“I think you challenge everything they thought they knew about what a guardian could be.” He reached out and took her hand, felt their scars pulse together in the gathering dark. “You merged with a phoenix and survived. You called them across dimensions with nothing but willpower and a connection to a network they’ve spent centuries maintaining. You stand in front of them and talk about using technology and intelligence operations and modern tactics to fight a threat they would have faced with prayers and sacrifices.” He paused, knowing he needed to choose his next words carefully. “They might have come here because they felt your call, but they’re staying because they’re starting to believe you might actually be able to save them.”
She didn’t reply right away. The owl called again, a little closer this time, and somewhere in the house behind them, Ben could hear Brigid Callahan laughing at something Kenji had said.
“I’m scared,” Sidney said then, her voice hushed, as if she feared that speaking too loud might alert the others to their conversation. “I know I’m supposed to be the leader, the one with all the answers. But I’m terrified, Ben. Every time I think about what we’re trying to do, about the Dragon waiting beneath our feet and Gregory’s drill boring deeper every day, I want to run. I want to take you and my family and just…disappear. Find somewhere the corruption can’t reach and hide there until it’s all over.”
“But you won’t.” He knew she wouldn’t. Strictly speaking, she was the portal’s guardian, not Silver Hollow’s. That didn’t matter to her, though. She would do whatever she had to in order to make sure the town she loved survived.
“No.” She squeezed his hand. “I won’t. Because there isn’t anywhere the corruption can’t reach, not if we fail. Also, these people came here trusting that I could help them, and I can’t betray that trust. My family has protected this portal for generations, and I’m not going to be the one who lets it fall.” She paused for the space of a few breaths, and when she spoke again, her voice sounded steadier. “And because you’re here. As long as I can feel you beside me, I know I can face whatever comes next.”
Ben lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles, feeling the warmth of her skin, the pulse of energy that lived in her scars.
“Then let’s face it together,” he said. “Whatever comes next.”
She nodded, and they sat there for a while as the last light faded from the sky and the stars began to appear overhead — cold and distant, but there. They told him that they’d endured for millennia, and as he watched them twinkle against the velvety deep blue heavens, he knew that he and Sidney would endure as well.
They had to.
Chapter Eleven
The diner sat at the edge of Eureka, one of those places that catered to long-haul truckers and shift workers who needed eggs and coffee at odd hours. The Formica tables were chipped at the edges, the vinyl booth seats were cracked and repaired with silver duct tape, and the air smelled of burnt coffee and bacon grease. I’d driven past this place a hundred times on supply runs to PetSmart and Bevmo and whatever other big-box stores I needed to hit once a month, and I’d never given it a second glance. Now I sat in a booth near the back, nursing a cup of coffee that had gone cold twenty minutes ago, as I waited for the woman who had tried to kill me.
Rebecca was the one who’d chosen the location. “Neutral ground,” she’d said when she spread the map across the kitchen table that morning, her finger tapping a spot on Highway 101. “It’s public enough that she won’t try anything stupid, but also anonymous enough that nobody will remember seeing either of you.” She’d paused then, her dark eyes meeting mine with an intensity that reminded me why she’d made a successful career for herself as a federal agent. “I’ll be in the parking lot. If anything goes wrong, you get out, and I’ll handle it.”
I hadn’t asked what “handle it” meant. Some things were better left undefined.
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, illuminating everything in a harsh, unflattering glow. A trucker at the counter was working his way through a plate of biscuits and gravy, his attention fixed on the small television mounted in the corner where a morning news anchor droned about highway construction delays. Two tables over, a young couple sat in exhausted silence, their infant asleep in a car seat between them. Ordinary people living ordinary lives, completely unaware that the fabric of reality was fraying thirty miles away.
The drive from Silver Hollow had taken just over an hour, the winding mountain roads giving way to the flatter coastal stretch as I approached the city. Dank fog had settled over the highway in patches, forcing me to slow down through stretches where visibility dropped to a hundred feet or less. I’d left before dawn, slipping out of the house while Ben was still asleep and the guardians were scattered across the living room in various states of unconsciousness. Brigid Callahan had been snoring softly from her position on the air mattress, and Kenji Tanaka sat cross-legged by the cold fireplace, apparently meditating, although I’d noticed how his eyes had tracked my movement toward the door.
My grandmother had been awake, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea, and she’d watched me pull on my jacket without saying a word. The look in her gray eyes had said enough.
Be careful. Come back.
I’d wanted to tell her about the meeting, about Rebecca’s plan and the slim hope that Sonya Rosenthal might be turned into an asset rather than an enemy. But something had held me back, the same instinct that had made me keep so many secrets over the years, the understanding that some risks were mine alone to carry.
Now I sat in this tired diner at the edge of Eureka, watching condensation bead on the outside of my coffee cup, and waited.
The bell over the diner’s door chimed, and I glanced up to see Sonya Rosenthal step inside.
She looked worse than she had in the satellite images Ben and Finn had shown me, worse even than what I’d been bracing myself for. The haggard quality I’d noticed in those photos had deepened into something more alarming — dark hollows beneath her eyes, a grayish cast to her usually olive skin, clothes that hung on her frame as though she’d lost weight her slight frame couldn’t afford. Her short-cropped gray hair was longer now, grown out past her ears in an unkempt mess that seemed utterly foreign on a woman who had always projected such rigid control. When she moved, there was a hesitation to her gait that hadn’t been there before, as though she had to think consciously about each step.
She spotted me and paused just inside the door, her body going still in the way of a prey animal that’s just scented a predator. For one agonizing moment, I thought she might turn around and walk back out. Then her mouth set, and she walked through the diner with quick, efficient steps.
Her gaze swept the room as she moved, checking off the other patrons — the trucker still working on his biscuits, the young couple with their sleeping infant, an elderly man reading a newspaper two booths down. I could tell she was assessing threats, calculating exit routes. Old habits, I supposed, the kind that got burned into your brain when you spent decades working in intelligence.
“Sidney Lowell.” She slid into the booth across from me, her voice low and clipped. “I wasn’t sure you’d actually come.”
“I wasn’t sure you would, either.”
A waitress appeared at the edge of our table, pad in hand, and Rosenthal ordered black coffee without looking at the menu. I shook my head when the waitress glanced my way. One cup of cold coffee was enough, and there was no way I could force myself to eat in such company.
We sat in silence until the waitress returned with Rosenthal’s coffee and retreated to the counter. The older woman wrapped her hands around the mug, and I noticed a fine tremor in her fingers that hadn’t been there two months ago.
“You wanted to talk,” she said. “So talk.”
I’d rehearsed this conversation a dozen times on the drive down, trying out different approaches, different arguments. Now, as I sat across from the woman who had built a weapon specifically designed to destroy me, all those careful preparations seemed inadequate.
“Julian Gregory is going to get everyone killed,” I said. “Including you.”