The Hammer made it about a half-step back before the pagan caught him and slammed him to the ground. The kid let out a coughing cry which Thornwick silenced when he got his hands around his neck and started squeezing.

The kid's voice, his accent, the tone and words themselves, had knocked Daphne's heart up into her throat, and she surged forward after the pagan. "Wait!" she cried, but he wasn't listening.

"Where are your zealots now?" Thornwick snarled. The kid clawed at his hands, tore at his face and at the bloody seams of the pagan's sutured arms as if to break the thread would break his grasp or make the limbs fall off entirely.

Daphne jerked her arm away from Sherry's digging grasp and threw herself at Thornwick. "Stop it! Let him go!" The kid was turning purple, his eyes were streaming. His swipes at the pagan were becoming feeble, half-hearted, hitting open air more often than the pagan himself.

Thornwick shrugged her off, and she felt Sherry grab her arm again, dragging her back.

"That's the Hammer!" Sherry said. "Don't stop him! The kid's not what he seems."

"I know what he is! And you can't kill him!"

Daphne pulled herself free and reached inside for the seed. Her hand flared up immediately, but the pain didn't stop her before she managed to get a good cluster of vines launched at Thornwick. They struck him square in the back of the head and coiled around. She didn't squeeze hard, didn't push out the thorns—her energy had gone the instant the vines had left her fist—but their sudden writhing presence seemed to catch him by surprise, enough to break his grip as he attempted to untangle himself.

The kid got a lungful of air and immediately rolled over and threw up, hacking, coughing, and gasping. He could barely lift his head, and before long, his face and hair were smeared with his own vomit. Daphne gripped the wrist of her burning hand as if squeezing it hard enough might cut off the bone-gnawing burn and stumbled to the kid's side, ignoring Thornwick's outraged demand for an explanation.

"You're from the real world, aren't you?" Daphne said when the kid managed to lift his lidded eyes to her face. "You fell into the game, just like me. Nod if that's true."

He squinted at her, gritted his teeth and coughed again, misting her arm with spittle. He tried to speak, but when that didn't come out as more than a croak, he sneered and nodded, once. She was impressed by how venomous such a simple gesture could be.

Thornwick stood beside her now, and the kid lifted a nasty glare up at him. "Why do you save him?" the pagan asked. His voice was hoarse, but at least it sounded more like him again. "Why spare the life of this vile wretch, when he would do everything he could to destroy us?"

"It's complicated," Daphne muttered, and snapped her fingers to draw the kid's attention back to her. It was strange, her thinking of him as a kid. He had to be nearly her age—a freshman or a sophomore in high school. "Can you speak now?"

His upper lip twitched as though he wished he could spit on her, but instead of doing so, he coughed again—this time at least on the floor—and in a gruff, reedy voice whispered, "Who the hell are you?"

"Daphne Dawson, from Haylin. A little north of Boston. Where are you from?"

The kid shifted, rolling onto his side and smearing the vomit off his face with the sleeve of his robe. He grimaced at it, at the mess around him. There were red marks on his neck where Thornwick's fingers had gripped him. "Gross," he muttered.

"Come on." Daphne looped her arm through his and helped him to shift so that he was sitting with his back against the wall. He grimaced and slouched inward, obviously in pain, but not willing to say so. Behind her, she could feel Thornwick and Sherry's eyes burning holes into her back. "Now, who are you?"

The kid smirked. "Haven't you heard? I'm the Hammer. Builder-sent to save the Hammerites from themselves."

"He's evil, is what he is," Sherry snapped. "He's as bad as any of them. Don't trust him!"

"Oh, you're here too?" The kid looked up at her and leered. "What do you know. It's like a little party all for me."

Sherry moved as if to shove Daphne out of the way, but Thornwick caught her arm and she quieted quickly, shifting a little away from him with a nervous glance. Daphne frowned back at the kid. "You've got to be, what, fifteen? Sixteen? Where do you go to high school?"

"I don't go to high school."

"I mean, where did you go, when you were outside the game?"

"And why would I want to tell you something like that?"

Daphne felt the frustration catching spark inside her chest, but she forced it back down. At least she couldn't feel her hand anymore, though she wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. "I just want to know. There are more of us here, at least there were. I have a friend with me who also fell into the game. We're trying to get out, and I have a feeling that if we all just—"

The kid let out a harsh, bitter laugh. "Get out? What are you, stupid?" He shook his head, and the grin he wore made Daphne want to smack him. "Look, I don't know if you've taken the time to look around at all, but this place rocks. I'm the leader of a whole fucking sect of nutjobs; I get anything I want, whenever I want. We can drink here. We can steal here. I can do whatever the hell I want, and nobody stops me. Why on fucking earth would I want to get out?"

This time, Daphne did smack him. She didn't think it was all that hard, but it made him bite his tongue. "Bitch—" he muttered, and she lost it.

Vines burst around him, and that smug grin vanished. She gripped him in her writhing fist and squeezed, leaning in close enough for him to see her beady eyes and hear her multi-tined voice loud and clear. "This is not a game," she said, and the voices sang in her ears. "The people here are not your toys. And if you don't want to get out, I'll take you out, kicking and screaming if I have to, because nobody here deserves to deal with an asshole like you. You get me?"

With her vines around his throat, it wasn't like he could have replied even if he wanted to. He gawked at her, wide-eyed and scared shitless. With a sigh, she let the flames die down. "Good. Now, what's your name?"

"Son of a bitch—" he gasped.

"Son of a bitch? Really?" Daphne grabbed his collar and he flinched. "That's a funny name."

"Matthew. It's Matthew Grayson."

"From?"

"Michigan. Just outside F-"

"Age?"

"Just turned sixteen. Sh-shit, I've got my license here—" He dug in his robe pockets frantically, and thrust the wallet into her hand.

She flipped it open and felt Sherry and the pagan draw a little closer behind her shoulder, peering at the object. He wasn't lying, at least: his driver's license looked like it'd just been printed. There were a couple of bills in the fold, along with a tacky clipping of Megan Fox making pouty-lips. The money and the photo, Daphne took out.

"Hey-!"

"That's your fee for being an ass," she said. "Be glad I don't take an eye instead."

"Who the fuck are you? How can you be from the real world and do—do shit like—" He waved his hands around, implying—she figured—vines. "—like that?"

"Long story," Daphne muttered, tossing his wallet back to him. "Now get up."

He obeyed, almost too eagerly. She felt Thornwick's animosity like a cloud at her back, radiating towards the kid as he brushed himself off. She thought she saw Matthew give a vicious scowl at the pagan, but it was so brief and so quickly replaced by innocence, she almost doubted her eyes.

"Where are you going to take me?" Matthew asked. "The Hammerites will get suspicious if I just disappear. I should leave some sign that I'm on a mission for the Builder or something."

"Don't you even think of letting him go," Sherry whispered, suddenly at her ear. "He's trying to trick you."

The look the kid gave Sherry at that moment was beyond mistaking, and the barmaid matched it, hate for hate.

"I wasn't going to," Daphne replied. "Now, please, can we just find Otto—"

Matthew frowned. "Who?"

"Otto. He's a kid—probably about eight or ten. We got separated and—"

"Yeah, sure!" he said with a solemn nod. "Scrawny kid, right?"

Daphne was beginning to get a weird feeling from him, though what it was, she couldn't quite tell. "Yeah…" she said carefully. "How did you—"

"I saw him," Matthew said. "Come on, I'll show you where he headed."

"Don't," Sherry growled, and Daphne felt Thornwick's hand on her shoulder, heavy and firm.

"He's lying," the pagan said quietly.

The kid bristled at this, and instantly the expression of eager helpfulness he'd worn so easily on his face twisted into distain. "Well, you just know everything don't—" Daphne expected to hear "you" finish the sentence, but before he got there, he lunged towards her, shoving her back against her two comrades before bolting.

"To arms!" the kid shouted at the top of his lungs as he vanished around the corner, his voice ringing through the catacombs. "The Abomination has escaped! Brothers to arms! Intruders!"

"Stop him!" Sherry shrieked, and the pagan pushed past them in hot pursuit.

Daphne and Sherry followed close behind, but the kid had gotten more of a head start from the surprise break-away than they'd expected. Two, three, four turns through the maze of the crypt, and he was already out of sight, though they could hear his footsteps echoing from seemingly every direction.

The three paused at a four-way intersection of halls, listening, trying to ascertain which way sounded less like an echo, and failing. His voice had died away, and soon, so had his footsteps, leaving them alone in the deathly stillness.

Beside her, Sherry had looped her arm around Daphne's, and gripped it tight. "He'll send guards. We have to get out of here."

Daphne felt a chill and glanced about them at the quiet corridors. But it was the pagan who said what she was thinking: "He'll send more than a few guards. He's got a whole army amassed up there."

"Then we have to hide, or get out, now! They'll kill us all!"

She could feel Sherry trembling beside her, and when she glanced at her friend, she realized how hollow and pale she looked. Seeing her friend so frightened got to her and made her shiver violently. She wasn't sure—it might just have been a shifting of rock, or even the clink of a ghostly chain—but she thought she heard hinges squeaking somewhere, and a moment after that, a dull, low rumble like thunder that grew louder with each passing moment.

"I think I know a place," the pagan said. "Come. It's not far."

He turned on his heels, and started back down the hall, motioning for them to follow, and make haste. Sherry started, too, but Daphne was frozen in place.

"Come on, Daphne! There's no time!"

Daphne glanced back behind them, searching every dark shadowed patch frantically, as if searching those spots would somehow count for searching the entire crypt. "We have to find Otto! I can't leave him here by himself!"

"He'll be fine! He's a sharp kid—and resourceful! He'll walk through a wall or something and be out of sight. But we will get clobbered! We'll find him after—"

"Otto!" Daphne shouted, but her cry was echoed only by angry rumblings and the flicker of shadows across a wall not far from them.

Sherry dragged at her until she took a stumbling step. She started moving just in time. At the end of the hall, a pair of Hammerites turned the corner and shouted their discovery to their comrades behind them. The torchlight flashed across their readied mallets and polished, high-collared armor. First two, then six, then ten—dozens of Hammerites swarmed into the catacombs, their angered cries of "Heathens!" and "I shall cudgel thee!" filling the trembling air.

The two girls fled like they'd never fled before. Their toes caught on displaced stone lids, their shoulders clipped corners cut too sharply; they clung to one another, gasping and running as hard as they could until ahead of them they saw the pagan's silhouette against a backdrop of ruddy, orange light.

Daphne's eyes were filled with water, making the whole world dance and shiver in front of her. The light of the room behind Thornwick glistened and blinded her. There was heat, suddenly, all around them, and she could swear it came from the breath of the armored fury behind them. Her ears rang with shouts, the scuffle of steps, rasping gasps for air, and the pounding of blood.

Then they were through the doorway, and the pagan quickly slammed the door shut behind them, turning the trio of heavy iron bolts to lock it tight from within. A half-second later, they heard the gong of metal hammers slamming against its far side, but the door did not budge.

"There," Thornwick said, almost as breathless as she was. "This should hold them for now. Suitable that it is their own craftsmanship that will keep us safe."

Beside her, she heard Sherry gasp. "What…what happened to your hand?"

Daphne looked down and saw that the barmaid had been gripping the wrist of her bad hand, and exposed in the sanguine light, the extent of the damage was clear. The fingers were twisted, the skin warped around them like melted crayons, bright red and bubbled, oozing in places, where it was not charred entirely.

Daphne had just time to look up at her friend's face and mutter, "Oh…" before her stomach lurched and the heat and light of the room vanished as she passed out cold.

The room was too small, less than ten full strides from end to end, and the bed and desk took up a sizable portion of what limited floor space there was. Raife turned on his heel and prowled back to the opposite wall, his hands clenched behind him. He was starting to feel dizzy from the short turns, but he couldn't sit. Couldn't stand sitting, doing nothing, waiting for whatever the Keepers decided to do with him. He wasn't stupid, no matter what Basso or Megan or anyone thought. The Keepers wouldn't just sit on him forever. They wanted information. They would find a way to get it out of him, one way or another. Be it torture of some kind, or starvation, or even catching his friends to use them to make him cave. Whatever it was, it would be something unpleasant, he was certain.

He stopped pacing and stared at the boarded window through which he could see no hint of a crack, light or dark, to indicate the time of day or how long they'd held him already. Even now, the pagans might have figured out where that damned Eye was, and then he'd have lost his chance for redemption, and death would be the only thing waiting for him beyond these walls. He'd be trapped forever, a caged animal. He wasn't sure he could live like that.

He had to get out. That was the only option. Get out and get to the woods before they did, before they realized what he had already figured out. But how? The door was locked by deadbolt on the hall-side of the door. There was no keyhole to even try picking from his end. The window was a dead end, too. As far as he could tell, there weren't any hidden passages leading out of this room. He'd tried, unsuccessfully, to push a few odd-shaped stones in the wall, to tug and shift a few standout tomes on the bookshelf. He'd even felt along the edges of the desk and bed frame for some hidden switch that might open up a secret path of escape. Nothing.

Think, idiot. He was beyond being kind to himself, and was tired of the cloud of self-pity that had settled over him in the last few hours. How did those girls manage to get away from the Keepers when you're trapped as a rat? It made his pride bristle. Crossing his arms, he leaned against the desk, scowling at the door.

And that was when he noticed the dark figure lurking in the corner of his room. Raife barely managed to hide the involuntary lurch of surprise, but he couldn't stop his heart from wedging itself into the base of his throat. He hadn't heard so much as a whisper of cloth to announce his stealthy visitor.

"I don't like being lied to," the Master Thief said. "Where's the Eye?"

Raife swallowed and felt his heart drop like a lead weight back into his chest with a clunk. "I don't know," he said.

The Master Thief pushed off the wall and took a step forward. Raife took a step back and stumbled over the desk chair. His face burned, but he recovered and straightened, trying to glare down his nose.

"There's a lot at stake if the Pagans get the Eye," Garrett said. His voice rumbled with a sharp edge of impatience. "I don't have time for your amateur ego."

"I didn't lie to you at Northermeed."

"Oh no?" The Master Thief took another step closer, but this time, Raife held his ground, though less from courage than from the press of the bed frame against the back of his knees, blocking him from further retreat. "You said you didn't have it. One thing about the Eye: it may be able to do a lot of things, but it can't walk itself anywhere. And somehow it ended up in your hands."

"I didn't have it," Raife said. "Not then."

"You knew it wasn't supposed to leave that island."

"The Pagans would have killed me if I didn't have it."

"You look pretty alive to me," Garrett said, and from beneath the hood of his cloak, Raife thought he saw the steady green glow shift with the whir of tiny motors as the Master Thief's gaze narrowed. "At least for now."

"It's not my fault." It sounded like a whine, and Raife knew it. "Someone stole it from me before I could deliver it. I assume it wasn't you."

There was a sniff from the dark cowl. When the Master Thief spoke again, it sounded as if his words were ever so slightly curved by an unseen smirk. "No, it wasn't. But someone has it. And I intend to find out who."

The latch on the door clicked back suddenly, and the door swung open to admit a trio of Keepers. Artemus was first among them, but another man pushed forward, came within a foot of Raife, and gave him a disgusted glare through a badly swollen eye.

"So you're the Keeper murdering scum I keep hearing so much about," the man snarled. "You might think you're lucky that my Enforcers didn't manage to subdue you, but I can assure you—" He leaned close enough for Raife to smell the stale blood on his breath behind his split lip. Raife leaned back and tried to breathe the odor out of his nose. "—that when I'm done with you, you'll have wished Garrett had left you to them."

Raife glanced up at the Master Thief, but Garrett had pulled back into the shadows of the room, where he stood lurking in silence.

"Cyrus, please—" Artemus put his hand on the man's shoulder, but it was quickly withdrawn when Cyrus flinched away.

"You may be willing to tolerate the cold-blooded execution of one of our brothers," the roughed-up Keeper growled at Artemus, "but I'm not."

Raife prickled. "It wasn't an execution. I didn't even know who he was until he was dead."

"Straight from the criminal's mouth!" Cyrus snapped. "A mindless killing. Thoughtless. Oh yes, I can see why you'd want to protect this one, Aretmus." He turned his cock-eyed glare back to Raife and squinted up at him. "You and those girls have been nothing but trouble since you showed up. We might have had a better grasp on current developments by now, but as it stands, every time we come closer to understanding even a tiny piece of the elaborate puzzle unfolding itself before us, every time we nearly grasp how to stop the forces eagerly weaving this city's destiny towards its own destruction, some idiot street thug who thinks he's a master thief practically places victory in their hands."

Raife clenched his fists and thought about punching the man right across his bruised cheek. Artemus must have seen something in his expression, too, because he gently pulled Cyrus back a few steps, out of easy striking range. Raife glared back at the man, the two of them locked eye to eye.

"Cyrus," the Keeper said, "this is not your mission alone. We all want to find the Eye and secure the situation, but you need to calm down. If you can't, I will have to remove you from this."

"Wait…your enforcers?" Raife said, the connection suddenly drawing on him. Cyrus' good eye narrowed. "The ones before or after Northermeed? See, I've gotten so popular with you Keepers lately, it's hard to keep track. As far as I can recall, there was only one Enforcer at Northermeed, but I believe there were at least three trailing me to my private meeting."

Cyrus continued to glare, but said nothing. Artemus glanced between them. "What Enforcers?"

The other man's lip twitched. "Don't play stupid, Artemus. It doesn't suit you."

Raife, feeling the upper hand slipping back to him, smirked and leaned a little closer to say, softly, "They're all dead, by the way. In case you were wondering why they haven't contacted you."

The man's good eye widened. "Lies."

"No lie," Raife replied. He leaned back and crossed his arms. For the first time in days, he felt like he was getting a little control over his circumstances, at least temporarily, and he wasn't about to let it get by him without enjoying it a little. "Pagans don't much like being spied on, especially not by sneaksie Keepers. Your boys are fertilizing some nasty looking trees as we speak. On the plus side, if you're a spiritual man, it's rather like they'll be living on through the forest. Pretty idea, don't you think?"

"Fiend!" The man lunged. He managed to snag Raife by the collar and nearly shoved him off his feet before Artemus and two other Keepers who had stolen into the room unannounced caught him and tore him away. Raife landed on the bed, but succeeded in converting his fall into a graceful, slumping sit.

"You worthless scrag, you sewer roach, you filth!" Cyrus tried to free himself from the grip of his comrades, but when it became clear that such an escape would not be forthcoming, he resigned himself to only a withering glare. "Laugh while you can, stupid fool. If those Pagan friends of yours have the Eye, we may all very well be fertilizing the forest that consumes this city. And that means your little friends, too. Why don't you ask Artemus what the Keeper Council has discussed regarding them?"

"Enough, Cyrus," Artemus turned him towards the door, and the others drew him forward, but he wasn't about to stop.

"You think he's your friend, but it was he who suggested it! Mark my words, by the end of this, your little friends will stain the streets with their lifeblood. What good will a few precious gems be worth then?"

Artemus shut the door behind him and stood there for a moment, his hand pressed against the wood as if placing a spell of sanctuary upon it. Maybe he was. Raife had never been all that good at determining when magic was being used.

"What did he mean?" Raife asked. "What was he talking about—you, the Council-?"

When at last he did speak, Artemus sounded tired. "It's nothing," he said. "There was concern that if the Trickster were resurrected that his life force might still be tied to Megan, Daphne, and whoever else might be here in this world from theirs. He might draw his power from their existence, in which case…" The Keeper hesitated and sighed. "I don't believe it will come to that."

Raife rose slowly from the bedside. "In which case…what?"

The Keeper gave him a solemn look, but it was the Master Thief who spoke. "In which case, the only way to destroy the Trickster would be to kill them."

Raife bristled. "You can't do that. They trust you!"

"I have no intention of that ever happening," the Keeper said. "If there is any possible alternative, I will take that route first. That situation was discussed, but it was not agreed upon, nor do we have any evidence yet that such would be the case if the Trickster is brought back to this life. And even if it were to become the only way, I promise you, I would not authorize any action upon it without consulting the girls."

Raife shook his head, trying to clear the foggy rage overtaking him, and the moment of control slipped away as quickly as he'd felt it return to him. "If you go anywhere near them, I'll kill you myself."

"I understand," Artemus said gently, and the kind patronizing tone nettled the thief more than the earlier suggestion of betrayal. "But none of this may ever have to come to a head if we can get the Eye before the Pagans do. There's been no sign that the Trickster has returned, therefore they must not yet have it in their possession. If you have any idea where it might be, or who might have taken it—"

"I know."

The Keeper looked surprised. "You do?"

Raife hunched his shoulders, willed the words through the cage of his teeth. "Those damned enforcers, the ones I saw dead in the woods. They must have it."

"Of course." The Master Thief's voice cut the stillness of the room like sandpaper on metal. "If they followed him on his little game of hide-and-seek, chances are they saw him hide the Eye and took their opportunity. Not everyone can spot a Keeper who doesn't want to be seen," he said. "He wouldn't have known he was leaving it in their hands until it was too late."

Raife felt his face burn as he stood glaring at the shadowed figure in the corner. He wanted to say something sharp, something cutting and witty, but the curve of a mocking smirk on the cowl-shadowed chin made every word in his vocabulary slip right out of his head.

Artemus spoke first. "Then the enforcers would still have the Eye, if the Pagan's haven't realized it yet."

"They haven't," Raife said. He rolled his shoulders and lifted his chin, trying to put on the air of confidence he found so difficult to manifest in the presence of the Master Thief. "We walked right by the bodies on our way back to the city. They didn't suspect a thing any more than I did. The Eye is probably still there."

"If it is, we don't have much time. Garrett—"

The Master Thief pushed off the wall. His cloak seemed to draw the corner's shadows after him, darkening that side of the room. "I'll find it," he said, though he didn't sound pleased as he moved toward the door.

"Wait." Raife grit his teeth and snatched up his cloak from where it lay draped over the trunk at the base of the bed and pulled it over his shoulders. "I'll go. I'm the one who knows where those bodies are. You can poke around in that cursed forest for as many days as you like, but it'll be faster if I get it myself."

The Master Thief hesitated at the open door, the mocking smirk now just a hard, thin-lipped line with a disapproving downturn at the corners. "So you can lose it again? Or hand it over to the Pagans? I don't think so."

Raife clenched his fists at his side. "You don't have to like it, but you know I'm right. You know it'll take too long for you to find it on your own."

"You might be surprised."

"And you might get yourself speared by a lurching branch of death. Lot of good that'll do us."

Garrett moved toward him, loomed over him. It was amazing how tall the man could make himself appear. They couldn't be much different in height, but Raife felt dwarfed. The sour, mean breath of the Master Thief gusted across his face as the cowled head bent toward him. In its deep, recessed shadows, the tiny green light of his mechanical eye focused so fiercely upon him, Raife swore he could feel it burning a hole into his forehead.

"Lurking branches are the least of my worries in those forests," he growled. "And every nasty thing in there is going to be after you. Do you think the Pagans are going to let you stroll into their territory after what you did? They still think you cheated them. If enforcers couldn't sneak through those woods, a pickpocket like you won't make it past the fringe."

The Master Thief turned away.

"Then we should go together," Raife said. He hated the high tone that had crept into his voice upon thinking of the kinds of creatures the pagan forest might hold, the kinds of creatures whose hungry eyes he could still feel watching the back of his neck. "I still know where those bodies are, but I'll only be able to direct you if I can see where you're going. You can watch my back."

"You think I want to keep you alive?" The Master Thief chuckled softly.

"You will until you find the Eye. After that, I guess…" Raife swallowed the lump that had suddenly wedged itself in his throat. "I guess I'll be on my own."

"You'll be dead."

"I'm not as defenseless as you think," Raife replied. "At least, not when I've got my knives." He glanced at the Keeper, who nodded.

"Come with me," he said. "I'll get your things for you."

"I haven't agreed to anything yet," the Master Thief said as the Keeper moved past him through the open door.

"We don't have time to wait," Artemus replied. "Take him with you, and be quick. The less time you both spend in those woods, the better."

Daphne awoke with a start and a shiver to a loud clang. Suddenly, she was surrounded by warmth and light, though it took her a moment to remember where she was. Her head was cushioned by Sherry's lap, and the barmaid held one of her hands, slowly bending each finger in turn. At Daphne's knee, a stained hammer idol reflected the flames dancing behind the grill of a nearby furnace.

"Whoa," Daphe murmured, feeling her head spin as she tried to sit up.

Sherry gently pressed her back down. "Just rest a minute. You're going to be fine. He found you a health potion in the workshop, and it seems to have healed the worst of it. The skin will probably be tender for a while, though."

Daphne could feel her hand, now—raw, tender, and tingling, but no longer lanced with pain. "He?"

Then she noticed Thornwick stroll into her field of vision. He didn't seem as friendly as he had before, and she wondered if they should be concerned about that change. Locked in a room with a pagan priest wasn't necessarily any better than being locked outside with the Hammerites. Granted, he did owe her his life, so maybe that would keep him from hurting them, even if he'd turned on them. She couldn't be sure, just by studying his face.

Another loud clang rang through the space and made her jump at its proximity. She glanced at the door, but couldn't see so much as a dent in it.

"They've been at it for a while," Thornwick said, frowning at the door. "But there's some work yet before they make any progress."

"And once they start making progress?" Daphne asked, but the pagan's solemn expression remained fixed on the door, and she guessed that was answer enough. Carefully, she sat up, this time, at least, without the accompanying dizziness. "So what are our options? Are there any back doors? Any windows? Passages?"

"Only this one," Thornwick replied, lifting his chin towards the barred door. "We are as safe as we are imprisoned, I'm afraid. But it was the only place I could think of in the moment."

"Well, don't beat yourself up or anything. It's better than being out there with them."

Beside her, Sherry had risen to her feet, though she kept her hands glued to Daphne's arm as if she were afraid the slightest shift in the air would blow them apart. There was a strange expression on the girl's face that Daphne couldn't quite place.

"Daphne, I need to show you something," Sherry said quietly. "You're not going to like it, but you need to know."

The gravitas of her tone made Daphne shiver despite the heat. "Gosh, what?" Then a horrifying thought struck her like an icicle to the chest. "Oh god, Otto-?"

"No, no!" The barmaid shook her head quickly and almost smiled. "No, nothing about Otto. It's Gus."

The barmaid drew her through the arched doorway and into the adjoining room where the furnaces burned so hot and dry, their emanating heat made Daphne feel as if she were getting a sunburn standing near them. It was a workshop of sorts. Benches lined the far wall, and piles of scrap metal lay heaped in a manner of only semi-ordered chaos. Furnaces, three of them, boiled the air and made the giant contraption looming in the center of the room glow like molten gold. It took Daphne a moment of staring at the thing to realized what it was, or what it had once been.

Then she let out a low whistle and stepped up to the mounted cherub face. "Oh, Gus," she said softly, stroking its metal cheek.

She could see where pieces of him had been taken off, manipulated, and bolted back on in different configurations. His wheel was gone, replaced by two legs thicker and taller than his originals ever had been. Grating shaped from his original body curved over the plush seat above the cherub face, and the controls themselves—levers and valves that would have looked more at home on a mechanist submarine—cluttered the cockpit. His arms remained, but judging by bulk and size, had been tampered with as well. A duo of cannons—stripped from other servants, no doubt—perched upon his shoulders, and above that, where his head might have once been but was no longer, a tall steam pipe vent rose towards the high ceiling. Daphne took a slow walk around what had once in-part been her metal friend, noting the trio of meshed grates leading to the enormous furnace in back which lay cool and clean of ash. His metal side was warm to the touch, baked as it was in the heat of the surrounding boilers.

Sherry remained by the door while Daphne took in the mecha with a friend's face, and said nothing, patiently letting her absorb the situation. Thornwick, likewise, kept back, but Daphne noticed his frown had tightened, and his gaze remained fixed on her. He watched her so closely that she became self-conscious every time she touched what had once been Gus' side, or his hand, or his face, as if the pagan might take every sign of sympathy and affection as a personal insult. It was as she drew nearer to them, coming back around the far side of the mecha, that the pagan spoke and broke the silence of her deliberations.

"I was mistaken before. You were not sent to save me at all, were you?"

Daphne hesitated and shared a quick, nervous glance with Sherry. The last thing she wanted to do was piss off Thornwick, having seen his reaction to Matthew—the bastard—and witnessing the intensity of rage of which he was capable. But she wasn't much for lying, and she knew her skills at it were weak at best. The truth was all she could offer, but at least with her hand somewhat healed and the talisman cast aside, she felt confident she might at least be able to protect Sherry and herself if he decided it would be more in his interest to eliminate them both.

"No," she said cautiously. "I only came for Sherry. But I heard your pain, and after what the Hammerites had done to another friend of mine, I couldn't just walk away from that."

"You have the Trickster's gift, but are not of his people. No one of his people could touch a vile machination such as this without revulsion. Yet you…you seem almost to care for it."

She caught Sherry's warning glance, but Thornwick didn't seem to be getting any angrier, which gave her a little confidence. She lifted her chin and crossed her arms, careful to keep the raw skin of her healing hand from brushing the fabric of her cloak. She looked at poor Gus and felt a pang of guilt. She should never have taken him out of that shop. If she'd ordered him to stay, he would have, and he would still be safe and whole.

Unless the Hammerites tore up the whole city looking for parts, which they probably did.

"Gus was my friend," she said. "He looked after me and Sherry and protected us. And no, I'm not a Pagan. As for the gift, as you call it, that wasn't exactly my doing. Adrianna tricked me."

"Why?" He looked almost hurt. The frown remained, but there was a concern to it, a gentling of its harder edges.

Daphne shrugged and looked away from his penetrating gaze. "I don't know. I guess she thought I was somebody I'm not. She thought the Trickster had sent me, as a messenger to her or something."

"But you're not?"

"Of course she's not." Sherry's voice trembled a little when she spoke, and she visibly took a step away from Thornwick as she did so, but she kept her gaze on him. "Tell him, Daphne."

Thornwick watched her steadily, and it made Daphne's skin crawl, though not wholly unpleasantly. He didn't look mad, so that was something at least. Still, she wasn't sure she wanted to tell a Pagan about the whole truth. Telling Sherry or Otto or Raife or even Basso about home was one thing; they were her allies. But Thornwick? She'd only just met him, and saving a guy's life didn't guarantee friendship or trustworthiness.

Then again, we're locked in a room with him, and he did save us from the Hammerites, and he did keep Sherry company while they were imprisoned, so that's worth something, isn't it? And besides, maybe if he knows something of the truth, he'll stop looking at me like that.

She sighed. "Honestly, I don't know what I am. I'm out of place, that's for sure. I'm not even supposed to be here. One minute, I was at home, in my world, playing a video game, and the next, I was suddenly here, surrounded by thieves and pagans and Hammerites and Keepers, none of which exist for real in my world. I mean—" She couldn't help laughing a little.—"this place is just a bunch of pixels and programming in my world. People in my world made it up and wrote code and created graphics and made up a story line which became your world for us."

Daphne winced at her own words, hearing how condescending they could sound surrounded by a place that was so obviously real now, no matter what it had been before. "Look—I, I don't really know how to explain it right… Maybe this place existed separately from us, and somehow the developers just opened up a doorway into this world, or…I don't know… It's not that this place isn't real, it's just…where I come from…"

Thornwick had moved closer to her as she spoke, and it was only now that she realized how close. Sherry had moved nearer as well, standing just a few steps off as if ready to jump in should the pagan make any sudden move. But the suspicion in his face had softened. Now he gazed down at her and before she quite knew what he was doing, and before Sherry could make any sound other than a vague warning squeak, he placed a hand against her cheek. It was a rough, a workman's hands, but it was soothingly cool to the touch.

Daphne almost pulled away from the intimacy of it, but the pagan whispered, "Wait," and closed his eyes. "Give me a moment."

She waited, stiff and uncomfortable, his palm pressed against her burning cheek.

"Such…things…I see…" His voice was dreamy, distant.

"Like what?"

"Machines," he said. "Terrible machines that rush along dark roadways smoother than any cobbled street. And buildings made of polished…stone? Cords strung up against the evening sky, boxes flashing with pictures that speak and move as if alive—"

"That's a TV!" Daphne felt the blood rush to her cheek at her own squeak of excitement. The space between his hand and her face grew hot, as if charged with electricity. "You can see my world, can't you? Those machines—those are cars—automobiles—and power lines!"

The pagan shivered violently, once, and drew his hand back as if she'd shocked him with static. He withdrew a step, and she thought she saw sweat beading upon his brow, above his lip. "Such a place," he whispered, still gazing into space as if he could still see it. "Could such a place truly exist?"

Released from his heated grasp, Daphne felt as if despite the furnaces, the room had dropped a few degrees in temperature. She wrapped her arms tighter around herself and fought back a shiver of her own. "It does exist," she said. "Not here, of course, but elsewhere. Far away."

The pagan's gaze drifted back down to her face, and she felt a chill in her chest at the intensity of his stare. It was not unlike the look he'd given her back in the purification chamber, and it made her insides squirm. "You have so much life within you," he said. "So much more than I. So much more than anyone in this place, in this city. You are…filled…brimming with it." He shook his head very, very slowly and a chuckle—so light and airy it almost sounded a bit mad—escaped his lips. "You are amazing."

Daphne let out a little chuckle of her own, holding up her hands and taking a step back as he took a step forward. She bumped up against Gus behind her, and the hollow form let out a soft clink at the contact. "No, no. Not really," she said. "I'm just an ordinary girl, really. Just, you know, me."

"Not ordinary at all. No, you are…" His eyes lit up. "You are like a goddess among us. No wonder the woodsie lady felt you were worthy of our gifts. You are not unlike the Trickster himself."

"Uh, like the Trickster?" Sherry said, and Daphne was relieved to find her friend suddenly close beside her, the two of them facing the fervent pagan together. "Look, pal, I think maybe you're getting the wrong idea here…"

"I see clearly," Thornwick said, and like lightning his hand shot out caught Daphne's, and before she knew what he was doing, she found him kneeling at her feet, covering her hand with kisses. "Forgive me," he whispered, and Daphne and Sherry exchanged a glance. "Forgive me, good Lady, for not recognizing you for what you are. I have not yet made my own transformation, and I am pitifully equipped as a mere mortal."

Sherry's eyes looked about ready to pop out of her head, and Daphne squirmed, prying her hand out of his grasp. "I think you've probably got me confused with somebody else," she said quickly. "No harm done. Happens all the time."

The pagan stayed on his knees, but spread his arms wide. "No mistake. I know you for what you are now. I cannot remove the knowledge from my thoughts any more than I can remove the blood from my veins. You are a gift from the Trickster, a guiding spirit sent from his realm, and I am at your mercy. Forgive me my ignorance and my disrespect. I did not understand before."

"I think he's a bit off kilter," Sherry muttered close to Daphne's ear, "but at least he's on our side for now."

A deep rumble shook the workshop suddenly, and stone dust trickled from the ceiling. The trio glanced towards the sealed door, but it still stood, though Daphne thought she felt a wisp of chilling crypt air creep into the room before dissipating in the furnace heat.

"They're making progress," Thornwick said, his reverent intensity fading as he rose to his feet, until he looked back at her. The gaze made her heart jump into her throat. "Mistress, command me, and I shall obey. We must escape this place in order to fulfill our mutual destinies. What is it you suggest?"

"Me?" Daphne squeaked.

Sherry grabbed her arm and gave a curt smile at the pagan. "Hold on two seconds, okay? We're going to consult." She drew Daphne to the other side of the room, turned her so they stood face-to-face, and shook her lightly by the shoulders.

"I have no idea what's going on with that vine-addled taffer, but we are going to have to get out of here. So. Any ideas?"

"Why am I supposed to have all the ideas?" Daphne hissed, glancing nervously back at the patiently waiting pagan.

That gaze was still there, piercing, intent—if he weren't quite so attractive, it'd be freaking spooky. In fact, forget the pretty face, it was spooky and it made her skin crawl. The thought of getting the hell out of the workshops and out into wide open spaces—back to the city streets with its nighttime chill like a cold shower—was foremost on her mind. But how was one supposed to escape from an impenetrable structure like this?

Poor Gus, visionless and unconscious, watched her with his blank blue lens. She swore his cherub face had a heartbreaking sadness she didn't remember from before. With a sigh, she shook her head and tried to think. Another bone-rattling rumble shivered through the room; stone dust tickled the back of her neck until she itched it away.

"Brilliant!" Sherry whispered, her grip tightening on Daphne's arm. "Why didn't I think of it?"

"Think of what?" Daphne asked, but then she followed the barmaid's eager gaze, up from Gus' face to the twin cannons perched on his shoulders. "Wait, that? I didn't think of that at all!"

Sherry brushed past her and stood beneath the mecha's towering side. "They can't keep him loaded, can they?"

"Would be a bit of good luck for a change."

"Give me a leg up. Maybe I can see inside."

Daphne laced her fingers and winced as the barmaid stepped up into her makeshift stirrup, gripping the edges of the nearest cannon to squint into its darkness. Her hand ached, but otherwise gave her no trouble. "Don't you think you should check from the other side? You know, the side that won't take your face off if it misfires?"

"The furnaces aren't lit." Sherry's voice echoed strangely down the barrel of the cannon. "It won't go off."

Daphne contented her nervousness by looking away, all the same, certain that at any moment she might hear a tremendous explosion and feel the barmaid ripped right out of her grip. But no such thing happened, and after a moment and a long, metallic sigh, Sherry jumped back down to the floor.

"I can't tell," she said, frowning at the mecha. "Only way to find out for sure would be to light him up and try it."

Daphne crossed her arms and looked Gus in the face long and hard. She wasn't sure what was left of him, if anything at all remained of her sweet robot friend besides his various parts and pieces. But a part of her was curious. Part of her wanted to know if he'd still listen to her. And part of her was scared shitless that turning him on would make him go haywire and smash them all to bits. A zing of nervous energy shot through her, from navel to toe, and back again. She cleared her throat and gripped the rim of the cockpit.

"Okay. Help me up."

"Mistress?" Thornwick approached, eyeing the machine warily. "Mistress, surely you do not intend to awaken this…monstrosity?"

"He's not a monstrosity," she said, trying to project a tone of confidence she didn't remotely feel, "he's at least partly my friend. You said you would obey me. Well, if that's the case, you'll stop questioning me and give me a hand up."

To his credit, the pagan did not argue. Instead, he gripped her firmly by the waist and hoisted her up into the tight cockpit as if it took him no effort at all. Then he removed himself to a semi-safe distance, that being the corner closest to the sealed door and partially out of sight of the mecha's blue lens eye.

"I trust you, Mistress," he said. His tone, however, was not so convincing.

"Sherry, can you light the furnaces?"

"Give me a second."

Daphne craned her neck around the side of the cockpit, but the barmaid had already ducked around behind and out of sight. She could hear her shuffling around. There was a clink and the creak of a hinge. She couldn't feel when the first flames touched the kindling in the machine's belly, but after a few still moments, she began to hear the gurgling of hot water as it simmered.

A faint whine and a shudder from the machine around her made Daphne quickly sit down in the control seat. There were no straps, no buckles to hold her in place, so she just held on to the nearest levers and tried not to pull any of them.

"They're all lit!" Sherry called.

All around her, Daphne could see boiling water rushing through the glass tubes encircling the cockpit. The gauges snapped to life, their little arrows indicating a full water tank, adequate steam pressure, and a full load of munitions. The machine whirred around her.

"Whoa." The whining squeal that used to send her scrambling for cover now gave her a wholly different kind of chill. Her palms were sweaty, but she tightened her grip around the lever at her right. If she pulled it, what would—?

Daphne let out a short shriek as the machine straightened its legs beneath her, hoisting the control seat six feet up into the air, before coming to a stop once more. There were a cluster of pedals on the cockpit floor in front of her, but what they all did she couldn't be sure. There was a valve to her left that looked a little like a steering wheel, and cautiously, she twisted it. The machine pivoted, its footfall clanging on the stone floor as Sherry leapt back with an indignant squawk.

"Watch out, would you?" she shouted over the noise of the machine. "You could squash me, you know!"

"Sorry!" Daphne shouted back, but she couldn't quite hide the grin of delight from her face. It was like playing MechWarrior again! "Choose your clan…" Daphne muttered to herself, then giggled. Now if only she could figure out how to aim the cannons.

Her gaze darted about the cockpit, looking for some symbol, some signage that would indicate the weaponry controls. Above her, she spotted what looked like a periscope, and with a little effort, managed to pull it down to eye-level. Through it, she could see the corner of the room and the top of one of the furnaces clearly through the carefully etched crosshairs in glass.

She fumbled for the left-handed crank and shifted the mecha's focus back to the left, then to the right, then to the left again. But up and down still eluded her. With a sigh, she pushed the periscope up again and looked around for what she assumed would be a right-handed control for the y-axis. Next to her right elbow, she found a lever that looked as if it might do the trick.

"So, is it loaded?" Sherry shouted from her safe corner somewhere out of sight.

"Yeah! To the teeth!" Daphne struggled to make her voice carry over the noise of the machine. "This thing could take out a whole army!"

"There isn't much time!" That was Thornwick. "The Hammerites won't be much longer before they break through this entire wall and take the door with it!"

"All right, all right!" Daphne pulled the periscope back down and this time, keeping her hand on the lever at her right, pulled it up hard. The view shot toward the ground and almost threw her out of the control chair entirely.

"Aim for the ceiling!" she heard Sherry shout. "We're still underground!"

"I know! Thanks, Captain Obvious!" Daphne shoved the lever back down and the cockpit lurched upward. "Who the hell likes their y-axis inverted, anyway?" she muttered to herself as she shoved the periscope out of the way.

The gauges all said the thing was loaded and ready to go, but how on earth was she supposed to know what would fire the damn thing? After a quick survey, only one peddle stood out: grated and larger than the others surrounding it, it looked like the kind of thing you'd slam to the floor when you wanted some action. That, she assumed, was the accelerator. Which only left half a dozen other peddles unaccounted for. One had to be a break, unless that was controlled by lever. There were four separate gauges that seemed associated with the cannons, for pressure and for reserve power for each, though she wasn't sure how to use them, either, and the shuddering of the machine around her was starting to wear on her nerves.

There were too many buttons, too many levers, too many switches and cranks and valves and pipes. The cockpit was insufferably hot, too, with all that hot water and steam racing through their various tubes. Daphne wiped a quickly gathering sheen of sweat from her brow, at a loss of what to try next, afraid to hit the wrong button or flip a switch that might do the wrong thing in the confined space. The last thing she wanted to do was accidentally kill herself, Sherry, and Thornwick.

"What do I do now?" she whispered, her voice lost in the rumbling machinery. "We've got to get out!"

A slender spout of steam whistled at her from a tiny valve to her left, just above a set of ten large, brass-colored buttons. They all looked alike, save for the numbers stenciled onto their smooth caps: two sets of one through five. A yellow light glowed above each button.

It was strange, but in that moment, Daphne felt sure that the mecha's cockpit had tightened slightly around her, as if bracing her within it. Daphne glanced down at the cherub face just beneath her on the front of the mecha.

"Gus?"

The machine's inner workings clattered suddenly, but it didn't move beyond that. She didn't think it could, not without the controls at her fingertips. She saw, more than felt, the next blast from the Hammerites in the hall; a shower of stone dust drifted down around them like tiny flakes of falling snow.

"Daphne!" Sherry's voice cut through all the competing sounds. "What are you waiting for? Do something!"

"I'm trusting you, here, pal," Daphne said, patting the wall of the cockpit. "If you could make this work for us—" She felt her voice catch and a sudden lump locked up her throat. "Oh, god, I'm sorry, Gus! I should have looked after you better. You don't deserve this."

The tiny spout of steam squealed over the buttons in unison with Sherry's shout of, "Daphne!"

Daphne blinked quickly, and the heat dried her eyes. "Here goes!" she cried. She squeezed her eyes shut, and stabbed the top-most Number One button.

The room exploded. Rock crumbled around the mecha's cockpit, clanging against its frame, raining lumps of masonry inside and outside. Dust billowed everywhere, and Daphne coughed and choked until she pulled up the neck of her shirt to breathe through it. Her eyes stung from the dust, but if she squinted, she could see where the cannon had blasted a hole up through the floor above. There were tapestries on the wall, and shattered glass windows. A shred of a woven carpet dangled from the shattered edge of the floor.

Daphne scrambled from the cockpit out onto the crumbled pile of ceiling just as Thornwick, followed closely by Sherry, clambered towards her over the rubble. They didn't speak; Thornwick helped first her and then Sherry up through the hole, and together they hauled him up, too. The floor tilted at a dangerous slant back down towards the workshop where the mecha lay half-buried. Daphne got one last look at the cherub face below, gazing up at her.

"Thank you," she whispered, and then there was an arm pulling her to the broken windows, and another moment later, the three of them stood out on the street in the fading moonlight.