Inspector Jordan Darius has known this was due ever since she let the sorceress live. A little slip of a laundress who’d had a cleansing enchantment passed down from her grandparents along with the shopfront.

A bungled case. Jordan looked at the neatly piled beach towels and the pale faces of the villagers and found herself unable to mete out the temple-prescribed decimation.

Jordan took her weeping from her village, the sorceress praying desperate hosannas to the Father the entire way. A sob of confusion from her when Jordan let her out at a crossroads, telling her to hitchhike to Fallgate and never return to her village.

Suffer not the falsifier and spare not the sorcerer. This sort of shit comes back around. And now there’s a big yokel ox with a gun on her.

She’s been on the wrong side of a gun before. She’ll figure it out. Guy looks frightened, looks like he’s got more brawn than brains. He said please and called her Madame Inspector. There are levers here.

I’ve heard enough. Miss Darius is far too calm; this is not a cowed, easily controlled hostage. She’ll have to go.

I flit back into Caspar's skull.

“What’s your name, brother?” the inspector asks.

Caspar stays quiet.

“I’m Jordan. Jordan Darius.”

“Quiet.”

“Sure.” She peers at him through the mirror. “I’m going to guess… Orion.”

“I said quiet.”

She chuckles. “Bro, you’re not gonna shoot me for trying to guess your name. You look too nice. What’s a nice name… Gregory. Abelard. John. You tell me and I’ll stop.”

“It’s Abraham,” Caspar says.

“Well, Abraham,” she says. “I’m not sure what your bug is with me, but it hasn’t gone so far that we can’t work it out and part as friends. You ain’t hurt anyone yet. Acheron 5:81, right? Blood let shall not cleanse blood spilt.”

“Nor further conceal the covenant between my children,” Caspar finishes.

Oh, yes. This lady’s gotta die.

Her eyes crinkle. “That’s right. Now can I guess this is about temple business? Maybe the Rogarth inspection?”

Silence from the warlock. He glances out at the blur of the highway divider.

“I gotta tell you, Abe, they’re going to send someone else if I don’t make it there.” Jordan drums her ringed fingers against the ivory gear stick as she upshifts. “I think what’s best is you and me turn around and go to Rogarth together. And we can talk on the way. The village ways aren’t the city ways. Not every inspector gets that, but I do. I won’t be bringing my tight-ass basilica city rubric in. No quota-filling or sadism. You have my word on that.”

Caspar shakes his head. “You’re taking me to Chamchek,” he says. “Anyone asks, I’m an acolyte on transfer.”

“Well, we won’t reach Chamchek without a refill on the gas.” Jordan’s voice is even. “I think we’re comfortable to go until exit 3-votive, then I gotta take us off and fill us up. Okay?”

Caspar glances at the fuel gauge. She’s not lying. “Okay.”

They coast into the rest stop, which is even more rinky-dink than the last. Not even a teahouse here, just a convenience stop and the chapel. “Will you let me pray here?” Jordan asks.

“No.”

“I’d like to pray for you.”

“Prayer doesn’t have the audience you think it does, Madame Inspector.” Caspar pops the passenger door and climbs out. “Step out and fill the tank.”

Then they’re back on the road, eating the miles between them and Chamchek. The stone saints-of-the-road gaze beatifically down from their stanchions. A garlanded bus laden with pennants and pilgrims, some riding the roof, cruises past them, evoking supportive honks from their fellow travelers. Jordan flicks the cruiser’s siren on and the pilgrims cheer from their seats. Caspar remembers what it felt like to have that comradeship in faith. He belongs now to a religion of one. It hurts his heart.

I realize belatedly it hurts mine a little, too. The Irene experiment is yielding interesting data.

Jordan is following the speed limit exactly; other cars peel around her and accelerate past. She’s slow-rolling the journey. She’s going to ask to stop for the night.

“Going to need a hotel soon, Abe.” Did I call it or what? “We can’t keep driving through the night.”

“We can.”

Jordan shakes her head. “I was already running on four hours. I will not be okay to drive. Now, we can keep going if you wanna take over, but that raises questions if we’re pulled over and I imagine you’d prefer to keep the gun on me.”

Caspar sighs heavily. He wishes he could hear me. “Fine,” he says. “Three exits from now.”

The motel they wind up at is a chintzy wayfarer trap, its facade done up in gaudy colors and overlays to look like a basilica. The squire at the peeling intake desk insists on a deep genuflection despite Jordan’s good-natured protests.

“You won’t believe how annoying it gets, all the bowing.” Jordan unlocks the door to their suite. “I don’t know why the inspectorate doesn’t spread leaflets or something. It hasn’t been a rule since the inquisitions.”

Caspar gestures to one of the twin beds with the hand not on his pistol. “Take that bedspread to the bathroom.”

Her brows gather. “Why?”

“Go.”

“I’m buying you a thesaurus so you can find additional ways to tell me ‘go.’” She pulls the pillows and comforter off the twin. “Proceed, maybe. Progress.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Progress to the bathroom,” Caspar says. The inspector progresses. “Now proceed to put that stuff in the tub.”

She spares the shower a dismal glance. There’s a grubby ring around the enamel. “The tub?”

“That’s where you’re sleeping.”

She tuts. “Abe, come on.”

“Sorry, Madame Inspector. Nowhere out there to secure you.” He indicates the safety rail along the bathroom wall. “Cuff yourself to that.”

“I have to pee first, Abe.”

“Fine.” He steps back.

She coughs. “A modicum of privacy, please?”

Caspar purses his lips. Oh, get over it, man. You can’t leave this one alone. He steps out of the bathroom. Argh.

Fortunately for us, Jordan Darius doesn’t try anything yet. Just does her business and lets him back in. Then she clambers into the tub and fishes her cuffs out of her belt, threading them through the rail and sticking herself to the wall. “Key’s on that little pouch on my left hip,” she says.

Caspar retrieves it, then hesitates. She might have another copy. “I need to pat you down,” he says.

“Where’s the trust. Honestly.” She shakes her head. “Do what you have to.”

Caspar searches Jordan, fighting his abashment at laying hands on her. This is the smart move, but it annoys me. Not sure why.

“Normally I ask a fella to buy me dinner first,” she remarks as he frisks her jacket.

“Can you please not.”

She chuckles. “Sorry.”

She isn’t concealing a key, but Caspar finds and confiscates a gravity knife tucked into her boot. “I’d love if I could get that back when we’re through,” she says. “Gift from an ex.”

He pockets the knife. “We’ll see.”

He shuts the bathroom light and heads back into the suite. “Night, Abraham,” she calls.

He has an inkling of what she’s trying to do with this chumminess, but he gives her a “Good night,” anyway.

He does his own business outside in the copse of forest near the hotel, then returns to the suite and lies atop the other twin bed, gazing up at the tawdry popcorn ceiling and preparing to meet his goddess.

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

“You’ve gotta kill her, Caspar.” I pour his steaming red bush tea to the brim.

Caspar shakes his head as I cross to my seat. We’re making the tea thing something of a tradition, it seems. “She’s cooperating.”

“She’ll be fine, Cas. I’ll keep her comfortable with the others.” I rest my chin on my palm. “I thought we’d gotten over this compunction.”

“It’s not about that,” he says. “I’m very grateful, what you’re doing.”

“You’re very welcome,” I say.

“It’s the pain and the fear beforehand. And the people they leave behind.” He sips. “And me. It hurts me. If I can be selfish.”

“You killed for the Father.”

“You showed me I didn’t,” he says. “I killed for nothing, and I hid behind the Father. He ain’t even here any longer. I’ll do what I have to, but I don’t want to kill because it’s easier. That doesn’t sit right.”

I put my tea down. It seems clear to me we need a reset in our understanding. “Caspar. I understand what you’re saying. But you swore your oath and took your mark. That doesn’t come for free. If ever I demand it, you will obey me. Your soul is mine eternally. You are mine eternally. When you live, you serve me. When you die, you will dwell with me.” I spread my arms. The window behind me closes. The candlelight flickers and dims. “You’re looking at your forever, kiddo.”

He frowns. “You never told me that.”

“Was it not obvious? You’re the one who called me a goddess. How do you think that works? Haven’t you been taught it all your life? This is the exact situation you had with the Father and you were pleased as punch about it.”

“That’s what I was born into,” he protests.

“And you prayed all your life he’d intercede for you or reveal his grace to you. Well, I did all that day one. Perhaps I should have been more withholding, but that isn’t how I operate.”

I lean across the table. My teeth slot out into the mouth I’ve manifested. They are razor-sharp. “If you’d really hate it that much, I can eat your soul and consign you to oblivion instead, when this is all over. It’s been so long since I’ve had a soul. Not since the Father. They are delicious. And I am hungry.”

He is afraid of me. He’s terrified of me. I can feel it draping over him like a freezing shroud. But his face betrays none of it. “You do what you think you must.”

I twist the tiles we sit on to a blank wall, and open a door to the pocket of autumn. “I am doing what I swore I would, my warlock.” I point out toward the tents. “You will do the same. That inspector is a liability. End her.”

“If she becomes a liability,” Caspar says, “I will.”

I stand up. I walk behind him and rest my hands on his shoulders. My claws emerge and prick lightly through his shirt. Such a broad man. So accustomed to his strength. But his strength is naught before me.

“Do you know the things I could do to you, should I tire of your resistance? I could break you. I could hollow you out and pack you with servility. Your eternity is an eyeblink to me. I could fill it with the kind of pain you’d do anything to stop.” The room twists and softens like candle wax, growing organic and cavernous. My hand travels across his trapezius and cups his neck. I press a finger gently against his jugular. “I could turn you into an obedient puppet of meat and bone.”

He tilts his head back and looks up at me. His cropped hair rasps against my midsection. His eyes are full of fear and defiance. “Then do it.”

We stare at one another. His jaw clenches.

I billow out a sigh. "I had to get the himbo warlock." I stomp back to my chair and sit heavily down as the room resets into its geometrical masonry. It's the fault of the separation that I'm so irked by this. The greater mass of me is serene, but my Irene fragment throws her hands up in annoyance. "All the hedge mages on Diamante and I pick the himbo. Fuck you, man. Fine."

“Fine?” And the way he looks at me tightens something inside the body I’ve made him.

“Fine, spare your inspector. Truss her up and drag her all the way to the capital. But when she pulls some dumb hero thing that blows the plan up, I reserve the right to tattoo I told you so on your idiot corpse’s chest.”

He smiles at me. Ugh, that picture-hero smile. His teeth are so straight and shiny. “You can put it on my forehead, even.”

“You are damn lucky you drew me out of all my sisters. I don’t even know if Bina would tolerate this kind of disobedience.”

“Why do you?” He drains the last dram of his tea. “You say you like humanity. You say you’re doing this for us. Why, if we’re so below you?”

“So suspicious of me, Caspar.” I tap my chest. “Kinda hurts.”

And I say it lightly, but it does. I wonder again if this Irene-loosening was a mistake.

“I want to understand you,” he says. “I know I can’t, but I’d like to try as well as I’m able.”

I shake my head. “You don’t need a reason to like the things you like. Sometimes you just like them.”

“Do you see how suspicious that sounds?”

“Is it really so crazy that I could have affection for humanity, even at such a remove from them? You’ve seen wounded creatures and wanted to help them, even if all you had in common with their primitivity is the pain you know they feel. You’ve seen industrious ants and hives of eusocial bees, and admired them, even been shocked and impressed by what they can produce.”

I pace to the window again and look out at the drifting firmament of books. Bina and I are still exploring the library. We pass through a cloud of bodice-ripper romances.

“You were eleven,” I recall. “And you rode your bike through the Clipperquay Trail after it had rained, and you accidentally crushed a frog with your front tire. And you gave him a burial and made a little headstone for him. Rest With The Father Mr. Froggy, you wrote. You remember?”

He looks into the murky reflection in his teacup. He remembers.

“I’m not saying all of us, and I’m not saying all the time. I’ve crushed mortals flat and given not a thought to them. But I like humans. My sisters often think I’m silly for it. But I do.”

He clears his throat. “So you see me as a bug.” And it’s unmistakable this time, a little curlicue of humor braided through his intent.

I titter. “Now you’re being mean, Caspar Cartwright. The temple taught you better, brother.”

He raises his hands. “Apologies.”

“Accepted. Now finish your tea and let’s get to training. I saw how you waved that pistol around. Not bad, but insufficient for an inspector.” I tilt my head and from around the corner steps a ghoulish caricature of Jordan Darius, her eyes big and red, her teeth sharpened into nasty fangs.

“That just ain’t neighborly,” Caspar remarks.

“I’m letting the little floozy live, aren’t I? Up and at ‘em. We’re going to run through some CQC.”

Caspar drains his cup. I unmake it and the cafe table, reducing both to thin filaments and sucking them back through the floor to give us room.

“She’s going to try and disarm you,” I say. “Don’t let her.”

Caspar drops into a combat stance and glances at his fist, where I’ve manifested a copy of Edgar’s pistol. His full lips harden into a line as his eyes dart to my uncharitable homunculus. I settle back onto a fast-manifested chaise, a little smile teasing across my unadorned face as I watch my warlock work.