little of the white-hot pain from his injury. He was perfectly aware of the damage done to his limb. His internals were clearer to him than the calcium tungstate photographs those Frost brothers had used to see inside mice. He was suffering from a compound fracture of the tibia inflicted by his own boy. He tried to heal himself, but the process was infuriatingly slow, and he could feel it draining his energies.
Garrick felt the injustice like rising nausea.
“Riley!” he called. “Riley.”
Riley ducked low behind the sofa as if the word could harm him.
“We need to be leaving,” he whispered to Chevie. “You’re the expert in these matters, being some form of agent. Lead on, I says.”
Chevie did not feel like much of an expert.
I am only seventeen, she wanted to say. I shouldn’t even be here. I am not even a legitimate FBI agent, and my program was canceled. But she didn’t voice these thoughts. Agent Chevron Savano considered herself a teenage professional, and Riley was depending on her.
She wiggled past him, making sure to keep her head down.
“We need to help Victoria.”
“Draw Garrick away and that will save her life—he don’t care a fig for her. It’s us and that Timekey he wants. Garrick will follow his target every time.”
Riley was right.
“Okay. We go out the back way.”
There had to be a yard, or a doorway. If she could make it to a phone, then Garrick was dead and buried, no matter how many faces he had.
Then I am going to home to California, where the sun shines and there are no death-dealing magicians from the past.
Garrick took a few more shots, but he was firing blind, just trying to corral them to the kitchen.
Chevie squatted on her hunkers, pulling Riley’s face close to hers.
“Here’s the plan. We run to those back stairs and see where they go.”
“Is that a plan?” asked Riley. “Strikes me more as a notion, or a smidge of an idea. Plans have stages and steps. Jinky twists and the likes.”
“Zip it, chatterbox. You ready for the plan?”
Riley nodded.
“Right. After three. Run like the devil himself is on your tail.”
Which in a way he was.
Chevie counted to three, then hurled a handy vase toward the wall, where she thought it would smash and distract Garrick.
She thought wrong.
Garrick shot the vase out of the air as it twirled, being a practiced marksman from his years in Her Majesty’s army.
Perhaps this is not a brilliant plan, thought Chevie, but it was too late, as Riley had already bolted for the stairs. Luckily the boy kept himself low and out of Garrick’s sight line.
He won’t have a restricted sight line for long, she realized. Once he gets that leg free, we’re as good as dead.
Chevie raced after Riley, feeling the gunfire impact the wall over her head before she heard it. They ran pell-mell down the stairs, barely managing to stay upright in their haste. The staircase was narrow and dim, but with familiar-looking thick power lines running along the skirting board.
No, thought Chevie. No, no, no.
The steps led down to a small basement. Chevie and Riley tumbled into the room, instinctively searching for an exit. There was none. The only natural light came from barred windows at pavement level. The legs of shadowy pedestrians threw stick shadows on the wall.
Chevie actually stamped her foot. “No way out! I don’t believe it.”
Riley patted the walls with his palms, hoping for a secret passage.
Chevie cast around the room, searching for something, anything, that could be of use to them.
Riley pointed to a blocky shape under a tarp in the corner. “I would wager that if we remove that waterproof sheet . . .”
“I know what it is!” shouted Chevie. “I know. But . . .”
Riley glanced anxiously toward the stairwell. Victorian oaths and grumbling echoed from above.
“My master is not happy.”
“I gathered that.”
“He is coming.”
Chevie paced a little. “Yeah, I know. Death the magician is coming.”
“Should I zip it?”
“Yeah . . . No.” Chevie balled her fists in frustration. “I’m not even a proper agent, kid. I was supposed to keep an ear open in the lunch hall, that’s it. No one ever said anything about time travel.” Chevie slapped her head. “This is insane. I can’t do this.”
A shot smashed into the bannisters, then there was a guttural roar—no words, simply emotion.
Riley twisted a splintered banister free, brandishing it like a stake.
“Chevie. I’ll guard the stairs, perhaps even get a lucky blow in. You must activate the