Undone

But nothing pointed to a reason anyone might wish him dead. There were no references of enemies, conflicts, nothing.

Ma

Luis, on the other hand, did. He had exceptional successes, but his path was littered with conflict. I began to see a pattern to it, although it was not obvious; Dji

Those Luis had clashed with, both inside and outside of the Wardens, had been dishonest in some way. Like his brother, Luis cared fiercely about such things; unlike Ma

Unlike Ma

I made a note of which Wardens particularly Luis had differed with over the years. There were only two names that appeared more than twice, and both were Fire Wardens: Landry Dent and Molly Magruder.

Molly Magruder was the only female on the list, and the Dji

She was not in New Mexico, but in the adjoining state of Texas, in a town called El Paso. It had an airport.

I decided to go to her.

It was only as I was going through the degrading and tedious process of security checks that I realized that I had not spoken to Ma

At my own risk, perhaps. If this came to a fight, I was as ready as possible; Ma

But I had the very strong feeling that Ma

I didn’t allow that to stop me.

The flight was short, thankfully, and uneventful; I could feel the energy coursing through the air and clouds, an ocean of power invisible to the humans seated with me in the aircraft. I found myself pressing my hand to the window, straining to touch what I knew I couldn’t, and wondering when—if ever—these longings would subside.

El Paso was a desert town, surrounded by ancient, low mountains and capped with an overturned bright bowl of a sky—a blue even clearer than that of Albuquerque. The air was dry and crisp, the city older than I had expected, and more noisy, dirty, and crowded. It sprawled out through the desert in a jumble, even crawling the sides of the mountains.

It came as a surprise to realize that I did not know the simple mechanics of finding an address. I would have asked Ma

At a desk labeled INFORMATION I consulted a man who provided me with a map and explained how to summon a car for hire outside that would take me to the address I wished.

It was all pleasingly simple. Perhaps human life was not as complex as I’d been led to believe. . . . But this was a fantasy, and one that ended as I struggled to understand the terms fare and tip, and why one was not included in the other.

I had not made a friend when I dismissed the cab, and the problem of how I would return to the airport was still to be solved, but I stood in front of the address of Warden Molly Magruder. The street was called Dungarvin, and the house was a simple affair, only a little larger than the one Ma

It looked exactly as normal as the houses around it.

I walked to the door and knocked.

The woman who opened the door was about Ma

Awareness dawned quickly. I slapped a palm against the wooden facing of the door as she tried to slam it in my face.

“Molly Magruder,” I said, “I’ve come to ask you why you tried to kill Luis Rocha.”

She stepped back and stared at me as I crossed the threshold and quietly closed and locked the door. I leaned against the wood, arms folded.

“You’re Dji

“Perceptive,” I replied, “but wrong. I am not Dji

She blinked. “Human.”

“I am now.”

“Well, it must just suck to be you.”

I could not have agreed with her more. Molly backed away from me, bumped into a chair behind her, and stopped. I looked around the room. It was clean, spare, and showed nothing of the person who lived in its walls. Molly’s furniture was square and serviceable. The artwork she had chosen to display was bland and uninspired. I found myself contrasting it with the vivid joy of Ma

Molly Magruder did not really exist here at all.

“Did Luis send you?” she asked.

“No. He doesn’t know I’ve come.”

“Then how—”

It was a confession, of a sort. “Quintus,” I said. “Although he did not give me your name. But he was your Dji

Molly stared at me for a long moment, and then—to my surprise—collapsed in the chair behind her and began to weep in wrenching, frantic sobs, like a desperate child. I had no idea what to do or say to such flagrant emotion, so I simply watched her, unmoving. After long moments, she got control of herself and glared at me through red-rimmed eyes.

“You don’t know,” she said. “You don’t know anything.”

“Educate me,” I said, and folded my hands.

Molly Magruder, it seemed, had been as much of a pawn in this as a Dji

“You are willing to kill for a favor,” I said. She sent me another glare, but despite the aggressive anger she tried to project, her hands were trembling, even clasped together.

“I didn’t want to,” she snapped. “It’s political, okay? These things happen in the Wardens. People want other people out of the way sometimes. You wouldn’t understand.”

I understood all too well. Human ambition was a toxic thing, tainting everyone it touched. “Who?”

“I’m not telling you that.”

She would, but I understood it would take time to convince her. “Explain to me why, then. Why someone would wish them dead.”

She hadn’t expected me to move away from the question so easily, and, caught off balance, she answered. “There was something in the records he didn’t want found, I know that much.”

“And the death of the Rocha brothers?”

“Personal,” she said. “None of your business. None of mine, either.”

“You don’t care for Luis much, correct?” I got a bitter smile in response, and no other answer. “I met your Dji

That wiped away her smile. “Leave Quintus out of this.”

“I would like to leave you both out of it,” I said.

“All you need do is give me the name of the Warden who forced you to do this thing.” The Warden had likely not forced her, but it seemed a politic way to describe things. She seemed to respond, regardless of the truth of the description.