The driver took us from there. As we drove, my eyelids grew heavy. My body felt weak and confused with all the changes in sleep schedules lately. With that and the stress, I was spent.

My head rolled back and I startled awake the first time, but the next time, as we were passing the Trader Joe’s near George Washington University, my eyes refused to stay open a moment longer. In a flash, and this time without Aerona, I was back in that strange land where I had found Riland.

“We’re back,” his voice came, and then he stepped out in front of me. Not from my side or anything like that, but seemingly from within me.

“I don’t understand. Where were you?”

“Why, with you, of course.” He smiled as if that explained everything.

“No, I tried bringing you, tried summoning you and all that—”

“And it worked. To a degree. It was a haze, in parts, but seeing your world, being able to lay eyes on Ebrill, Kordelia, and Aerona… it was amazing. Albeit, confusing.”

“You were there.” I shook my head, wondering how it was. Had I simply brought him as a sort of spirit, more ghost-like than Steph’s wraiths? “Wait! I’m confused—you didn’t know about their new form.”

“I did not.”

With a solemn nod, I explained the curse and how that had turned them into gargoyles. He took it well enough, considering his predicament. Considering what he had to deal with already in this dark place, not much was likely to surprise him.

During the brief, I was able to take in our surroundings, noting a curve in the land below and what looked like the edge of some barely visible city walls. Finished talking, I stood there, staring, trying to get a better view with my enhanced focus.

“It’s a city,” he said. “One that very much mimics that of Norok in Avalon. Here, they call it ‘Koron,’ as it’s a bit of a backwards place.”

“And the armies? Where we were before?”

He eyed our surroundings, then gestured to a point where jagged rocks descended on the opposite side so that we couldn’t see beyond. “There, I believe.”

“I don’t get it.” I frowned, taking a step that way as if doing so would give me answers. “Why here, then? In the past, it was always that I would be brought close to a specific person, but if you were with me…?”

“Someone else, then,” he said.

The answer came to me immediately, a moment before the falling pebbles alerted me to someone nearby. Darkness didn’t reveal much on the hillside, but there was a figure there, to be sure.

“She’s not to be trusted,” Riland said taking a step back, dangerously close to the cliff’s edge. As I already suspected, when the faint light caught her face it revealed Megha.

“You…?” I braced myself, ready to hit her with everything I had.

The woman held her hands wide, bowed, and said, “I’m not going to hurt you.” Her voice was somewhat raspy, as if she hadn’t used it in a long time.

“You attacked me, before.”

“Out there, where they control me. Maybe. Not here.”

“I don’t understand.” A glance over to my buddy showed that he was frozen in place. In fact, everything around us was. “What’d you do to him?”

“Don’t worry. I simply wanted us to have a moment. I don’t want to hurt you, but out there, in the other world, I have no choice. Free me, and I’m yours.”

“Mine?”

She nodded. “As much as my sisters already are.”

“You mean… Ebrill? The others?”

“You don’t recognize me.”

I frowned. “From the Embassy, yeah—”

“No, from before that. I was there in the hills with all of you. Charging, attacking—not there with you and the main group, but there. I didn’t get trapped in the stone, but I was there, nonetheless, then expelled to this place when the others realized what was happening and put a binding curse on me. Tell them, see what they say. Tell them you found Megha.”

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My mouth went dry at the sound of her name. I nodded. Her name was already familiar to me, but her introducing herself like that, saying her name as if the others would be persuaded by hearing it, all felt rather curious.

I woke with Steph pulling my arm, helping me to groggily exit the car as she thanked our driver. Then he was off, and we walked the last couple of blocks before ducking into my new Batcave entrance.

You there? I mentally asked Riland, to which he popped up next to me in a translucent, ghostly form.

“I seem to be. Oh, you can see me this time?”

Steph turned, mouth half-opened as if to ask a question, then shouted in surprise. “What the fuck?”

“Riland,” the man said, and bowed. “At your service.”

Eyeing me, Steph asked, “This is the one?”

I nodded. “My new… ghost buddy, I guess.”

“Not a ghost,” Riland corrected me. “Not exactly.”

“Well, welcome to the party.” She turned back to me. “The others?”

My mental sonar sensed the gargoyles landing on the roof above, so we made our way up, pausing to greet Shisa along the way.

“No trouble, boy?” I asked, and Shisa merely gave me a reassuring look that said there hadn’t been. Turning to Riland, Shisa sniffed, nodded, and then trotted off.

“What is… that?” Riland asked.

“A protective spirit,” I explained.

“Made of stone and fur.” He shrugged. “I’ve seen weirder.”

We kept moving, but Steph paused on the next floor up. “Glitonea…”

“Is here?” Riland asked.

“We kind of have her trapped. Our prisoner.” I shrugged. “We’re trying to see how best to leverage that little fact.”

He laughed. “That’s huge. I’m surprised the rest of the Nine aren’t already kicking down your door. Or blowing it up with the rest of this house.”

“Not all are on her side,” Steph explained, “or even able to access this plane of existence. But what I was getting at is… do you suppose she needs to eat?”

I grunted, but then nodded. “We can check on her after this. If we must.”

Reaching the roof, we found the others waiting. Ebrill looked worried but stayed put, Aerona clearly taking the lead in this situation.

“What happened?” Aerona asked, none of them noticing Riland, apparently.

Steph gave them the rundown on our meeting with the senator and Galahad, then backed up to go over everything leading up to the fight at the Embassy. Kordelia and Aerona shared a concerned glance at the mention of Fatiha, but Ebrill’s eyes never left mine.

“She was there,” I said. “The one from the dream. And this time, she spoke. The one called,” I racked my brain, still groggy from my nap, “Megha—her name is Megha.”

A stunned silence filled the room. Only Steph looked around in confusion. I turned to Riland to see if he had anything to add, but he was moving around Kordelia, eyeing her in confusion. She still hadn’t said anything to him.

“How…?” Ebrill asked.

“She said she was separated, in a different group. Caught with a binding spell, I think?”

“Not in the stone,” Aerona said, voice full of awe. “All this time…”

“That’s right!” Ebrill leaned forward, excitedly. “She had been part of the rear guard. But that means… How many others might be out there?”

“So, she’s one of you?”

“Was,” Kordelia said. As the others turned to her with surprise, she shrugged. “For all we know, she’s with the enemy now.”

“Bullshit,” Ebrill said.

“She would never turn on us,” Aerona added.

“Actually…” I turned to Steph. “We saw her. At the Embassy.”

“What?”

“Steph and I… saw her at the French Embassy. She was with Fatiha, and attacked us.”

Ebrill shook her head. “Impossible…”

“In the dream, she told me that she has no control out here, but in that dream place she does. I think… I think we can save her.”

“As in, she’s being controlled.” Ebrill punched the wall, creating a dent with her knuckles. “This is bad.”

“But, at least she’s made contact, so we know she isn’t too far gone,” Kordelia pointed out.

“So, what now?” I asked.

“We get you back into the dream,” Aerona said. “See what we can learn.”

“Hold on,” I said, and gestured toward Riland. The others turned, frowned, then looked around and back at me. My mind hurt for a moment, but then it made sense. “You don’t see him, do you?”

“They don’t, for some reason,” Riland interjected.

“Who are we supposed to be seeing?” Kordelia asked.

Aerona, however, was waving her hand through the air, and gasped. “Riland!”

“You see me?” he replied.

You see him?”

Aerona shook her head. “Unfortunately, no. But my magic shows his presence, at least confirming you’re not insane.”

“What’s going on?” Ebrill asked.

“I’m, apparently, bringing Riland with me from this backwards, dark land,” I explained. “And he’s here, but transparent. I’m thinking maybe similar to Steph’s wraiths, but somehow different as well.”

Kordelia looked at the point where I had gestured. “I wish I could see him. He’s there? Sees me?” When I nodded, she addressed him. “Riland, it will be an honor and a pleasure to serve with you again.”

“And I, with each of you,” he replied, and I conveyed it.

“Maybe…” Steph’s eyes lit up. “The runes!”

“Might be the key to fully bringing him to us.” I turned to Riland. “You, I mean. Yes, brilliant, Steph.”

“Wait, what about the senator and what happened at the Embassy?” Ebrill asked.

“And the Order,” Aerona added.

I glanced over at Riland, considering this. “A lot of it is likely tied together. Finding out how to summon Riland might relate to how they will summon Thiten, along with how we can find Megha.”

“Going back in and talking with Megha might also help, in that regard,” Aerona pointed out.

“True,” I agreed with a yawn.

We took another moment to let our thoughts wash over us.

Steph cleared her throat. “We need to bring food to Glitonea, right? Might as well get that done, then to the runes, followed by going back in to learn what we can from Megha.”

“Understood,” Aerona said, and we all headed downstairs to go about it.