You readers are really amazing. It's so fun to share this story with you a bit at a time!

Even when those bits are...well, you'll see. Don't worry! It'll totally get worse!

Isn't that exciting?

Enjoy!


Hadji was not surprised to find both his roommates in residence when he returned to the dorm. As graduate students, they had a much heavier academic load with less time for socialization so they were almost always in the rooms studying intently. It was one of the reasons the pair of upperclassmen had been reluctant to open up the third room in their suite to an inbound, unknown freshman. However, Hadji's quiet, unobtrusive ways and his studious nature fit well with the slightly high-strung Chris and the detached Otto.

"Good evening," Hadji greeted them politely. Both looked up from their desks, Otto giving only a brief nod while Chris tried and failed to manage a smile.

Hadji crossed the small floor to his own alcove. The room was shaped strangely, though the footprint of the entire suite came out in a rectangle with three narrow bedrooms that opened into a central area and a connected bathroom. The bedrooms themselves were almost too small to hold anything but a single bed and a chest of drawers, and even that made it impossible to open the tiny closet if a drawer was open. So all three desks were out in the common room, tucked into whatever corner was closest to that person's room. Hadji had visited a neighboring suite with only two students where they had turned the third bedroom into a study room and their common space was more like a comfortable lounge. Another trio down the hall had reversed everything, pulling their beds into the central room and making each bedroom an individual space to study or watch movies or play video games without disturbing the other two. The small and private nature of his bedroom suited Hadji just fine, however, as the floor gave him enough space to meditate and that, besides sleep, was all he required of it.

In the main room, Hadji's desk was pushed into a spot between his door and the bathroom and he had set up a small, colorful floor screen that sheltered his area. It was virtually the only decoration in the common room besides what each young man kept on their desks; they had hung no posters nor pictures. But Otto's bedroom walls were covered, floor to ceiling, with maps from World War I, diagrams of battlefields, troop movements, political boundaries, and trench formations. Chris's room displayed a jumbled collage of pictures and posters and even some artifacts from his anthropological career. Hadji's own room was sparse by comparison, but he had pinned up a beautiful blanket from Calcutta and tucked into the woven threads and small winking stones and mirrors many small pictures and notes from his family. All three students were circumspect by nature, keeping what was out in public quite sterile and impersonal, and holding their secrets for themselves.

But even with so little information in the common area, Hadji could see that something was amiss. For Chris's desk, usually a mess but clearly vibrant and in use, was oddly piled. It took Hadji a moment to realize that Chris must have swept the desktop clean, flinging his things to the ground, before later piling them together in one heap that he dumped on the far end.

Hadji set down his bag and put his coat away before he walked over to his troubled roommate. "My friend, is there nothing I can do to help you?"

"I don't see how," Chris answered, bending over a book but not really seeing it. "You can't find Mark. You can't tell me what happened to him."

"Give the police more time," Otto spoke up unexpectedly, looking over his thin wire glasses frames and running a hair through his bushy red-brown hair. "It's only been two weeks."

"He's been missing for two months!" Chris said angrily. "They've been looking for two weeks, but he's been gone a lot longer than that!"

Otto looked steadily at Chris but did not argue. The two had been friends for a long time. Otto knew when to let Chris's emotions go unfettered and when to respond with logic. Chris's anger faded almost at once under that patient gaze.

"Sorry," Chris huffed after a long breath. "I don't mean to bite your head off."

"If it soothes your pain, I believe we would both sacrifice our metaphorical heads to your fangs," Hadji said gently. That won him a small laugh.

"What are you going to do?" Otto asked.

"Do?" Chris frowned in confusion at him.

Otto gestured to the desk. "You're clearly tired of not doing anything. You're dissatisfied with the progress the police have made. And you're going to crack if you don't do something."

"It sucks," Chris hung his head. "If he were lost while we were on an expedition, there'd be a way to find him. I could look for tracks, get the best hunters to show me how to read the ground and the leaves and follow his footsteps. If I were desperate enough, I'd ask the priest or elder or shaman to do a spirit walk to find him. But here…there's just nothing."

Hadji kept his own council. He wished he could tell his roommate about the superb trackers who had already scoured Rainier's campus with their Sentinel senses. But two winter months had meant inches of rain and slush and snow, and so Jonny and Jim, even at their best, could not follow a trail that cold and washed away. It was miraculous enough that they had discerned that no one but Mark himself had been in his dorm room. It had been left as though he had run out for only a moment, the computer powered on and even a half glass of water on the desk. There were no scents of anyone else in the room, and they had concluded he had sent the mysterious email about staying on campus for break to his mother before running out…and never returning. It was what happened next that had confounded the best detectives and the two Sentinels in Cascade.

But then something Chris had said struck him. "You spoke of a spirit walk. Would you trust the results of such an investigation?"

Chris looked up. "Uh, yeah? I mean, I've been out there with some peoples and seen some crazy stuff, you know? Stuff I can't explain. So sure. I'd give it a shot."

"If you would like, I could attempt to enter the astral plane myself to see what I may learn," Hadji offered.

Otto gave a delicate sniff – the only indication of his extreme skepticism. It had been a debate for the ages between him and Hadji in the first week they'd roomed together, both so entrenched in their positions they had little room to maneuver. Neither was offended at the other's beliefs, of course, but it was a subject best left alone in the suite.

Chris swallowed. "Sure, Hadji. I'll go with anything at this point. Try whatever you want."

"Until then," Hadji said kindly, "perhaps you should rest. Your own subconscious may wish to communicate with you, and it cannot if you never sleep."

"Go on," Otto said, turning back to his notes. "I'll wake you in a few hours."

Chris allowed Hadji to pull him up and give his arm a squeeze before he half-stumbled into his room and shut the door.

"Hey."

Hadji turned to where Otto's nonchalance had melted completely as he looked up angrily. "Yes?"

"Don't tell him anything you see in your dreams, Hadji. Don't give him false hope from some kind of mystical vision or something. He's in enough pain. You shouldn't add something from a tabloid horoscope to it all."

"I respect that our opinions differ," Hadji said stiffly, "but believe me, I will give him no false hope. I wish to bring him real hope. But," he conceded, "if I am not certain of what I find, I will not taunt him with vagueness."

Otto scowled and shrugged and Hadji opted to move to his room rather than continue the discussion. Once there, he closed his door and opened the blinds. His small window faced the setting sun in the west, though there was more in the way of clouds than the last rays of evening sunlight in the sky now. He took his time about stretching himself, even doing a few moves of Tai Chi that were possible in the narrow space, to center his energies. When he at last settled on his mat, folding his legs under him, his mind and heart were empty and open.

Just as he slid into meditation, Hadji heard the cry of a fox.

At once, the amorphous astral plane resolved itself into the strange indigo savannah where Hadji had forged his bond with his Sentinel. As his bare feet touched the thick, soft grasses, he sensed more than saw something coming.

"Jonny?" he called softly.

From the dense underbrush broke several forms at once. Hadji struggled to make out the various creatures before him, but he was certain one was Jonny's spirit fox. The fox gave a sudden, pained cry.

"Jonny!" Hadji tried to move towards his Sentinel, but abruptly the savannah began to thicken around him, growing into a proper jungle. As grasses became towering trees, the very forest pulled Jonny from what Hadji could perceive. Hadji could have resisted it, his command of this spirit plane quite equal to the task, but he felt there was purpose in the rise of the jungle and he simply waited to see what it might bring. As the landscape settled, he heard something behind him. Hadji turned slowly to find a large wolf.

Hadji stared for only a moment before he understood. "Blair? Doctor Blair Sandburg?"

The wolf began to stretch and distort, rising up until it stood on two paws that became feet. And then it was Blair standing there, wearing his usual jeans with a woven shirt Hadji knew he had received as a gift from one of the many friends he had made while studying native people. He shook his head slightly, as if waking from a dream.

"Hadji?"

"Are you merely a mirage, or are you truly my friend?" Hadji asked.

"Well, I could ask you the same thing! I suppose we could tell each other something only the real us would know, but if this is a vision, would the vision know?" Blair asked. "Tell you what – when I wake up, I'll call you. Then we'll be sure."

"Agreed," Hadji nodded. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh. I was meditating. I thought maybe I might be able to find something about Mark in the human unconscious." Blair smiled. "I take it you came here for the same reason?"

"Indeed. And perhaps as two trackers we shall have greater success. How did you intend to find him?"

"I've got a copy of Mark's latest thesis draft in my hands back at the loft," Blair answered. "I'm hoping he put enough of himself into it that I can use it to, you know, trace what I'm looking for. Like giving a scent to a bloodhound. Maybe as a wolf I can find him."

"Not all people manifest this way in the astral," Hadji warned. "You cannot assume he will take the form of a creature you can readily identify."

"Well, if you're so smart, what would you do?" Blair asked with a little annoyance. "I'm still making this stuff up as I go."

"The astral is a world of mind and will," Hadji said. "It takes whatever form it requires, bounded only by your own intent. Though it does not always obey," he glanced over his shoulder at where Jonny's fox had vanished.

"So what's the plan?" Blair asked.

"You have the stronger connection to Mark of the two of us," Hadji said. "I believe I may possess the spiritual strength to make your will manifest if you can allow me to join my powers with your own."

Blair smiled a little uncertainly. "Are we going to be creating some giant wolf-eagle hybrid in downtown Cascade?"

"I do not believe so," Hadji answered drolly.

"Good, because I am so not up for explaining that to Jim. Let's do it!"

-==OOO==-

Blair blinked his eyes and found himself virtually nose-to-nose with Jim. "Gah!" He threw himself backwards in surprise and bounced off the couch.

"Chief! You all right?"

"Yeah, yeah, fine," Blair rubbed his face. "No need for the microscopic inspection of my nose-hairs, thanks."

"Sandburg," Jim grumbled, "I couldn't wake you up." He was scowling deeply. "It was like you were…gone. Like zoning, I guess."

"Sorry," Blair rushed to comfort his clearly distressed Sentinel. He put a hand out and gripped Jim's shoulder. "Seriously, I'm okay. I…oh! Hadji!"

Blair abruptly jumped up and grabbed for his phone sitting on the kitchen table, leaving an increasingly concerned and confused Jim to growl as he followed. Blair hit the speed dial.

"Hadji? Yeah! It was real! Man, that is unbelievable!" Blair cheered. Then he suddenly sobered. "Yeah. I'll tell Jim. Better hold off on your end, okay? We'll talk later." And he ended the call.

"Tell Jim what?" Jim asked. "What is going on here, Sandburg?"

"So, I was meditating, right?" Blair began to gesture as his excitement grew. "And somehow Hadji and I found each other. We could actually talk, like, in our minds! It was awesome! I wonder if you and I could do that. Like, if you went all jaguar and I was there, I wonder if we could communicate."

"And that's why you were so far gone?" Jim asked.

"Gone? Oh, yeah! We went pretty deep. We were looking for Mark." Blair sighed and most of his exuberance melted away. "He's dead, Jim. We're sure of it. We don't know where or how or when or why, but he's dead."

"How can you possibly know that?" Even for a patient Sentinel, that was a bit much.

"I can't really explain it. If you come in there with us, I'll show you," Blair answered. "It's like…you know how if you call a number on the phone, you can prove whether or not it actually connects to something? Even a busy signal or an answering machine tells you the phone number comes out on somebody's phone. But if you call a number that isn't connected, you get that error message. We…well, we sort of called Mark's number and got an error message. He's dead and beyond this world."

Even a year ago, Jim would have argued. He would have resisted the idea and fought it with all the logic and stubbornness he could throw at it. And that all in spite of seeing ghosts himself and bringing Blair back from the dead. But in that same way he knew he and Blair were bound for eternity, knew they were a part of a greater whole that went beyond his understanding, he knew Blair was telling the truth. Not just that he thought he was telling the truth. That he was literally, factually correct about this.

"Okay," Jim said. "Okay. I believe you."

And with that same profound connection, Blair could tell that Jim really did. "So, what do we do?"

"Well, it's still our case. But if he's dead, it's going to be harder. At least," Jim shook his head, "at least we don't have to worry that us not finding him means he's in trouble right now, or suffering somewhere." He looked up with an old pain. "All we can do now is find what's left of him and bring it home for his family and friends."

Blair thought of Jim and Peru and the helicopter crash and he understood.

"We should tell Simon," Blair said.

"You're right, we should," Jim agreed. Then he smacked his forehead. "That's what I wanted to tell you!"

"Huh?"

"I was trying wake you up, Einstein. Remember?" Jim's sorrowful expression melted to a serious one that masked a lot of uncertainty. "Benton called."

"Yeah? And?"

"The ship of Sentinels will arrive in Cascade tomorrow night."

-==OOO==-

The next week was beyond hectic. Blair even resorted to claiming DHS priority business to get out of his Rainier work without causing too much trouble. With close to 70 Sentinels plus a few family members to settle up at the SELF lodge, he barely slept at all. Agent Fritz had done his magic to ensure the Russian ship showed up on all official papers as something totally nondescript, and there had been a covert caravan of agents and allies like Simon and Joel funneling people up the mountain throughout the night. Then there had been a massive hassle of actually moving into the facility, and Blair got a first-hand look at the strange, sometimes contradictory territorial imperatives of Sentinels.

First of all, nobody wanted to have any non-Sentinels or Guides around at all, but Dmitri and Ivan and Jim and Blair had fought that notion – there was too much risk to dismiss the DHS teams that guarded the perimeter at this point, and Race and Benton weren't going anywhere. There was a loud shouting match, in which Ivanna had proven she could yell just as loudly as any drill sergeant, before they reached a compromise: the DHS would be permitted to remain until the Soviet Sentinels had acclimated to the place, after which they would take over protection and patrol. Race and Benton and other affiliated members of SELF would be permitted, but only if the Sentinel Council approved them. The Council promptly approved Benton, Race, Jessie, Simon, Joel, and Agent Fritz, so that ended things on one front.

Then came the fights about living quarters. The lodge was plenty large enough for all the Sentinels to choose a room with many to spare, not counting the individual little houses and bungalows on the grounds, but they had very firm feelings about how these things worked. Some combination of military rank, age, and the unwritten Sentinel pecking order determined who got to be on which side of the building, or how high up, and who had to share quarters. Of course, Benton had tried to work this out ahead of time through his weekly communications with Dmitri and Ivan, but all their plans evaporated as soon as the Sentinels started declaring that this floor or that wing "felt better" and therefore ranked higher. The crowd fussed and roiled for hours until everyone had at last been assigned a room.

By then it was near dawn Cascade time; the Soviets had spent their trip slowly changing their clocks and daily rhythms to compensate for the time-zone adjustment, but that meant everybody was hungry. But could the Sentinels allow any DHS personnel to cook? Oh no. No, they didn't trust outsiders with their food. And the arguments about what to cook, how they would set up a schedule for it, how it was different now than it had been on the ship for reasons unknown – it seemed like it would be even more hours before anybody could eat.

At last Ivan the Terrible had banged a pot with a metal ladle and shouted, "All right you hulking idiots! I'll do the cooking for now, and I'll set up the schedule and name my assistants and you'll like it or you'll eat nothing but gruel until you learn your manners!" That ended that argument, thankfully.

The whole week was like that. Jim and Joel and Simon were there as often as possible, but all three couldn't be absent from the department at the same time on such short notice, so it was mostly Blair and Benton and Race trying to navigate this sticky new world of Sentinels suddenly uprooted from a whole other culture and hierarchical structure. Sometimes Blair thought it was just as well that they were left to it on their own – they were better diplomats in general than Cascade's primary Sentinel, at least – but sometimes the word of that number one Sentinel might have saved hours of negotiation. Twice Blair gave up entirely, called Jim, and let him yell into the speakerphone. Inelegant and crude, perhaps, but it worked.

Over the course of the week, in spite of the strife, Blair found that he loved working with these Sentinels. Most of them had been present for Jim's victory over Dmitri, so they recognized him as Jim's Guide and went out of their way to be kind to him. Maybe it was the influence of another Guide besides Ivanna, who was spread pretty thin among them otherwise; as they began to accept Blair into their ranks, they calmed. Benton likened it to a herd that gets spooked and needs time and leadership to become comfortable after the disturbance. Blair loved being part of the force that brought the people back to their ease. But also, frankly, Blair discovered that there was something about Sentinels, even as different as they could be, that he liked. From the taciturn to the loquacious, from the excited to the hopeless, there wasn't a man or woman now in residence that Blair didn't feel somehow connected to. He wondered sometimes if this was how family reunions felt: he didn't know most of the people, and they were from totally different worlds in some ways, but there was a call in the blood that spoke loud and clear "these are my kin." It was a heady sensation, and it made up for a lot of lost sleep.

The Sentinels had arrived after sundown on a Friday, and it was the following Thursday that Blair's phone rang. He was between projects, having just finished giving the last tour of the main gate to the oldest Sentinels who needed the most help before they'd be ready to man it properly, when his phone rang. The caller surprised him.

"Hi Jessie," he said, starting the hike back to the lodge. He glanced at his watch. "Shouldn't you be in class?"

"Well, I'm not," she snapped. "And I need your help."

Blair's heart sped up. "What's going on?"

"Something's wrong with Jonny. Something big." Blair heard Jessie fight to control her tone, though he wasn't sure if she was trying not to yell or worse.

"What do you mean?" Blair asked, beginning to jog.

"He made Hadji cry."

Blair swore and broke into a full run. He'd seen Hadji under duress, worried about his Sentinel, and afraid his father might be killed. But he had never seen Hadji cry. This was serious. "Where are you?" he demanded.

"The SELF house." She paused, then cleared her throat. "Um, I kind of locked Jonny in the safe room."

Blair almost stopped. "You did?"

"Trust me, it was necessary."

Blair heard it in her voice. "I believe you. I'll be there as soon as I can."

He ended the call and broke into a sprint. One benefit of a land full of Sentinels – someone was always listening. "Hey! This is Blair! Somebody find Benton and Race and tell them to get a car ready right now!" he bellowed.

By the time he reached the lodge, the two men were assembled with four or five Sentinels as well as Dmitri and Ivan. They looked panicked. "What is it?" Benton shot the question at him.

"I'll explain on the way to the SELF house," Blair gasped, throwing himself into the waiting car. "God, I hope I'm wrong!"

Ivan invited herself into the car beside Blair to his surprise. "I believe I shall be needed," she said. The gathered Sentinels looked ready to commandeer a vehicle of their own but a sharp glance from her had Dmitri holding them back.

Blair nodded gratefully. "Yeah, I think so."

As Race and Benton took the front seats and began to peel out of the driveway, Blair reached up to put a hand on Benton's shoulder. "If it's what I think it is, it's bad but it's not permanent, okay. They'll be all right."

"Is someone hurt?" Race asked tersely.

"Yes and no," Blair answered honestly, typing a message to Jim. "Physically, probably not. Emotionally…that's where it's going to be tricky."

-==OOO==-

Jessie was pacing the front room of the SELF house when the car pulled up. Jim had called ahead to reassure her that he and either Simon or Joel – whoever could get away – would be coming soon, but they were caught up in court at the moment. So it was Benton and Race and Blair and a woman she'd seen on the communication screen but not yet met in person who arrived first. In spite of the urgency of his movements, Benton paused long enough to help Ivanna out of the car.

"Ponchita, you okay?" Race asked, almost slamming the door open and grabbing his daughter by the shoulders.

"I'm fine," she said. "It's the boys…"

"Take us through it, Jessie," Benton said, maintaining a masterful calm.

"Okay," she took a deep breath. "Jonny's been acting weird all week, but we had a bunch of stuff due and a big exam so we all figured it was just stress."

"Acting weird how?" Blair asked.

"Not coming to dinner with us, getting really quiet. Not skipping classes, but sitting really far apart from everybody. And, well…"

"Please," Ivan spoke gently. "Tell us of his treatment of his Guide."

Jessie's eyes got both fierce and watery. "Horrible! I've never seen Jonny be so rude! Like Hadji was personally the embodiment of every little thing that got under his skin. And then today…"

"Where's Hadji now?" Race asked as she trailed off.

"Meditating, or trying to," Jessie said. "He wouldn't move away from the door."

"So what happened?" Blair asked.

"We always eat lunch together before Jonny and I go to Calculus and Hadji goes off to that philosophy seminar he's taking. When Jonny didn't come again, we decided enough was enough and we went looking for him. He was in his room, packing it up. He said he was leaving! So Hadji tried to talk to him, talk some sense into him, you know?"

"And?" Race urged.

Jessie swallowed a thick lump. "When Hadji tried to touch him, Jonny hit him. Knocked him down with a punch! And he said 'Don't touch me, Guide. I don't need you anymore.' He actually said that to him! I think Hadji was more surprised than anything, because he got back up and tried again. And Jonny…he told Hadji to get out of his life." Jessie couldn't stop the tear that escaped. "I thought for sure Hadji's heart would break."

"What happened next?" Blair asked, feeling his own distress and aware of the stricken Race and Benton.

"I…I knew something wasn't right. Jonny would never, never do that to Hadji, not in his right mind. So I told him that he could do whatever he wanted but he had to pick up his passport first, that he couldn't leave it behind. He liked that idea. I told him it was in the SELF house down in the safe room where we lock everything up. Which it is. I didn't have to lie. As soon as he went in there, I slammed the door and hit the emergency lock. Then I called you." Jessie stared at Blair. "What is it? Why is this happening?"

"It is because of his dreamwalker," Ivan said sadly. "I feared this. I had hoped the remote location would give the boy some peace, but apparently his soul is too great for that distance."

"What do you mean?" Jessie asked.

"Come on," Benton said. "Let's go down and sort this out with the boys."

Blair leaned to Race as they moved towards the stairs at the back of the house that led to the basement. "You might have to restrain Jonny."

"Why?"

"He isn't rational right now," Blair explained. "He'll do and say anything it takes, even if I don't know why." He grimaced. "I just know that he will."

"To do what?" Benton asked. "Where will he try to go?"

"To the lodge," Ivanna answered softly. "To the mate who calls to him."

Race almost choked on the word. "Mate!?"

The basement had originally consisted of a large cement room under part of the house's foundation. With some renovation, it had been converted into a few different areas. Besides a general storage area, there was one room made of reinforced steel that housed a server-bank which connected the house to the Quest network directly. There was a quiet room, not lockable, but built so that a Sentinel in sensory chaos could be isolated from any stimuli by manipulating the controls inside. And there was a safe room, also reinforced, meant to protect whatever was inside it from anything shy of a direct missile strike. The safe room had an internal locking system that any member of SELF could access, but for security it had also been designed to lock from the outside. The inside could override the outside lock in every instance but one – if two of the Quest family initiated an "Omega Override."

It was a particular security measure the family had been forced to develop after too many years of trickery, manipulation, and even a case of brainwashing. "Omega Override" was a command that would immediately remove access from one of the Quests to everything – the computer network, the voice controls, all of it. It took two Quests to initiate, and it was never done lightly. But, for example, when an enemy had hypnotized Race into trying to murder the rest of the family, the ability to turn the Quest security against Race without him being able to stop it had probably saved his life. Normally, if someone tried to lock Jonny in the safe room, he would only need to order the computer to release him. But Jessie had initiated the Omega and Hadji had backed her up. Until both of them ordered it lifted, the Quest system saw Jonny as an enemy.

The fluorescent light illuminated the small hallway that ran between the different rooms and cast a sickly glow over Hadji, who sat with his back to the door at the end. His legs were crossed and his hands were clasped in his lap and, at first glance, nothing might seem amiss. But Hadji's face was contorted in pain and sweat trickled down his forehead, perhaps masking tears on his wet cheeks. His turban sat askew, a single long lock of hair loose from it and falling over his shoulder, and there was the clear evidence of bruising on his jaw.

At the small window in the door above him, the furious, almost feral face of Jonny was flushed red as he pounded on the door and shouted. But the room was totally soundproofed, so his bellows were as mute as Hadji's pain.

"I turned off the speakers," Jessie said softly. "You don't want to know what he was saying."

Benton pushed through the others and flew down the steps. He stopped before the door and stared at his son in the window for a long moment, flinching as Jonny's frenzy was turned in his direction. Then he dropped to one knee and reached for his adopted son.

"Hadji?" he spoke softly. With a father's care, he touched the young man's face, stroking his thumbs over Hadji's cheekbones and wiping away the moisture. He looked into Hadji's brown eyes and his own heart broke. The pain that was there had been absent since the day he had taken Hadji as his son.

"Doctor...Quest," Hadji said softly, shuddering slightly at a vibration from the door where Jonny pounded. His breath hitched. "I..."

"Don't," Benton sharply intercepted him. "Don't you dare apologize. I know you haven't done this to him, Hadji."

Hadji's throat worked against a harsh gulp. "Father...he doesn't want me anymore. Not as a Guide...and not as a brother."

Benton bent his forehead to Hadji's and took a deep breath. "You will always be his brother, Hadji. And you will always be my son. Never doubt that, my boy. Never."

"Now, somebody better tell me what the hell is going on here," Race menaced from behind Benton.

"Jonny has a dreamwalker identical to that of one of the Sentinels who has arrived," Ivanna answered with controlled serenity. "I warned you long ago that it was dangerous to bring two Sentinels together with the same dreamwalker creature. And this is the result."

"But why?" Benton asked as he settled his arms around Hadji. "Why does this happen to them? And what is it doing to Hadji?"

"I know not what it means for a Guide," Ivan answered, "and I am sorry for it. It appears to cause much pain."

"Yeah, I'll say," Blair snarled. "And I wasn't even bonded to Jim then."

"What does it do to a Sentinel, then?" Jessie asked. She was pressed against her father, looking anywhere but at the door and Jonny's rage.

"Sentinels with the same dreamwalker are seized by a compulsion to abandon all they hold dear, to struggle against even their territories and their families and those they protect. It begins slowly and grows to near madness. They become possessed of instincts that drive them like wild beasts, unreasoning and rarely coherent. They will find one another and..."

She looked uncomfortable for only a flash of an instant before she raised her chin and looked at where Benton had turned to her.

"If a man and woman Sentinel share the same dreamwalker animal, they will be drawn together to mate, and the child who results is always, always a Sentinel. Those to whom it has happened describe a vision of their dreamwalkers joining in a fiery light, which becomes the dreamwalker of the child Sentinel. It is a way to ensure that our people continue."

"I remember the list you sent me," Blair said a little breathlessly. "The names of the Sentinels and their spirit animals. The only red fox was...uh..."

"His name is Yosyp," Ivanna said. "He is an old captain."

"I don't remember anybody making a fuss like this at the lodge," Race pointed out.

"He's the one who fell down the stairs on the first night!" Blair remembered. "He's been in the infirmary with a broken leg sedated up to his eyeballs." He ran a hand through his hair. "Oh man I totally missed it."

"As did I," Ivan said, putting a heavy arm around his shoulders. "I foolishly believed it was the exhaustion of the trip and not the reach of a dreamwalker from such distance. Your son is remarkable."

"Sons," Benton corrected tersely. He glanced up at the window. "What do we do? We can't leave him like this!"

"We will not," Ivan said sharply. "I have known too many Sentinels who hurt themselves or others in such madness to allow it to happen once more. But I believe it is not Jonny's distress that we should manage first."

In the circle of Benton's arms, Hadji trembled again.

"Leave it to me," Blair said, sudden strength infusing his voice. "You guys handle Jonny."

"What will you do?" Jessie asked.

"I've been where he is," Blair said looking at where Hadji had lifted his face to his fellow Guide. "Right after Jim and I bonded, he still ran to another Sentinel. The one who killed me, even." He looked straight into Hadji's eyes. "I know what it felt like, and I was barely even open to it then. Jim was still rejecting the connection." He huffed a rueful laugh. "Good thing, I guess. If he hadn't shut me out, I might have got the whole thing."

"So how do you make it okay again?" Race wanted to know.

"You don't," Blair shook his head. "You just survive."