It was, however, thirty and pissing freezing rain in Boston. How had he forgotten the misery of early springtime in New England?

He couldn’t bring himself to ask Strike to zap him added clothes, though, so he wound up standing in an alley around the corner from the MFA, shivering his frigging ass off while Patience, Sven, and Brandt went over the plan yet again. He was pretty sure really only Patience and Sven, with their talents of invisibility and translocation, were necessary for the actual op, but Brandt had refused to let his wife go off on her own, and Strike had wanted Rabbit out of the way, so all four of them were on the mission.

Strike hadn’t actually said he wanted Rabbit out of the way, of course, but the subtext had been there. Which, Rabbit suspected, meant Carter finally had a lead on Myrinne, and Strike didn’t want him to know about it. Tit for tat, Rabbit had done an end run of his own, tapping the Nightkeeper Fund for fifteen hundred bucks with Jox’s blessing, claiming he needed a laptop upgrade. Instead, he’d pocketed five hundred and used a thousand to hire a PI of his own, one with a slightly different code of ethics than Carter. The PI, Juarez, had indicated that he’d have Myrinne’s location by the end of the day, which had Rabbit alternately feeling hot and cold even in the pissing drizzle. He went feverish at the thought of seeing Myrinne again, clammy when he imagined going against a direct order from his king.

“Rabbit!” Patience said, voice sharp, as though she’d been trying to get his attention for a while.

“Sorry,” he said, avoiding her eyes, because she knew him well enough to know what he was thinking half the time, and he did not want her knowing about Myrinne or the PI. “We ready?”

“If you are,” Brandt grumbled, leading the way.

They headed for the museum entrance and paid the entry fee in cash, then followed the signs to the traveling exhibit of Mayan artifacts. The signage directing them to the special exhibit had a cartoonish rendition of a generic Mayan pyramid, with a glyph string beside it. The glyphs were visually interesting, granted, but Rabbit was pretty sure he saw the at glyph, which stood for “penis,” and the ’we glyph, which meant “eat.”

He snorted. Somebody had a sense of humor.

“Focus, kid,” Brandt muttered out of the corner of his mouth. “Don’t screw this up for us.”

“Bite me.” A few months ago he never would’ve talked to Brandt that way, not after he and Patience had practically adopted Rabbit after Red-Boar’s death, letting him stay in their big suite and trusting him with the twins and stuff. But things had been strained ever since a few weeks earlier, when Rabbit had walked in on a big-time fight and overheard Brandt pressuring Patience to leave Skywatch and take the rug rats with her. The last thing Rabbit had heard as he sneaked back out of the suite was Brandt saying something about all the time Patience had been spending with Rabbit. But when he’d said “Rabbit,” what he’d really meant was “half-blood fuckup.” That was what Rabbit’s old man called him, what all the others thought of him.

Brandt pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled a long, suffering breath designed to let his wife know how hard he was working to control his temper with Rabbit, who was more her friend than his.

“Knock it off, you two,” she said without missing a beat, in the same voice she used on the twins when they were fighting. “This way.” She kept a firm grip on Sven’s arm, steering him through the first room of the Mayan exhibit, hanging on to him as though she thought he might bolt.

Good guess too, Rabbit thought, getting a look at Sven’s pasty face. The mage was wide-eyed with nerves. Gods only knew why he was so freaked. It wasn’t like they were getting ready to kill someone—they were stealing a bowl, for fuck’s sake, and if saving the world wasn’t a good enough reason for some five-fingering, Rabbit didn’t know what was. Besides, if Sven’s brand-new talent backfired and they set off the alarms or something, Patience could blink them invisible while they sneaked out and called Strike for a pickup. Worst-case scenario, like if the museum went into lockdown, they could hide and have Strike risk an interior ’port and pick them from inside the building.

Seriously, what was Sven’s deal?

“Okay, this is the place,” Brandt said, moving ahead of the others, bumping Rabbit on the way by in what might’ve been an apology, might’ve been a challenge. Or, hell, even an accident. He continued, “We’re going to work our way around the room and pretend to look at the stuff. Sven? You ready?”

Way not, Rabbit thought, but to his surprise Sven nodded, and his voice was steady when he said, “Ready.” His color had even come back. Looked like the dude had manned up, after all.

“Rabbit, you’re on the door,” Brandt continued, like they hadn’t gone over the stupid-simple plan a thousand times back at Skywatch. “Keep an eye out for guards, and warn us if it looks like one’s headed this way while Sven’s making the switch.”

They weren’t even totally stealing the bowl; they were switching it with a comparable ceremonial bowl from Skywatch. They’d stashed the spare in an alley Dumpster nearby, because they hadn’t figured it’d be a good idea to stroll into the museum carrying the replacement bowl. Hello, obvious. The idea was that Sven would translocate the bowl from the alley and switch it with the one they wanted. Which sounded great, but got complicated because it meant he had to split his brain and do a simultaneous double translocation, timing it perfectly so the motion detectors guarding the museum’s bowl didn’t register the change in the bowl’s weight on the pressure pad of the display, Indiana Jones-like. In theory, anyway.

“You realize,” Rabbit said to Brandt, “that if they’ve got audio-recognition software, you probably just triggered it by talking about the guards.”

“I doubt they’ve got the technology.” But the big man looked around a little, and waved for them to split up. Rabbit took his position in the far corner, where he could pretend to be studying one of the displays while keeping an eye on both of the doors serving the exhibit room. Patience, Brandt, and Sven wandered over to the display case containing the ornately carved bowl, where they lingered, waiting for the room to empty of most of the other museumgoers.

Come on, come on, Rabbit thought, the wait wearing on him quickly. Trying to figure out how long it’d take for whoever was manning the surveillance cameras to wonder why he was so interested in the display he was parked in front of—which was a blah fragment from a not-very-interesting mural at Tulum—he palmed his cell phone, checking the time for no particular reason.

Okay, he was checking for messages, so sue him. Brandt’s voice whispered through his mind, saying, Don’t screw this up, but Rabbit hit the “incoming” icon just in case.

There was a message from Juarez.

Excitement fired in his blood, bringing a hum of magic as he clicked over to the text. Target was in N.O. two days ago, the text read, followed by an address Rabbit didn’t recognize. Feeling a kick of optimism, he started keying in a reply.

He was halfway through when an unfamiliar voice said, “Sorry, kid, no cell phones in—” The guard broke off two steps inside the room, locking on Sven, who must’ve fucked up the translocation, because he had the demon prophecy bowl in his hands, rather than it being safe in the alley where he was supposed to send it. “Hey!” the guard shouted, going for a button on his belt first, and then rushing the thieves.

He was across the room before Rabbit broke from the shocked paralysis that’d gripped him the second he realized just how badly he’d fucked up. Before he could move or yell a warning, the guy had stun-gunned Patience, who dropped without a sound. Brandt roared a battle cry and decked the guard, who went down for the count, but the damage was already done.

Alarms shrilled and panels started grinding into place. And the Nightkeepers’ fallback invisibility plan was a no-go.

Heart hammering, Rabbit jammed his phone in his pocket and started across to help, but Brandt shoved him aside. “Fuck off. You’ve done enough.” He got his wife over his shoulder and grabbed Sven by the shirt, dragging him through the nearest door just before it clanged shut, leaving Rabbit behind.

Rabbit stood for a second, paralyzed, then bolted, barely making it out the other door. He was shaking and breathing hard, panic mixing with awful guilt. With Patience unconscious, the others were visible, vulnerable. He should double back around and find them, help them. But Brandt’s anger cut through him, warning him that he’d finally done it, finally fucked up one too many times. Rabbit’s hands were trembling when he pulled out his cell and speed-dialed home. When Jox picked up, he said, “Have Strike lock on Brandt and get them out, now.” His voice broke, and tears were gumming up his vision, but he didn’t care.

He hung up, chucked his phone in the nearest trash, and took off.

The day the Boston mission left, Alexis spent most of the day in her suite studying—she refused to think of it as hiding. She was reading up on the Godkeeper legends, which were woefully lacking in detail, and trying out a few selected spells to see if she could pull them off.

So far, that would be a no.

Her tactile senses were heightened, especially when it came to textiles and other woven things. She could touch a piece of fabric and know instantly where its weak spots lay; give her a piece of clothing and she immediately knew where its seams were imperfect, its design flawed. She saw new colors in the world around her, and was preternaturally aware of how the light bent slightly as it came through a window, how it refracted in a droplet of water dripping from her bathroom sink. And she knew at a glance where the women around her were in their biological cycles—hello, TMI. All of those were consistent with Ixchel’s triad role as the goddess of weaving, rainbows, and fertility. But how the hell was any of that supposed to help her repel the first of Camazotz’s sons during the vernal equinox in two weeks?

Alexis didn’t have a freaking clue.

Back in the fall, Leah’s bound god, Kulkulkan, had manifested as a giant winged serpent to fight the flying crocodile demon, Zipacna. Which had made some sense—flying monster versus flying monster. So what, exactly, was the goddess of rainbows supposed to do against a death god? And how the hell did the Volatile fit in? It would’ve helped if she could talk to the goddess and ask for info. That had been the hope going into the ceremony. Leah had gotten some thought-flashes from Kulkulkan, so they’d theorized that a true, full-blood Godkeeper might have a closer bond, one that allowed for actual conversation. Unfortunately, not so much. Which meant that so far Leah, with her flawed connection to the creator god Kulkulkan, was still more useful than Alexis as a fully bound keeper to Ixchel.

Granted, although she might be fully bound, she was functioning without her gods-destined protector. She’d stopped thinking of Nate as her gods-destined mate and gone with “protector” instead, because the more comfortable she got with her connection to Ixchel’s subtle powers, the more the fabric of her own life took shape around her, letting her see that she deserved someone who wanted her, flaws and all, someone who loved every piece of her and asked nothing but that she love him back. Which, she realized, was sort of what Nate had been saying before, that sex and love shouldn’t be a commodity used to pay for increased power.

She couldn’t help thinking, though, that if he wanted her enough, needed her enough, then none of the power stuff would matter to him, and he’d take her any way he could get her. That meant he hadn’t—and didn’t—want her enough. Story of her life.

Aaron had liked her as a portfolio manager and arm candy in certain social situations, and most of his predecessors had been iterations of the same theme. Izzy loved her; Alexis was sure of that. But at the same time, she couldn’t help wondering how much of that emotion was tied into the winikin’s ambitions, always wanting her to be the best and brightest, to live up to her bloodline and her mother’s reputation. And Nate . . . hell, he wanted her sexually because the gods had hardwired him that way, whether or not he was willing to admit it. But the woman he truly wanted wasn’t her. He wanted the warrior in his video game, the woman Alexis might have been if the massacre had never happened, if she’d been raised by her parents within the Nightkeeper system. But that hadn’t happened, and the lives each of them had lived prior to discovering their true nature had made them too different from the people they should have been. Which meant she and Nate were almost—but not quite—a match.

A quick knock on the door jolted her out of her reverie. “Yes?”

“We’ve got a problem. You’d better come.” It was Nate, sounding clipped and urgent.

His voice brought a buzz of heat and frustration, coming so close on the heels of her thoughts of him. But his tone warned that something was wrong.

“Coming,” she called. Heart kicking against her ribs, she scrambled to her feet, dumping a pile of reference books on the floor. Pausing only to jam her feet in a pair of scuffs, she headed for the door, coming up short when she swung open the panel and found him standing in the hallway, waiting for her. He was wearing combat clothes, though no bulletproof vest or belt. Hesitating, she said, “Should I get my gear?”

He shook his head. “I was headed out to the shooting range when Carlos came for me. There’s a problem with the team in Boston.”

“Iago?” she asked immediately.

“Rabbit.”

“Let’s go.” They hurried up the hall to the main body of the mansion. When they pushed through a set of swinging doors leading to the sunken main room, Alexis gave a low cry at the sight of Patience lying motionless on one of the big couches with Jox bent over her. Sven was sitting on the other sofa with his head in his hands; Carlos was trying to make him drink some OJ, only to be shaken off. Jade was hovering over the sofas, looking lost, with Lucius in the background behind her. The other winikin were in the kitchen, pulling together food, suggesting that serious magic was on tap. There was no sign of Strike, Brandt, Michael, or Rabbit.

“Where’s everyone else?” Nate asked before Alexis could. For a moment there was no answer; then Sven dragged his face out of his hands and looked up, revealing a hunted, haunted expression. “They went back for the demon-prophecy bowl. I managed to make the switch, but I zapped it into my hands instead of out into the alley. A guard saw, and I lost the bowl while we were trying to get away from the cops. I fucking dropped it, and now we’ve got nothing.”

“It wasn’t—” Carlos began, but Sven shot to his feet and stood, swaying.

“It was my fault; don’t you get it? I dropped the bowl and didn’t go back for it. I was too busy running away, just like—” Now he interrupted himself, clicking his teeth over the words and saying instead, “It fucking was my fault.”

Alexis, who’d never had much patience with breast-beating guilt trips, found herself crossing the room and taking the glass of OJ from Carlos. “Get him food,” she ordered. Then she made Sven sit back down and pressed the juice into his hand. “Bottoms up,” she said firmly. “You need the sugar after pulling off the double translocation.”

“I didn’t pull it off,” he snapped. “I—”

“Dropped the bowl. Yeah, I get that. Thing is, you won’t be any good for damage control if you’re half-dead from a postmagic hangover. So drink the damned juice, and eat whatever Carlos brings you.”

A little to her surprise, he complied.

Shifting her attention to Jox, she said, “What’s her status?”

The winikin had a hand on Patience’s wrist, tracking her pulse. He shook his head. “One of the guards Tasered her, and she’s always had a bit of an arrhythmia. Kicked her heart off rhythm pretty good, but it seems to be settling now.”

“Does she need to get to a hospital?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Be sure,” Alexis pressed, her voice hard.

Surprise flashed in Jox’s eyes, but he nodded. “I’m sure.”

A small piece of Alexis wondered why he knew about Patience’s med history, and why he was hovering as if she were his charge, not Hannah’s. But Hannah and Wood were away in hiding with the twins, so perhaps he’d become in loco winikin to Patience and Brandt. Besides, the surprise in the royal winikin’s expression reminded Alexis that it wasn’t her place to be handing out orders; she wasn’t in charge. She asked, “Where’s Leah?”

Strike’s mate had recently returned to Skywatch, unsuccessful in her efforts to find Kulkulkan’s altar stone. The artifact bearing the seventh demon prophecy had dropped from the historical record after World War II, reappeared briefly in a private collection in Denmark, and disappeared again in the sixties, leaving the ex-cop frustrated as hell.

“I’m here, but don’t let me stop you when you’re on a roll.” Leah came into view, wearing combat gear and a worried expression. She glanced at Jox. “Any word?”

“Nothing yet.” He looked down, relief smoothing some of the frown lines when Patience stirred and her eyelids fluttered. “She’s coming around. That’s something, at any rate. Why don’t we—”

A slap of concussion cut him off, and Strike, Brandt, and Michael appeared in the center of the room, in a flash of royal red and a hum of strong, pissed-off Nightkeeper magic.

“The bowl!” Sven lurched up, sloshing the dregs of his OJ. “Did you get the bowl?” But Brandt shook his head, his expression grim. Sven sank back down, whispering, “Gods damn it. The cops got it?”

“Worse,” Strike said. “The place where it’d been stank of Iago’s magic. I’ll bet you anything the bastard was watching the whole time, and swept in and grabbed it when the plan went south.”

Sven just kept shaking his head, looking shell-shocked, as if he couldn’t believe he’d screwed up so badly.

Leah crossed the room to touch Strike’s arm. “What about Rabbit?”

The king’s expression went hollow. “There wasn’t any sign of him. I couldn’t even lock on for a ’port.”

Silence followed that pronouncement. It wasn’t dire news, necessarily, because Strike had already discovered that ’port magic often failed to lock onto a person if they were underground or within thick walls. That was why he generally kept the ’ports to open air. However, his inability to lock onto Rabbit could stem from a more sinister reason—like he was unconscious, or worse.

“Take me there,” Leah said. “I’m good at finding people.”

They shared a look, and Strike nodded. “Yeah. You are.” He closed his eyes to initiate the ’port, which he needed to do these days only when he was trying to summon magic without enough of a power boost.

“Wait!” Alexis said, interrupting.

Strike’s eyes popped open. “What?”

“Take this. Eat.” She grabbed three of the protein bars Carlos had brought for Sven, who preferred them over chocolate or some of the other quick-energy foods the Nightkeepers gravitated toward. “We can’t afford to have you ’porting low on calories.”

He took the bars and nodded, and Leah’s eyes gleamed a quiet thanks as the magic powered back up and they vanished, air rushing in with a pop to fill the space they’d vacated.

When they were gone, Alexis realized what she’d just done, and felt a flush climb her cheeks. “Did I just interrupt teleport magic to nag the king to eat?” she asked the room at large. “I can’t believe I did that. I’m an idiot.” Strike was a grown-up, and about ten times the mage she’d ever be.

“You’re not an idiot,” Jox said. “You’re a royal adviser, and you just advised.” He withdrew a palm-size eccentric from his pocket and held it out to her. “Strike asked me to pull it out of storage for you. I think he’d want you to have it now.”

Alexis just stared at the small effigy for a beat, while tears lumped in her throat and scratched at the backs of her eyes. The eccentric was carved in the shape of an ear of maize, the lifeblood of their ancestors.

It was a twin to the one her mother had carried.

“If you’d rather wait until they’re back—” Jox began.

“No,” she said quickly, then again, “No. This is perfect.” And it was, she realized. Although Strike might have given her the position because he knew how much she wanted it, how hard she’d work, Jox wouldn’t have agreed if he didn’t think she was worthy of being an adviser. The royal winikin was steeped in the old traditions, bound by them. If he was offering the eccentric, then the offer was real. The need was real.

She reached out and took the smoothly carved piece, which was warm from Jox’s body heat. Dipping her head, she said, “Thank you.”

A patter of applause from behind her was a surprise. She spun around and saw that Nate was clapping, and not looking the slightest bit sarcastic. The applause swelled as the others joined in. Jade and the winikin looked pleased; Lucius was clapping with the others, even though he shrugged when their eyes met, as if to say, No clue what just happened, but congrats; Patience was sitting up, her eyes clear and focused as she rested within the curve of her husband’s arm, the two of them forming a unit despite their continued problems; and Izzy was front and center, her eyes shining, with maybe even the hint of a tear on her cheek. And in that moment it didn’t matter how hard the winikin had pushed, or why. It mattered only that things had happened the way they were meant to happen . . . exactly as they had happened before.

And if that interpretation of the writs rang false in Alexis’s head, she didn’t stop to analyze, not then. She smiled at her teammates. “Thanks, guys. Just . . . thanks.”

“Don’t thank us too quickly,” Jox said. “As both Godkeeper and royal adviser, you rank, which means you’re in charge while Strike and Leah are off property. So what do you want us to do?” The look in his eye said it wasn’t a casual question.

A glance around the room showed why. The Nightkeepers were warriors without a battle to fight, the winikin a support staff without real direction. They were worried for their king and queen, scared for Rabbit, and disturbed that they were so close to the vernal equinox and the deadline for the first demon prophecy, yet didn’t have a clear plan or arsenal.

Join the club, Alexis thought, but knew that wasn’t good enough. As part of the royal council, it was up to her to do something, say something. Granted, if she did nothing, they would go on as they had been, and nothing would truly be lost.

Except, perhaps, some hope. And she owed them that.

Thinking fast, she looked over at Lucius. “You can translate carvings, right?”

He looked startled at first; then his eyes took on a gleam of interest. He nodded. “Definitely.” Glancing outside to where the dusk was still a few hours off, he said, “It’ll have to wait a little if you’re talking starscript, though.”

“No, regular glyphs. I want you to sit down with the Ixchel statuette—Jade can get it for you out of archive lockup. See what you can make of the plain carved text. The auction house had translated the writing on the piece I bought and said it was a love poem, nothing spectacular. But maybe it’ll take on a new meaning once it’s read in its entirety, with the other piece. Maybe it’ll give us a clue how to fight Camazotz or find the Volatile.”

Or not, but it was something to try, anyway, something she’d only just now thought of, and wondered why they hadn’t tried it before. But that wasn’t fair, either. They were playing catchup to Iago, trying to map out the next few years without nearly enough information. It was a start, though. In the absence of any other semibrilliant ideas, Alexis didn’t bother trying to order any of the others around, because she figured they were all grown-ups, and she wasn’t much in the way of a leader. But as they dispersed, Patience, Sven, and Brandt to sleep off their exertions, the others to various tasks, she got a nod here, a “way to go” there.

Nate was the last to leave, and as he passed her he stepped in close. “Congratulations.”

He touched his lips to hers before she’d guessed his intent, before she’d had a chance to brace herself. But there was no need to brace, no need for defense. Where before their kisses had been all about heat and need, this was about tenderness, about affirmation.

Weakened by surprise, she shuddered against him, let herself lean for a second. Then he eased away and looked down at her, his amber eyes intent on hers. For the first time she felt like his entire focus, as if he was seeing not just the outer shell of her, but actually seeing her.

Then he took a big step back, away from her, and tipped his head in a nod that was almost a bow. “I’m happy for you. I know this is what you wanted.”

And he turned and walked away.

She stood there, torn between letting him go and calling him back. The kiss had been entirely different, almost like one she would’ve expected on a first date, an exploration rather than a possession. But what did that mean? Did it mean anything? She didn’t have a clue, and because she didn’t she let him go, watching where he’d been long after he’d pushed through the sliders, headed for the firing range.

Sensing that she was being watched, she turned and glanced toward the kitchen area, and found Jox standing there. “Well,” she said on a sigh, “what now?”

She wasn’t entirely sure if she was asking about the next step she should take as an adviser or the next step—if any—she should take with Nate, with the goddess, with the magic. She figured she’d let the winikin pick; she was open to suggestions at this point.

“Now we wait,” he said, giving a vague answer to her vague question.

“Yeah,” she said, dipping her head in a nod. “We wait. We watch. We do the best we can.”

So the Nightkeepers and winikin waited, watched, and did the best they could. They waited until Leah and Strike came back, drooping with fatigue and defeat. They waited for Rabbit to contact them, growing more concerned as the days passed without any word from the teen, without Strike being able to connect to him with a teleport thread. And they waited as the hours and days passed, Saturn moved into opposition, and the barrier thinned. And as they waited, they did their best. Strike and Leah continued to search for the altar stone, only to be frustrated each time it seemed they were getting close. They had zero luck tracking down Iago, and there was still no sign of Sasha Ledbetter. Alexis practiced her magic, honing her shield and fireball spells, both of which glowed with rainbows. And she sat long into the nights with Strike, Leah, and Jox, arguing the options, until they finally settled on a calculated risk for the Saturn at Opposition ceremony.

Alexis, with Nate as her power boost, would travel into the barrier and attempt to work the three-question spell. That seemed like their only option for gaining the information they needed about the Volatile and Ixchel’s defense against the first demon prophecy.

If they were lucky, the spell would work even though the opposition wasn’t a cardinal day.

Back in New Orleans, far away from Skywatch, both in miles and in his head, Rabbit hunkered in a narrow doorway that smelled of old smoke. He scanned the street using all his senses—physical and otherwise—to make sure the coast was clear, then slipped through a wrought-iron gate that led to a series of interconnected courtyards that would bring him to the rear entrance of Mistress Truth’s tea shop.

He’d been living there the past couple of days, ever since he’d bolted from the MFA and dumped his phone. With five hundred dollars cash in his pocket and a valid ID, it hadn’t been difficult for him to upgrade his wardrobe and hop on an Amtrak headed south. With his telekine powers, it also hadn’t been hard to bust into the tea shop and make himself at home, hoping Myrinne would check back. He was more or less safe and comfortable, and off the grid. The thing that sucked, though, was how much he missed being a part of something.

It wasn’t that he missed Skywatch so much—it was a pretty cool place, but it was just a place. As for the people . . . well, he’d never spent much time away from Strike or Jox before, but they were both busy with their own stuff now, and besides, the compound was so big, he’d been able to go days without seeing them if he wanted to. He’d been living in his old man’s cottage for the past few months, had gotten used to being alone. But after a couple of days of traveling, then shacking up in the tea shop, he’d realized that “alone” was a pretty relative thing back at Skywatch, where there was always somebody nearby, always something going on. In the tea shop he was totally solo. Granted, the streets of the French Quarter never actually quieted all the way down . . . but still, it wasn’t the same as being back in the training compound. He found he loved the isolation during the day, when he could ghost around the neighborhood looking for Myrinne, or just spend a few hours poking through the witch’s stuff. Most of it was crap, of course, but he’d gotten a power buzz off a few things, and had set them aside to fiddle with.

At night, though, things went quiet and his mind got very loud as it replayed what’d happened back at the museum. Brandt’s anger had stuck with him, along with the knowledge that Patience had gotten hurt because he’d been fiddling with his text messages. Rabbit had bought a new phone and called the investigator, Juarez, to do some checking on the museum break-in, so he knew the others had gotten away from the museum. But the fact that Strike hadn’t locked onto him for a ’port pretty much summed up where the Nightkeepers stood: You’ve fucked up enough times, kid. Good riddance.

Which meant he was on his own, at least until he found Myrinne. She’d checked out of the shelter Juarez had tracked her to, and vanished. The PI had told him to stay put, that he was on the case, but as the days passed, the stars aligned, and the barrier thinned, and Juarez kept telling him he’d have better news the next day, Rabbit knew what he had to do.

Screw the PI. He could find Myrinne himself . . . with a little help from the three-question nahwal.