eyes half open and watching her.
When they reached a clear space between trees, she drew out her athame. She hoped she could shift one dial slightly and bring them to a different area within Hong Kong—away from these boys and closer to a hospital. If they could get somewhere safe, even for a few hours, perhaps she could figure out what was happening.
A bloodcurdling screech from deeper in the trees made Quin freeze.
“He took it!” the youngest boy shrieked. “He took it, Wilkin! And the athame!”
As quickly as she could, Quin set her athame’s dials to bring them There and struck it against the lightning rod. A deep vibration followed, and a moment later she heard the competing tremor of another vibration. Her father must have struck the boys’ athame. Though Quin could not see him, she guessed he was trying to escape with their helmet and their stone dagger. And the boys were furious.
Quin carved an anomaly, making it as large as she could.
The branches of two nearby trees started shaking—Briac and the boys were grappling with each other just yards away.
“Step through!” Quin whispered urgently, hauling Shinobu to his feet, praying the bandage would hold and she was not killing him by forcing him to move. He managed to stay upright and stumble into the solidifying hole she’d ripped into the world.
“Let me wear it!” Briac gasped within the trees. “My mind will work, we’ll find her, we’ll find that athame. We’ll have it.”
“Get it off him!” said the older boy.
“He’s through!” said the younger one.
“Follow him! Follow him!”
Quin understood: The helmet somehow counteracted the disruptor sparks. And when Briac’s able to think straight, he’ll come after me again, she thought, in Hong Kong or on the estate or anywhere—to get his hands on the athame of the Dreads. For years her father had kept the fox athame, which rightly belonged to John. Now John had it back, and Briac must be desperate to find another. Clearly those boys were not going to give him their own—but in some fashion, Briac was allied with them to find the athame of the Dreads.
An object rolled out of the trees and bumped into Quin’s foot. As she stepped through the anomaly, she snatched it up, discovering it to be smooth and cool against her skin.
The boys had knocked the metal helmet from Briac’s head, and now Quin was holding it in her hands.
From high in the oak tree at the edge of the forest, the Young Dread looked through the night air at the commons, the large meadow at the center of the Scottish estate. Around the edge of the commons were dotted what used to be cottages but what were now, mostly, burned piles of rubble, smudges of black in the moonlight. Only a few structures, including the workshop and dairy barn, stood unbroken.
The three visitors to the estate were running between the ruined buildings in a frantic search. Two of these visitors were boys, and they were trailing after the third visitor…who was Briac Kincaid.
Maud had last seen Briac being forced into an ambulance in London, fighting wildly against the men trying to help him. Now she understood why. The Young Dread had thrown her sight, sending it out across the distance so she could examine Briac closely as he charged across the top of the meadow, from the abandoned cottages of the Dreads toward the dairy barn. Around his head danced a handful of sparks, flashing in the nighttime air. He’d been hit with a disruptor. It must have been John’s disruptor, used during the fight on Traveler, and somehow Briac had avoided all but a few of the sparks. Even so, he was obviously mad.
“Fiona!” she heard him yelling as he reached the dairy and peered inside. “Mother?” Then he shook his head and said, “Quin, for God’s sake! Where are you?” He’d done much the same thing at each of the empty or destroyed cottages he’d passed.
Not finding anyone in the dairy, Briac stomped over to the stable, which had burned but still stood partially intact. He disappeared inside, and by throwing her hearing, the Young Dread could follow his motions as he flung things around and called for Fiona and his mother and Quin again—though it seemed to be Quin he really wanted.
It wasn’t only Briac’s noise that Maud had heard when she’d stood in the castle ruins with John after their training session. She had known he was coming before he’d arrived, because