Undone

The crush at the stairs eased, and firefighters in yellow slickers urgently beckoned us to proceed down and out of the building, as the sirens howled their alarm.

Luis had enemies. So did I. So did Ma

There was no way to be sure who had been the intended target of the attack, except one: ask the one individual I knew had witnessed it.

I slipped away from Ma

The Dji

I jumped off the truck, landed heavily—gravity and flesh were an uncomfortable combination—and felt a flash of pain like a knife through my right leg. No broken bones, only a pulled muscle. I forced myself to ignore it as I pushed through the crowd of babbling humans talking excitedly.

When I reached the spot where the first Dji

He had seen me coming, and retreated to where I couldn’t follow.

The other Dji

“How are you enjoying your exile?” she asked me, as I crouched down next to her. Like me, she was Old Dji

“I’m not,” I said shortly. “Ve

“Certainly,” she said, and her lips curved into a faint, a

“Will you?”

“No.”

I held my temper with difficulty. “Then will you convey a message to him, and tell him that I need to ask him what happened?”

Ve

“Did he do this?”

“Do what?”

“Set this fire.”

That earned me a glance, a dismissive one. “Why would he?”

A fair question, but I couldn’t predict what Ashan might or might not do. “Did he order it done?”

“No.” That was surprising; I had not expected so definitive an answer, not from a Dji

She said it with no particular heat, but I knew she meant every word. And she was more than capable. For all her little-girl prettiness, Ve

I bent my head in silent acknowledgment.

Ve

Whatever her motives, Ve

I doubted the people around us could even see him. There was a slight blur to his figure, and when I turned my head away, he disappeared from my peripheral vision altogether.

“You have questions,” he said. “I’m not surprised. I’m Quintus.” He held out his hand to me, human fashion, and I took it with great care. He felt like a pe

“I didn’t think you had,” I said. “My name is—”

“We all know your name, Cassiel. We’ve all been warned.” His voice was deep as a bell but soft, as if I were a great distance away. “I’m sorry. I would like to help you, if I could.”

“You don’t even know me.”

That earned me an amused quirk of his eyebrows. “I’m not one of your Old Dji

“You’re sure?”

“Of course.” His smile turned dark and bitter. “I’m well acquainted with the Warden in question. I was once her slave.”

I let a few seconds of silence pass before I asked the obvious. “Who is it?”

“Why do you think I would tell you?” he asked, and confusion froze me for a long second, while his smile stretched. “I was once her slave; I didn’t say I don’t like her. The two, you know, are not mutually exclusive.”

They were to me. “You won’t give me her name.”

“No, because I know why she did what she did. It was an act of desperation, Cassiel. You should know all about those.” He paused, gaze fixed on the fire. “No one is injured, no one is dead. Let it go.”

“It was directed at me. Or my Conduit, which is the same thing. I can’t ignore it.”

“The matter’s closed. The Warden won’t be coming after either of you again. I swear that to you. I’ll see to it personally.”

I didn’t want to believe Quintus, but there was something so solid and open about him that I finally, grudgingly nodded. “Very well,” I said. “But if your Warden mistress breaks her word and comes for either Ma

He didn’t smile. “Perfectly clear,” he said. “I would do the same, in your position.” He offered his hand again, and we clasped firmly. “Call on me if you need help, Cassiel. I find the world isn’t as exciting now that I’m not in the thick of the fight.”

An odd way to see things. I only wanted out of it, and back to my peaceful existence well away from this world and all its grubby problems.

He nodded, I nodded in return, and Quintus misted away. I had, I thought, made an ally. How reliable of one remained to be seen, but it helped me feel a little less alone, on this day when so much seemed against me.

One of the passing firefighters stopped and frowned at me. “Ma’am? Do you need help?”

“No.” The kind of help I needed, I doubted I would get from him.

Ma

“I kept telling you, bro, get all that crap archived. You ever listen to me? No.” Luis, in the fashion of brothers throughout history, was not being helpful. “When’s the last time you cleaned out those files, anyway?”

Ma

Luis just shook his head. Now that the crisis was past, he seemed to be finding this quite fu