By unspoken consent, the sodden quartet made its way back to Dave's lab. They walked straight from the river shore, without stopping to pick up the X5 parked near one of the other drain entrances. It was nearly morning, after a long walk devoid of conversation, when they finally reached their destination.

Dave led the group down to the main floor. They were all exhausted, chilled to the bone from the mid-March air against their wet clothes, and numb from the night's calamity. Dave and the women settled onto the kitchen chairs while Alvar retrieved a pitcher of iced tea from the refrigerator. The master held one hand over the pitcher, concentrating, then set it down on the table. He poured the liquid into four plastic cups and passed them around. "Something to warm us up," he explained.

Dave took a whiff of his drink and crinkled his nose. "It's not iced tea anymore."

"No. Drink it. It will make you feel better."

Dave wasn't about to argue. He obeyed, and so did his companions. Almost immediately, a warm rush filled his head and chest. It felt good, almost good enough to make him forget the tonic's bite as it went down. He held out his empty cup for a refill, and Alvar complied with a smile.

By the time the pitcher was drained, the four had ceased to feel any chill. Numbness had ebbed away into a comfortable drowsiness that was beginning to press its way relentlessly into their minds.

Chandra spoke for the first time since her capture. "What do you want from me?" she prodded.

Alvar responded, "Right now, just to keep you out of trouble."

"You can't keep me here indefinitely."

"Maybe not, but for now, you're our prisoner. We'll figure out what to do with you later."

"So what do we do now?" Dave asked wearily.

"Now we all try to get some sleep," the older sorcerer replied. "I have my bed here, and your cot is still over in the other alcove. Our guest can use that until we come up with something better." He noted Becky's unbroken silence. "Maybe you'd better take your girlfriend home, Dave. Then you can go to your own place from there."

"Yeah." Dave agreed without enthusiasm. He made no move to rise.

"What's wrong?"

"Well, it's just...I'd really rather not go back. Not alone, not yet. There's nobody else there." He didn't have to elaborate.

Alvar understood. He just nodded. "All right. Will you be staying here, then?"

"If that's all right with you."

"It's your lab, Dave. I'm the temporary lodger here. Go on, take your lady home. Better hurry, before you get too tired to drive."

The outside air revived the college couple somewhat. Dave opened the Phantom's door for his passenger, who gave him a wan smile of thanks.

Traffic was relatively light this early Sunday morning, despite the overnight time change making it one hour later than it would have been otherwise. Becky said nothing during the drive back to Carlyle Court, and Dave began to seriously worry about her. He parked near the Residence Hall door. "Becky," he began, "are you all right?"

Obviously, she wasn't. She let him know that with a simple shake of her head. The tonic at the lab had helped, but it couldn't erase the memory of the terror just past. She turned her eyes to his, and he saw in them a change that frightened him. "No," she said at last, in a voice so small that he had to strain to hear. "I'm not."

He pulled her close then, as close as was possible in the confines of the vehicle. After an uncertain time of silence, during which he felt the pain of his own inability to give her comfort, he asked the question that needed to be answered, despite his own looming dread. "Are we still going away together? Our things are still in the trunk. We could go right now if you want to."

She murmured into his chest, "No, Dave."

He swallowed, hard. He'd been afraid of that. He pretended to take it in stride, keeping his arms folded around her as she leaned against him. "What would you like to do, then? I'll do anything you want. Anything." He was getting a little desperate, and he wasn't very good at hiding it.

Becky sat back. She'd made a decision, he could tell. "I'm sorry, Dave," she said as kindly as she could. "I want to go home, to my parents' house in Millville."

"Alone?"

She nodded. "Yes. I need to get away from here, from magic..."

"From me." It wasn't a question.

"I'm sorry," she told him again.

"For how long?"

"I don't know. At least for this week. I don't feel safe here anymore." Her rescuer turned his head away, in evident distress, and she hastened to reassure him. "It's not your fault, Dave, not really. I know you care about me. You've done everything you can to protect me, and I really appreciate it. In my head, I know the danger is over, now that Horvath is gone. But...my heart's not getting the message."

The sorcerer put it in his own words. "Your heart associates me with danger. I can understand that." Not for the first time, he cursed the day when he'd been led to that curious shop in Tribeca, the one known as the Arcana Cabana. The curse wasn't rational, but he wasn't feeling very rational right now anyway.

"Would you mind taking me to the bus terminal?" she requested. "I have to pick up my shoulder bag first–security probably has it now–but I'll be right back."

"You're taking a bus? You don't have to. I can drive. It's only a few hours away." It was the best offer he could come up with, given the circumstances.

She refused his offer. "You're going to fall asleep behind the wheel, Dave. Besides, you shouldn't be leaving Alvar alone all that time. He'll need your help with that woman."

Becky's cell phone was in the shoulder bag she'd been carrying. On the way to the bus station, she called her parents and asked them to pick her up when she arrived at Millville. She didn't tell them why she was coming to visit, only that she missed them and her home.

The luggage in the Phantom's trunk was transferred to a compartment on the side of the bus. Becky took off her poncho there and stuffed it into one of her bags before it joined the rest. "I don't think I'll need this anymore," she said with forced lightness.

Dave stared. "You're still wearing the amulet," he marveled.

"Oh! I forgot." She reached a hand up to the ornament and began to take it off. "This is yours. I don't know when I'll see you again, so I'd better leave it with you."

"No, please." He laid his hand over hers. "Keep it. I have another one just like it. See?" He unzipped his jacket to show her. "They're a matched set. They kind of go together. Please, keep it...as a reminder." He felt awkward again, not sure what else to say. The last thing she wanted was a reminder, he feared. He was about to lose the one girl he'd ever wanted, and he didn't even know how to say good-bye.

To his surprise, she knew what he wanted to say, even if he didn't. She gave him a warm, genuine smile. "I'll keep the necklace, Dave. I want to forget the danger, but I don't want to forget you. Thank you for everything you've done." Suddenly, she was in his arms, holding him in a strong, if brief, embrace that he returned with all the force that was in him. She kissed him on the cheek, and told him confidently, "I'll come back. I don't know when, but I will be back, I promise."

The bus was ready to go. She shared a final kiss with her man before breaking away to climb on board the vehicle. "Good-bye, Dave," she said.

He lifted a hand to wave in response. They were both tired, and maybe they hadn't had time to dry off completely from their underground excursion. Maybe that was why his vision blurred behind a veil of water as she disappeared from view. He didn't know, and he didn't care. Becky was gone, out of his life like Veronica... and Balthazar.

The drive back was done almost on autopilot at first. Dave steered the Rolls absently, not even thinking about where he was going. Somehow, it was soothing merely to drive, as if today was just another morning, a Sunday like any other. If not for that day less than two weeks ago, that Monday that had changed his life, it would have been–well, except for the fact that he was driving now, in a classic luxury car that belonged to his missing master; that, and the hubbub of police and Fed activity brought on by the calamity of the night before. He yawned; the drowsiness was edging in again. He took the shortest route back to the lab.

Walking into the darkened turnaround from the morning sunshine outside, Dave stopped for a minute to let his eyes adjust. He didn't want to turn on the lights for fear of waking the two older occupants, who were doubtless asleep by now. Instead, he conjured a small plasma ball and let it lead him downstairs. By its glow, he could make out the disk-shaped grounded grid at the center of a blockade in front of the alcove behind which his cot must still be. Without her sorcerer ring, Chandra was trapped back there until one of her captors let her out.

Dave crept closer to the modified alcove across the room. The steel door was open. He didn't want to disturb Alvar, but he'd just realized that he had no place to sleep here. He stood still, at a temporary loss.

A quiet voice came from behind the open door. "Welcome back, Dave."

Oops. "Hi," he answered, just as softly. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to wake you." Apparently, Balthazar wasn't the only one who slept with one ear open.

"It's all right. Come on in."

Dave entered the room and sat down on the chair by the desk. He set the plasma ball hovering in the middle of the stone ceiling.

Alvar lay on his side facing his guest. He was propped up on one elbow with his head resting on the pillow wedged in at the shoulder. He flashed a tired grin. "You took your time coming back, I see. I thought you'd changed your mind and gone home after all, or else you'd decided to stay at your girlfriend's place."

"No. Becky..." He couldn't go on. "I...I don't want to talk about it right now."

Alvar studied him for a moment, trying to figure out what had happened and coming to his own conclusion. "All right," he said. "We can worry about that later. Right now, you need some sleep. There's an extra pillow and blankets in my foot locker, there at the end of the bed. Why don't you dig out what you need? I'm afraid the floor in here is just as hard as it is in the big room, but you're welcome to use it anyway. We'll change things around tomorrow, make it more comfortable, when we've all had some rest."

Dave nodded. "Thanks, man. I appreciate it."

He spread a few covers on the floor near the bookcase and lay down. After shifting for a bit, trying to find a reasonably comfortable position, he settled for lying on his stomach, one arm tucked under the pillow to lift his head from the floor. With a flick of his finger, he extinguished the light above them.

In the ensuing darkness, Alvar spoke again. "They're alive, I think, or at least Balthazar is."

A surge of hope, almost painful in its intensity, washed through the younger man's mind. He was afraid to trust that hope, but he held onto it nonetheless. "What makes you think so?" Please, let it be more than just wishful thinking, he tacitly pleaded.

"It's my ring. That's how I found Balthazar after he brought me back to myself. When we met again in that other realm beyond death, our spirits touched. Somehow, there's a connection between us now. My ring tells me where he is, just as your amulet tells Balthazar where you are. I don't think it would do that if he weren't alive. I can't be certain about the others, but it's likely that if he's all right, then they are, too. We have no reason to think otherwise."

"So where is he now?" Dave hoped he didn't sound as despondent as he felt.

"That's the thing," Alvar admitted. "The connection is still there, but there's no directional urge. He's lost to us right now. All we can do is wait until we get a signal."

"And we don't know when, or if, that will ever happen."

"He's alive. If there's a way for him to contact us, he'll find it. Don't give up, Dave. I'm not."

"I hope you're right, Alvar. I really hope you're right."

He woke, disoriented, some time later, to the sound of a woman demanding to be released. Alvar was already on his way to the blocked alcove, pulling a robe on over his bare chest and muttering something about women and their constant needs and complaints. Dave smiled; some things in life never changed.

Alvar waved an arm, and the obstacles moved aside. Chandra glared at him from inside the alcove. "Well, it's about time," she scolded. "I've been yelling for the last ten minutes. I need to use the ladies' room." She bustled out past him, up the three steps to the locker room and the women's bathroom beyond it. Alvar muttered some more and headed toward the kitchen to start breakfast.

Dave climbed the steps after their prisoner, on his way to the men's room. He was in a better mood today–a long way from happy, but better than yesterday. The tonic-aided sleep had helped quite a bit. His world hadn't ended, after all; it was just on hiatus.

"It looks like the inmate has decided to run the asylum," he remarked when he came back to join his new friend in the kitchen. Alvar was peeling potatoes; or rather, they were spinning in midair while the peeler scraped off their skins. Thin steaks were already browning in a pan set on a portable stovetop. Dave noted them absently; he hadn't been awake long enough to be hungry. Instead, he wanted to discuss the Morganian. "She sure doesn't seem to be afraid of us anymore. Oh, and just to let you know, I heard the shower running in there. She might be a while."

"Good," Alvar replied sourly. "Maybe we'll get a few minutes of peace. As for her pushiness, it's not real. She's putting on an aggressive act, but she knows we have all the power. She's not leaving this lab until we say so." He shrugged. "I'll let her keep her mask. It's better than having her start the crying game. Women always try to manipulate us with their emotions, but I'm not going to fall for it."

"Wow, that's kinda cynical."

"I've had enough experience to know. In my day, Morgana would never have allowed women in her ranks. Her followers must have become desperate for recruits since then." He directed a sharp knife to cut the potatoes into wedges, then dumped them into a pot of water. The water began to boil.

Dave was sharply reminded of the underground lake which he himself had set to boil only the day before. He stared at the bubbling water and the steam rising from it.

"What is it?" asked the cook. "Is something wrong?"

"Yesterday," Dave replied thoughtfully. "Tell me about steam. What happened?"

Alvar sighed. "Balthazar was poisoned by a dark magic spell called the Black Breath. It destroys the lining of your lungs, so they fill up with fluid and you can't breathe. It's a nasty way to die, but at least it doesn't give you much time to suffer.

'However, it's a risky business, dark magic; generally, it leaves the caster vulnerable during or after the spell. That's why sorcerers, even if they know a particular spell, don't like to use it unless they have allies to protect them. If Horvath had been guarding our Morganian guest like he was supposed to, we couldn't have stopped her.

'As it was, there was nobody to keep the air around her clear. Steam–concentrated water vapor of any sort–combines with the toxic air and stops it from spreading. Miss Kolinsky was trying to exhale poison and direct it toward its intended target, but it ran into a blockade instead. She had to stop, or she would have been caught in a bubble of her own breath."

"So that's why you had Balthazar inhale that cloud," Dave surmised. "To stop the poison."

"Yes. Of course, the mixture had to be flushed out of his lungs, and the quickest way to do that was to convert it to liquid, before it could do any more damage. Water is easier to expel than air. The lungs will heal in time, as long as too much tissue hasn't been destroyed."

"Oh. Right." Prime Merlinian or not, Dave was still lacking in the most important area of sorcery: a comprehensive knowledge of the art–in all its manifestations. He missed his teacher.

He didn't have long to mope. The locker room door opened a crack, and a towel-clad Chandra hollered from within, "Could I get something clean to wear, please? At least some clean underwear? Everything I own is back in my apartment."

The men looked at each other, at a sudden loss. Alvar yelled back at their unwilling guest, "You should have thought of that before! You could have worn your clothes in the shower and gotten everything clean at once!"

That earned him a diatribe worthy of an ex-wife. In the end, Alvar let her borrow his robe and slippers while Dave gathered her clothes, as well as his own and Alvar's from the day before, in preparation for a trip to the nearest laundromat. He planned to leave right after breakfast. He was thankful that he'd packed everything he needed in his suitcase, the one he'd retrieved from the Phantom's trunk before being tasked with his unexpected errand.

Now Dave was hungry. He brought a carton of orange juice from the fridge while Alvar served them a hearty breakfast of steak and eggs and potatoes. Chandra didn't look threatening at all now, clad as she was in a borrowed robe that made her look even more petite than she actually was. Don't be fooled, Dave told himself. That woman is the enemy. She's proved already that she's capable of murder.

However, without her ring, the enemy's only weapon was her mind. She said little during the meal, preferring to listen to her captors' conversation instead. Her treatment so far had been better than she expected. She wondered how long that would last.

"So," Dave began when his hunger had been sated, "do we have any idea what actually happened yesterday? That...thing, that hole in the air...was that more dark magic?"

Alvar shook his head. "If it was, it was something new. I've never seen anything like it." He turned to the Morganian. "Have you?"

She didn't answer.

Her questioner pressed. "I could force an answer, you know."

She gasped as the first icy tendrils of psychic attack brushed against the outskirts of her mind, for she knew she had no defense. She shuddered, and they withdrew.

"You have seen it before, haven't you?" Alvar had made his point. "Tell us. I'd rather not have to go in further."

Chandra glared at him. "You leave me little choice," she snapped. He simply waited, and she at last obeyed.