We stood like that for a while, wrapped in each other’s warmth while the afternoon light faded around us. Inside the house, I could hear the murmur of voices — the guardians still planning, still preparing for a battle none of us fully understood. My mother’s laugh drifted through an open window, bright and familiar, and I felt something loosen in my gut at the sound of it. I’d missed that laugh. Nine months of silence, of not knowing if I’d ever hear it again, and now here it was, spilling out into the November air like a promise.
“Your grandmother wants to talk to you,” Ben said after a while. “Something about the portal network. She’s been going over her journals, cross-referencing them with what Brigid and Kenji know about their own thresholds.”
“Any insights?”
“I think so, but she wouldn’t tell me the details.” A faint smile crossed his face. “She said it was ‘guardian business.’ I got the distinct impression that I was being politely but firmly put in my place.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at that remark. “Welcome to my world. The women in my family have been keeping secrets from the men they love for generations. It’s practically a tradition.”
“Speaking of traditions….” Ben pulled back slightly, his expression shifting into something more serious. “Finn wants to talk to you, too. He’s been holed up in the den all day, going over the surveillance data from Gregory’s operation. I think he found something.”
My father. Another complicated relationship I’d been avoiding thinking about too closely. But that conversation could wait, at least for a few more hours. First, I needed to process what had happened with Rosenthal, to sort through the tangled mess of emotions that our conversation had stirred up.
“Later,” I said. “Right now, I just want to be here with you. Just for a few minutes. Before we have to go back to saving the world.”
Ben nodded and pulled me close again, and we stood there on the porch as the shadows lengthened across the yard. The forest loomed at the edge of the property, dark and patient, keeping whatever secrets lived in its depths. Somewhere beneath our feet, the Dragon dreamed of fire.
But for this moment, at least, we had each other. My family was home, and the people I loved were safe. And somewhere out there, Sonya Rosenthal was sitting with the knowledge that she had a choice to make, a chance to become something other than the broken woman who had tried to kill me and had nearly destroyed the portal network.
I hoped she would take it.
For all our sakes.
Chapter Twelve
Ben was in the kitchen, helping Josie wash the breakfast dishes while the guardians filtered through in twos and threes to refill their coffee cups. The old Craftsman had adapted to its strange new occupants with surprising grace over the past seventy-two hours — extra sleeping bags had been dragged out of the attic, the downstairs bathroom had developed a schedule posted on the door, and someone had organized a rotating kitchen duty that kept the sink from overflowing with dirty mugs. The house creaked and groaned under the weight of nearly twenty additional people, but it held together, the way old houses always did when they had to.
Oddly, Ben had started to feel almost comfortable with the chaos. He’d learned to navigate around Brigid Callahan’s meditation sessions in the living room, to give Kenji Tanaka a wide berth during his morning exercises, to interpret the rapid-fire Spanish that the Quispe family used when they didn’t want outsiders following their conversations. It wasn’t normal — nothing about his life had been normal since he’d walked into Sidney’s pet shop back in May — but it was manageable.
That sense of manageability evaporated when Rebecca’s phone rang.
She was standing by the window and reviewing something on her tablet, a cup of coffee cooling forgotten at her elbow. Ben watched her expression shift as she glanced at the caller ID — a tightening around her eyes, a subtle tension in her jaw that he’d learned to recognize as her combat-alert face. She stepped out onto the back porch before answering and pulled the door shut behind her with a bang.
“That doesn’t look good,” Josie said quietly. Her hands were still submerged in the soapy water, but she’d stopped scrubbing the pot she’d been working on.
“No,” Ben agreed. “It doesn’t.”
Through the window, he could see Rebecca pacing, her free hand gesturing sharply as she spoke. Her face had gone pale beneath her usual light tan, and even from this distance, he could read the tension in her shoulders. Whatever Eric was telling her, it wasn’t the routine update they’d been expecting.
The back door swung open, and Rebecca stepped inside. Her dark gaze found Ben immediately.
“Get Sidney,” she said. “Now. And tell the others to gather in the living room.”
Ben didn’t ask questions. Instead, he quickly dried his hands on a dish towel and headed for the stairs, taking them two at a time. Sidney was in her grandmother’s room, going over Emily’s journals with Brigid Callahan, their heads bent close together as they traced something on a hand-drawn map of the ley line network.
“Rebecca needs us downstairs,” he said from the doorway. “Something’s happened.”
Sidney looked up, and he saw her register the urgency in his voice. She was on her feet instantly, the journal forgotten on the bed.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know yet. But it looks bad.”
They gathered in the living room within minutes — Sidney and Ben, Emily and Josie, Finn hovering near the doorway, and as many guardians as could fit into the crowded space. Brigid claimed her usual position near the fireplace, Kenji stood by the window with his arms folded, and the Quispe family arranged themselves on the floor in their customary tight cluster. Rebecca waited until the last of them had settled before she spoke.
“Eric just called from Oregon. Aetheris made a move this morning.” She paused, and Ben saw a flash of something in her expression — anger or fear, or some combination of the two that she was working hard to suppress. “Julian Gregory has locked Sonya Rosenthal out of the system. She’s been removed from all active projects and confined to quarters pending a ‘security review.’”
A murmur rippled through the assembled guardians. The Scandinavian twins exchanged a look that needed no translation. Kofi Asante leaned forward in his chair, his weathered face creasing with concern.