinn held up his phone to me. “I’m going to tell the boss you’re here, Johnny. You could go beg to him, if you want. He might not toss you off a cliff. Then again, he’s been in a terrible mood lately…”

  “You set a trap,” I said, trying to keep him talking. “But not for me?”

  “Your old roommate is here,” Quinn said. “We got the dimension locked off after he entered, but with his augments… Well, the boss isn’t taking risks. He’s been hunting us for what, ten years now? Struck at us a week ago, disabled some of our equipment. That man is a real pain.

  “So, we’ve been trying to nab him. We’re kidnapping kids and spreading rumors. You know how Chu gets about kidnappings. And you know how the boss gets about him. Chu getting some backup made him…” Quinn trailed off, then grinned. “Hell! That wasn’t backup that the tracker spotted warping in up north. That was you, wasn’t it?”

  “I guess…” I blinked. “I don’t really remember how I got here.”

  “It hit you hard,” Quinn said. “You’ve got the look. This dimensional stuff can wipe your entire brain.” He thought a moment, then sat his phone on the table, taking a long slurp of his ale. “Boss might be willing to forgive you if you agree to be bait. You’re the only person Chu might want dead more than he wants the boss.”

  I was barely listening. It was a lot to sort through. Memories, still fragmentary, but fitting together. I’d joined Ulric’s cartel…but the next few years were still blank. Something had happened, and I’d…

  I’d become Ulric’s door guard. A glorified bouncer. The butt of jokes. Whenever anyone wanted a laugh, there was Johnny to poke. It made me livid. I could have strangled them all.

  Except I’d run away. Like I always did. And I’d picked the exact wrong place to go. I slumped down—hating the way Quinn snickered at me—while remembering hundreds of similar moments.

  Only one major piece of my life was missing. Art school was clear, the academy mostly so. The grifting and the gutter were coming into focus…but what came after that?

  Wait. If Quinn and Ulric had laid a trap for Ryan using kidnapped children, Ealstan and Sefawynn were going to fall right into it. I needed to…

  Do what? I’d frozen in the fight against the Hordamen. I was barely a door guard. I was a coward.

  You can’t let anything happen to her, I told myself, panic welling up inside of me. This time, you can do something. So do it.

  I was a coward, but I was also a very, very good liar. Could I get rid of Quinn? He was by far the most dangerous thing in this city.

  “You…you really think Ulric will give me a second chance?” I said, turning back toward him.

  “Depends on what you can do for him, Johnny. Like always.”

  I stood and shuffled from one foot to the other. I bit my lip. Then, “I saw Ryan,” I blurted.

  Quinn perked up.

  I hurried over to him, then palmed a berry from my pocket and sat it next to the phone. “Please,” I whispered.

  “Please what?” Quinn asked.

  “Please help me,” I said. “I promise, I saw Ryan right after I dropped in here. He held a knife to my throat, quite near gutted me. But he let me go. Old history and all.”

  “Surprised about that,” Quinn said, reaching for his phone.

  “Don’t tell Ulric!” I said, grabbing Quinn’s arm. “Not until we come up with a plan. Maybe we could package Ryan for him? Only… Quinn, Ryan is hunting the boss. Heading to some place called Maelport?”

  “That’s where our base is,” Quinn said. “Idiot. Chu must know about the rescue party, so he’s going to try to stop the boss before it arrives…”

  Wealdsig watched us with a wild grin. There was something seriously wrong with that fellow. He seemed erratic, like he didn’t care about anyone or anything. The wight couldn’t work if people were watching, so when Wealdsig tipped his head back to drink from a new mug, I turned Quinn away from the table, my arm around his shoulder.

  “Quinn,” I said softly, “Ryan’s gone rogue. He wants to kill the boss here, beyond the reach of the law. You know their history.”

  Quinn nodded gravely.

  “Let me tell the boss,” I said.

  Quinn legitimately considered it, which surprised me. He was loyal to a fault—considered himself old-school mafia.

  “Can’t do it, Johnny,” he said, turning to the table. “Boss needs to know now, and he needs to hear it straight, no spin.” He picked up the phone.

  Which fell apart in his fingers.

  “Ha!” Wealdsig laughed, pointing with his good hand. “The wights don’t like you, outlander. I warned you.”

  “Hell,” Quinn said, trying to get the pieces together. It was a lost cause—the phone crumbled in his fingers. Screws, the plastic shell, even the motherboard seemed to have been divided into their base components.

  “I hate those things,” Quinn muttered, then looked at me. “I need to get to Maelport. Follow if you want, but I’m taking my bike. Run, Johnny. I doubt the boss will find you on the continent, if you can make it there.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I…didn’t expect that much.”

  “I owe you,” he said. “For the thing with Tacy. You know.”

  Nope. I didn’t. I nodded anyway.

  Quinn was off a moment later. I took a deep breath. He’d probably taken the only gun in the city with him. So, well, I’d done that to help. Maybe I could lie my way into tricking Wealdsig again to help Sefawynn?

  I picked up my staff and turned toward him. The reeve was leaning back in his chair now, his feet up on the table. “More tricks?” he asked.

  “Can you take me to the changeling prisoner?” I asked. “The one Ulric left here?”

  “Nah,” he said. He tried to take a drink, but the mug was empty, so he sighed and tossed it away. (Three stars for the durable mugs. One star for the ambience. Floor excessively sticky.) He seemed moderately drunk at this point. “Sorry, harmless one. Your friends can tear holes in men’s chests by pointing at them—so I’m not inclined to…”

  He trailed off, frowning. Then he clambered to his feet, waving to his two hearthmen, who had watched all of this with mute concern. They probably watched Ulric and Quinn annihilate a few of their friends when they first came through, I thought. Which may have happened a lot earlier than I’d assumed. They’d been here for a while, if they already had allies and plans in motion.

  What had drawn Wealdsig’s attention? With a curse, I realized I might have turned my hearing down a little too low. I raised it enough to hear shouting outside; one of the voices belonged to Ealstan.

  They’d been discovered.

  I pushed out the front door of the manor, accompanied by a tipsy Wealdsig and his hearthmen. The courtyard was lit brightly by torches. People ran around, crying about an attack.

  “There, Midfather,” one hearthman said, pointing to the wooden wall nearby—where a small huddle of soldiers surrounded a beleaguered Ealstan. Behind him, Sefawynn clutched her brother, her back to the wall. Ealstan waved his axe about in broad arcs, trying to get the soldiers to stay away. Nearby, several archers set up in the courtyard. There was no sign of Thokk.

  “Please, Midfather!” I said to Wealdsig. “Call off your soldiers. Those people are friends of mine.”

  “Are they?” he said. “Let’s see how they fight, coward!”

  A moment later, the soldiers parted and an archer took aim.

  The arrow lodged in Ealstan’s gut, perhaps hitting his spine. He gasped, stumbling, blood spilling out of the wound, staining his fine tunic.

  The sight provoked something visceral in me, like an arrow through my own guts. Sefawynn’s scream echoed in the air.

  Ealstan had believed in me. He was the only person in any dimension who thought of me as anything other than a con man and a joke.

  The person he knows is a lie, I reminded myself. Looking back, I saw the signs of my delusional thinking easily. The effort I’d made to convince myself I’d been anything but the obvious.

  I knew the truth now.

  But damn it, Ealstan saw me. Met my eyes. And smiled.

  Then two more arrows hit him.

  I dropped my staff and started running. I barreled toward the crowd of soldiers, sounding thunder from my mouth. In a fantastically bad tactical decision, I tackled one of them to the ground.

  I managed to get to my knees above him and raised a fist to punch.

  I froze as I heard the phantom shouting again. Saw the flashes. Felt the terror. The shrinking of my soul as I…

  As I threw a match?

  The last piece clicked into place.

  The augments, paid for by Ulric so I could fight in the Enhanced Fighting League. Years spent rising through the ranks. Then a title match against Quinn.

  I remembered a crowd shouting with anger as I fell to the mat, my ribs crushed. Bets lost.

  A hero, failed.

  Flashing lights. Cameras.

  Quinn standing above me, fists bloodied.

  And I remembered kneeling there, letting him kick me so hard, it broke me. Literally.

  Ulric had ordered my chest and skull augments compromised, so my fall would be worse. Better for the margins, you see. I’d spent years trying to bring them back online after he laughed when I asked him to do it.

  He liked me being weak, bearing the scars of my fall. The dive he’d ordered me to take, then mocked me for.

  I hated him. I hated it all.

  A shadow of motion. I blocked the axe from an oncoming soldier with my forearm, which turned steel grey. Then I threw myself to my feet and slugged the guy in the chest with full augments, hurling him back some ten feet and into the dirt.

  I was tired—

  Of being called—

  A coward.

  I was tired of believing it.

  My training took over. I’d spent six years in the ring, fighting in the bloodiest version of the mixed boxing sport— where they allowed specialized bladed weapons, then patched you up afterward. And none of these medieval idiots had blades that could cut through plating, while I had a whole lot of pent-up anger.

  I caught a sword on my arm, then smashed the blade with my other fist. It wasn’t enough to shatter the sword, but I might have broken some bones in the soldier’s hand as the blade whipped out of it. Another man came at me from the side, and I gave him a flying lesson, sending him tumbling end over end. As I broke a third guy’s arm, the others got a clue and dashed away, shouting that I was one of them.

  Damn right, I was.

  But then there were those archers across the courtyard. They hesitated—perhaps worried about drawing the attention of the guy who had just punched two of their friends into next week. But if they released, I was as good as dead. Archers lined the wall now. Even if I managed to block a few arrows with my arms or back, more shots would follow.

  “Put down your weapons!” I shouted, enhancing my voice with thunder. “And I will spare you!”

  A few of them glanced toward the reeve. He was laughing wildly; he was enjoying all of this. “You were supposed to be a coward, outsider!” he called to me.

  “That’s what Ulric thinks,” I called back. “Join with me, Wealdsig. Together, we can bring him down and steal his weapons!”

  He squinted at me with his one eye. He seemed to be considering it, but I didn’t have time to wait. Ealstan was groaning softly, as Sefawynn and her brother tried to stanch the blood flow. Dared I turn my attention away from the archers to help?

  If only I could get my other platings online. I called up the password screen.

  Why did I think I could guess it now, with my brain still full of holes? I’d spent the last three years trying to figure out this password, Ulric laughing at me the entire time.

  I was again confronted with what I was. Who I was. My tense battle readiness faded.

  Other soldiers, urged on by Wealdsig, approached. The reeve joined them, his axe out, crowding us. He’d seen me crush two soldiers, but still he came up on me. He wasn’t a coward. I’d give him that. This was a people accustomed to fighting against terrible odds.

  “Sorry,” Wealdsig said, axe at the ready. “If you had the powers they had—and could kill at a distance—you wouldn’t look so frightened!”

  Ealstan was gasping, staring heavenward, blood leaking from his mouth.

  I really was useless. I couldn’t stop this.

  I lowered my arms from the guard position and slumped to the ground.

  “Take me,” I whispered. “I have knowledge that can help you. Let my friends go.”

  “He’s dead,” Wealdsig said, gesturing to Ealstan. “Poor fellow. I liked him.”

  I winced. But then, I distinctly heard an unfamiliar voice in my ear.

  “This is the best you can do?” it asked. “And I thought you were worth the trouble I was putting into this.”

  Was this the best I could do? I looked at Ealstan’s wounds, and realized that while I was useless, my medical nanites were not. I pushed aside a distraught Sefawynn, then yanked out the arrows. Her brother sat back, hands bloody, horrified.

  I brought up my medical nanite menu and instigated first aid mode. Then I deactivated the plating on my palm. With Ealstan’s own knife, I cut a slice in my skin, then pressed it to his wound.

  Institute emergency person-to-person medical nanite transfer? popped up in my vision. With a click, I sent them crawling from my bloodstream into his. As I pressed my hand against the wound, medical data scrolled by on my vision.

  Microsutures complete. Bleeding stanched.

  30% of nanites transferred.

  Bacteria scrubbing begun.

  70% of nanites transferred.

  Tissue reconstruction initiated.

  90% of nanites transferred. Please disconnect and contact emergency services. Be aware that your personal nanite levels will remain low for approximately 48 hours as your supply is reconstructed. Seek an infusion and take extra care. Consume additional carbon as soon as possible.

  Process complete.

  I relaxed as Ealstan’s flesh regenerated. He groaned—with an emergency rescue like this, the nanites wouldn’t numb the nerve endings. They’d break down one another to form tissue and blood cells out of their organic structure, and they couldn’t afford to waste time or energy on pain.

  I knew how that felt. In the Enhanced Fighting League, you’d often end up in emergency resuscitation—cut literally to pieces—after a bout. Then again, it was better than dying a slow, painful death via gut wound.

  Ealstan’s groaning stopped and he sat up, poking at his wounds, which were already scabbed over by a restoration poultice made from deactivated nanites. We were still surrounded by enemies, so it wasn’t much of a rescue, but Ealstan looked at me in awe, and Sefawynn and her brother both stared at me agog.

  I raised my fists again, but my heart wasn’t in it. I knew how it would end. I’d get in a few hits, but then one would stab me in the vitals, or those archers would loose. With my nanites so low, that would be it. We’d all be dead.

  Except…Wealdsig was staring at me, slack-jawed.

  “You can heal?” he asked softly.

  I glanced at Ealstan, who had pulled up his shirt, more fully revealing where the three arrow holes had been.

  “I can,” I lied, meeting Wealdsig’s eyes. “I lack the ability the others have to kill from a distance. But I can restore the dying to life.”

  “Can you…” Wealdsig said, “bring back the dead?”