She’d treated the makol, Vince, like a friend. He’d presumably been a second-generation critter, one created by the ajaw-makol after the solstice. There hadn’t been any sense of a second source of evil in the Survivor 2012 compound, meaning that Carter’s info had been wrong and Zipacna was somewhere else.

But where?

Shit, he didn’t know, and he didn’t know what else to have Carter be on the lookout for. He needed an itza’at, that was what he needed. A good seer—hell, even a half-assed one—could track the ajaw-makol by its magic.

If he was seriously lucky, either Alexis or Jade would get the seer’s mark during the talent ceremony, and they’d have a prayer of getting some answers.

If not, well, it was time for coloring outside the lines, which was exactly what had him leaving the mansion on the evening before the aphelion, braced for a fight.

When he reached Red-Boar’s cottage, he knocked. ‘‘It’s me.’’

After a long moment, the door swung open to reveal Rabbit in full-on sulk mode, wearing cutoffs that showed his thin calves to no great effect, and a dark blue hoodie over his T-shirt. ‘‘Yeah?’’

‘‘I need to talk to your father. Could you give us fifteen minutes alone?’’

Rabbit shrugged. ‘‘Whatever.’’

He slouched out and Strike stepped through, straight into the kitchen of the four-room bungalow. Red-Boar was sitting at the kitchen table, wearing the brown robes of a penitent.

Strike hadn’t seen him in the robes—which signified a magi atoning for great sin—in a long time. Initially, Jox had asked him to quit wearing the robes around the garden center because they made the customers nervous. After a while, Red-Boar had gotten out of the habit, and it’d been a nice change to see him in normal clothes day in and day out.

Which left Strike wondering what else in the older Nightkeeper’s psyche had backslid.

‘‘We need to talk,’’ Strike said, crossing the kitchen to rummage in the fridge. He pulled out a Coke for himself, tossed Red-Boar a bottle of water without asking, and took the chair opposite him, cracking the soda open as he did so. He drained half of it, welcoming the kick of sugar and caffeine, before he said, ‘‘We need Rabbit to make thirteen.’’

‘‘Bad idea,’’ Red-Boar said, his voice nearly inflectionless.

‘‘The way I see it, we’re better off having him on the team than not, especially after the stunt he pulled at the garden center,’’ Strike countered. ‘‘And it’s not fair to keep him out of the classes.’’

Red-Boar stared into the bottled water. ‘‘I won’t accept him into the bloodline. I can’t.’’

It was an old argument Strike and Jox had never won. But they had their theories why.

‘‘Does it have something to do with his mother?’’ Strike asked. Red-Boar had never spoken of her, had never acknowledged her existence, though the proof stood in the form of their son.

‘‘It has everything to do with his mother,’’ the older man said suddenly, his voice descending to a hiss.

‘‘Who was she?’’

‘‘Better to ask where I met her. And the answer to that would be in the highlands.’’

Strike’s breath whistled between his teeth. ‘‘Mexico?’’

‘‘Guatemala.’’

‘‘Shit.’’

‘‘Precisely.’’

Before the conquistadors drove the Nightkeepers north to Hopi territory, the magic users had coexisted with the Maya for centuries. The two cultures had lived in parallel, and maybe because of that, or because of their own fascination with the stars, the Maya had developed a magic system of their own. Some said rogue Nightkeepers had shared their magic, others that the Maya had been in contact with the nahwal, ghosts of the Nightkeepers’ ancestors, or even with the Banol Kax themselves. Whatever the source of their power, the Order of Xibalba, an offshoot cult of Mayan shaman-priests, had developed spells unlike anything the Nightkeepers had ever seen. Something they came to fear.

Members of the order had brought the Banol Kax to earth in A.D. 869. The demons had destroyed the city of Tikal before the Nightkeepers had managed to drive them back behind the barrier. In the aftermath, the cultural center of the Maya shifted to Chichén Itzá, and the Order of Xibalba had been banned.

Rumors said it had lived on in secret, though.

Strike pinched the bridge of his nose, hoping to ward off the headache he knew was in his future. ‘‘Please don’t tell me she was a disciple of the order.’’

Red-Boar said nothing.

‘‘Shit.’’ Needing to move, Strike drained the rest of the Coke, crumpled the can, and got up to toss it in the recycling bin beneath the sink. ‘‘I guess that explains a few things.’’

‘‘Exactly.’’ Red-Boar grimaced. ‘‘Order magic and Nightkeeper magic aren’t the same; we can’t know how they mixed in Rabbit. Which is why I can’t claim him into the bloodline, and why I absolutely don’t want him jacked in. If he goes through the binding ritual—’’

‘‘He’s already jacked in once with no help from us,’’ Strike pointed out. ‘‘He’s a tough kid. He’ll make it.’’

‘‘I’m not worried about whether or not he’ll survive,’’ Red-Boar said flatly. ‘‘I’m worried about what will come out on the other side. He’s already a punk. What do you think he’d be like with even more power?’’

Rabbit’s problems aren’t entirely his fault, Strike wanted to say, but he didn’t have time for an argument he knew he wouldn’t win, so instead he said, ‘‘I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to take that risk. I want him to go through the ceremony tomorrow.’’ He had to believe it would work. If not, they were stuck at twelve, and that was nowhere near a magic number.

Red-Boar’s head came up. ‘‘Is that an order?’’

He hated to do it, but he didn’t see another way. ‘‘Yes.’’

‘‘Then have at it. Your call, your responsibility. I wash my hands of the issue.’’

Having gotten what he’d come for, whether gracefully or not, Strike headed for the door. He paused at the threshold, though, and turned back. ‘‘Was that what you said to my father?’’ It was no secret that Red-Boar had argued against the attack on the intersection. He hadn’t been the only one.

The Nightkeeper’s grin held zero humor. ‘‘No. I told the king he was a damned fool following damn fool dreams.’’

‘‘Since you didn’t say anything like that just now, I’m guessing you think I’m right about binding Rabbit.’’

‘‘I think he’ll find his way to the magic regardless,’’ Red-Boar said. ‘‘I also think that even if we can bind— and control—him, there’s no guarantee the gods will count him as one of the thirteen, especially when there’s one more true Nightkeeper out there.’’

‘‘Don’t go there,’’ Strike warned. ‘‘Either Anna comes back of her own free will or she doesn’t come at all.’’

Red-Boar nodded. ‘‘And that’s where I think you’re being a damned fool.’’

After Strike-out kicked him out of the cottage, Rabbit headed for the pool, planning to swim a few hundred laps to work off the jittery burn in his chest, the one that made him do and say things he sometimes later wished he hadn’t. When he got to the pool area, though, he couldn’t settle enough to dive in. The air jangled with a strange, pent-up energy that amped him up even more than usual. He felt itchy, like he wanted to peel his skin off, starting with his toes and working his way up.

Restless, he slipped into the mansion through one of the glass sliders leading to the hall just beyond the great room. He stopped on the far side of the arched doorway and leaned against the wall, so he could watch without being seen, and listen without being asked to participate in the whole lame-ass Magic 101 thing.

Who are you kidding? he scoffed inwardly. Not like they’d ask you anyway. He wasn’t one of them—his father had made that crystal clear over the years. He’d never really said why, but he hadn’t needed to; it was all too obvious. Rabbit wasn’t the child of his precious wife, Cassie, wasn’t one of the sons he’d lost in the battle. He might be blood kin, but he wasn’t family. Wasn’t a Nightkeeper.

For whatever the hell that was worth.

Hearing the murmur of voices, Rabbit shuffle-stepped a little closer to peek around the arch. Jox was in the middle of saying something about fractal waves and computer programs—Rabbit had no clue what the hell that had to do with the barrier and magic—when he broke off and turned, his eyes looking on Rabbit. ‘‘You want in on this, kid? You could tell these guys what it’s like to jack in.’’

Anger flashing that the winikin was making fun of him, teasing him with stuff he wasn’t going to be taught to do properly, Rabbit sneered. ‘‘Yeah, right. Screw you.’’ He flipped the bird, spun on his heel, and headed back down the hall, moving fast.

And ran smack into Strike-out.

Strike gave him The Look, which was one of the few royal things he did really well. ‘‘Apologize.’’

A hundred or so smart-ass responses popped into Rabbit’s head, but for a change he managed to control his mouth. He turned, shuffled back to the arched doorway leading into the great room, and mumbled, ‘‘Sorry, Jox.’’

Strike’s heavy hand landed on his shoulder. ‘‘Now do what he asked you to do. Describe what it’s like to jack in.’’

Rabbit lifted a shoulder. ‘‘You can’t describe it; you’ve just got to do it.’’ Besides, he wasn’t sure he could put the terror—and the elation—into words. So instead he said, ‘‘After you get your second mark, if you’re lucky you’ll be able to do stuff like this.’’ He snapped, and an amber flame sprang from his fingertips.

He knew he was pushing it, doing things he wasn’t supposed to be able to do. Instead of barking at him, though, Strike said, ‘‘Not bad. But with a little teamwork, you can do this.’’ He held his larger hands on either side of the small flame and boosted the power.

The flame turned royal red and erupted to a fireball the size of Rabbit’s head.

The teen reeled back, banging into the big man behind him. Power danced across his skin and burned in his blood, making him want to throw his head back and scream with the mad glory of it.

Then it was gone.

For a few seconds, there was utter silence in the great room. The newbies’ eyes were big and it didn’t look like they were breathing.

Strike lowered his hands, letting them drop to Rabbit’s shoulders. ‘‘You shouldn’t be able to call fire without training,’’ he said quietly.

‘‘So sue me,’’ Rabbit said, equally quiet, totally buzzing with the aftermath of the boosted power.

Strike pushed him forward. ‘‘Go on; get in there. You may think you know everything already, but trust me, you don’t.’’

Unprepared for the shove, Rabbit stumbled forward a few steps, then spun. ‘‘What are you saying?’’ He couldn’t quite keep the pitiful hope out of his voice.

Strike nodded yes to the question he hadn’t asked. ‘‘You’ll be part of the ceremony tomorrow.’’

Shock hammered through the teen. ‘‘No way the old man is going to let that happen.’’

‘‘I’ve taken care of that,’’ Strike said, then paused. ‘‘I think you should move into the main house. It’ll make the training easier if everyone’s in one place.’’

Rabbit’s mouth went dry. ‘‘He kicked me out of the cottage?’’

‘‘No.’’ Strike shook his head. ‘‘No, never think that. He’s just trying—has always tried—to do right by you. Believe that, even if it doesn’t always make sense. But things have changed, and they’re going to keep changing, and I want you to be a part of it.’’

A quick suspicion nagged at Rabbit, itching across his skin, but he ignored it because he was finally—finally!— being offered a chance at some real, honest-to-gods, sink-your-teeth-into-it training. Strike was offering to bind him, to—

He gulped as a thought occurred. ‘‘What . . . what will my mark be?’’

Red-Boar had never accepted him as his son. Would the barrier see him as a member of the peccary bloodline, or as something else?

Worse, what if the barrier didn’t recognize him at all?

‘‘I’ll see you through it,’’ Strike said, which wasn’t an answer, but was kind of reassuring, regardless.

Rabbit’s chest felt funny when he nodded. ‘‘Yeah . . . okay. Um. Thanks.’’

Strike’s eyes were very serious and a little bit sad. ‘‘I should’ve done something like this a long time ago.’’

That funny feeling spread up Rabbit’s throat and itched at the back of his eyeballs, and to his utter horror he realized he was about to cry. " ’S okay," he mumbled, and reversed course to push past Strike and head for the john.

Halfway there, he turned back and sniffed. ‘‘Tell him . . . please tell Jox that I’ll be right back. And not to start without me.’’

Then he locked himself in the bathroom, turned on the water, and bawled like a baby.

For several days after Vince’s death and Leah’s subsequent suspension for blatantly disobeying orders to ‘‘stay the hell away from the 2012ers,’’ she functioned on autopilot.

She grieved, but it was like there’d been so much grief lately that she’d worn out those neurons, making her numb and angry rather than sad. So she ate too little, slept too much, and spent the rest of the time sitting at her kitchen table, surfing the Internet, and trying to make some sense of it all.

On the morning of the Fourth of July, she dragged her ass out of bed midmorning, stumbled down from the attic, where she still slept beneath the stars. When she hit the button on her Mr. Coffee, a fat yellow spark jumped from her fingertip to the machine, and electricity arced with a sizzle and a yellow flash.

Leah shrieked and leaped back, her arm vibrating with the shock and her heart giving a funny bumpity-bump in her chest, as if whatever’d just happened had kicked it off rhythm.

Hello, static electricity, she thought, though the air was humid and her floors weren’t carpeted. But what other explanation was there?

Mr. Coffee didn’t so much as gurgle when she hit the ON button, suggesting that she’d fried something vital, so she went with tea for her morning caffeine hit as she powered up her laptop and glanced at her notes from the day before.

The Calendar Killer had taken twelve victims that they knew of, two at each equinox and solstice over the past eighteen months, with the exception of the previous month, when the summer solstice had passed without new victims.

Granted, Nick had died that day, but the signature was completely different; the only connection was the ritualistic nature of the Calendar murders, which might or might not point to the 2012ers, and the fact that she and Nick had been waiting for info on the leader of Survivor2012.

Chicken and egg or coincidence? Damned if she knew.

Then there was Vince’s death. Guilt twisted tight when she pushed herself to remember exactly what’d happened. She should’ve insisted that he leave the investigation to the task force. Hell, she should’ve left the investigation to the task force. If she had, Vince would still be alive.

Then again, if they’d left it alone, the task force wouldn’t be taking another look at Survivor2012.

The explosion seemed to have been aimed at the heart of the group, their ceremonies. The Calendar Killings could—although this might be stretching it a little—have been intended to throw suspicion on the group. Which might mean the killer wasn’t necessarily a member of Survivor2012. He could be its enemy.

The thought brought a flash of piercing blue eyes, the image of a big man who had moved like a fighter and bombed a charity gala, yet had somehow gotten her out of a locked chamber before it blew.

Logic said she’d gotten blown clear by the shock wave. But the door had been shut, and even if it’d been open, the shock wave would’ve splatted her on the opposite wall rather than taking a right-hand turn and dumping her in the main hallway.

Logic also said that the dreams were nothing more than a pastiche of her experiences over the past few months, a way for her subconscious to deal with the pain. But the skulls in the older dreams had screamed a blast of water rather than a trickle, and the blue-eyed warrior had worn cutoffs rather than combat fatigues. And rather than a murderer, he’d been her lover.

It didn’t make sense. None of it did.

But she sure as hell intended to figure it out. For Matty. For Nick. For Vince.

For her own sanity.

Ignoring the tea that cooled at her elbow, she got to work. She wasn’t looking for the names and faces of people who might want Survivor2012 gone for good— the task force was already on that, and with a ton more computer power than she had at her disposal. No, she was coming at it from another angle.

She was trying to figure out what made the doomsdayers tick. Maybe it was partly because, if she accepted the 2012ers as the victims rather than the perps, that meant Matty hadn’t been stupid for joining them, meant she hadn’t been irresponsible for letting her brother run with the crowd that’d killed him. Maybe it was because the snippets she’d caught from the 2012ers’ educational programs had been oddly compelling. And maybe it was an effort to understand her own response to the dark-haired stranger.

Whatever the source of the compulsion—obsession?— she worked through the day, bent over her computer until her eyes burned and her joints ached and her head buzzed with strange words that made more sense to her than they ought.

She didn’t get dressed until midafternoon, didn’t have lunch until four. And when darkness fell, she kept working.

As the stars prickled to life overhead, she discovered an author named Ambrose Ledbetter who seemed to know more than all the rest, or maybe he just put it in words that a nonexpert could understand. Either way, his articles seemed to synthesize all the information, ask all the right questions. Ledbetter had written in an article published just before the Calendar Killings began:

A knock at the door had Leah jolting. She’d been so into the research that she hadn’t heard the sound of a car, or footsteps coming up the drive. But the interruption was probably a good thing, she realized as she stood and the room took a long, lazy spin around her. She needed to move around, get her blood pressure above ‘‘hibernate.’’

When the knock came again, she called, ‘‘Be right there.’’

The floor seemed to move beneath her feet, swaying, and the air hummed faintly off-key. She had a hell of a headache—when had that started? She didn’t remember. The pressure began at the base of her skull and radiated upward, somehow seeming more like desire for something forbidden than actual pain. It also felt familiar, though she couldn’t have said why.

When she reached the door, she left the security system armed and checked the peephole. She saw Connie standing there, looking sleek and stylish even after a full day of work, and faintly irritated by the wait.

‘‘One sec,’’ Leah called. ‘‘Let me kill the alarm.’’

She also took a detour through the kitchen and shoved her computer and the messy pile of printouts into a cabinet. No reason to let Connie know she was working on her own—that would only slow her return to active duty.

An obsessed cop was a cop without perspective.

Which was true, Leah acknowledged as she headed back to the door and disarmed the security system. But an obsessed cop also sometimes saw stuff the others missed.

Giving her appearance a once-over in the hallway mirror, Leah pulled open the door. ‘‘Hey, Connie. I was just—’’

The world went luminous green. Then black.

Something was wrong. Strike didn’t know how he knew it, or what exactly ‘‘it’’ was, but the wrongness hummed over his skin alongside the aphelion’s power as he and Jox finished prepping the ceremonial chamber for the binding ritual.

The room was located on the top floor of the mansion, roughly in the center of the sprawling footprint of the big house. It was one of the few spaces they’d left alone during the renovations, mainly because the altar itself was set in a cement pad containing the ashes of nearly seven generations of Nightkeepers. There was serious magic in the room, serious power.

And seriously weird vibes, Strike thought, frowning as he counted the tapers—lucky thirteen—and assured himself that the stingray spines, knives, parchments, and bowls were all set out and ready to roll. ‘‘Why do I feel like we’re forgetting something?’’

Jox glanced over, raising an eyebrow. ‘‘Like you’ve done this before?’’

‘‘That’s the point—I haven’t. So why the willies?’’ Strike rubbed his chest, where a strange pressure burned. ‘‘Maybe I just need some Pepto.’’ Or a beer.

Jox crossed in front of the large chac-mool altar to grip his shoulder. ‘‘You’ll do fine.’’

‘‘Thanks.’’ Strike glanced up through the transparent glass roof of the sacred chamber. The reflected firelight from the tapers meant he couldn’t see the stars winking into existence high above, but he could feel them, just as he could feel the lines of power shift into place as the aphelion drew near. ‘‘I feel . . . jumpy.’’

‘‘Hormones,’’ the winikin said. ‘‘They’re going to ramp up during every conjunction for a while, until you’re really solid in the magic.’’

‘‘In any other lifetime, having your father figure tell you, ‘Don’t worry, you’re just horny,’ would seem weird,’’ Strike said. ‘‘But I find myself oddly reassured. Probably explains why I haven’t been able to get Leah out of my head all day.’’

Jox made a face, but kept working his lint brush over the royal crimson robes Strike would wear for the ceremony. ‘‘That Alexis, you know . . . she’s a knockout. Blond, edgy . . .’’

‘‘Don’t start.’’ Strike’s jumpiness flickered toward temper.

‘‘Mating with another Nightkeeper will boost your power by double, if not more.’’

‘‘And who gives a crap if I spend the rest of my life miserable?’’

Jox waved him off. ‘‘Tell it to Dr. Phil.’’

Strike gritted his teeth so hard he thought he felt a molar give. ‘‘You don’t know the first thing about how I feel.’’

‘‘The hell I don’t,’’ Jox snapped, tossing the lint brush and whirling to face him. ‘‘Get your head out of your ass and look around.’’

Strike fought the anger, fought the power as the planets aligned and the barrier thinned, and his gut told him he was missing something major. ‘‘Watch your step, winikin.’’

Jox’s voice cracked around the edges when he said, ‘‘Do you honestly think this is the life I would’ve picked? I wouldn’t have traded raising you and Anna, but gods. Don’t tell me I don’t know what it means to want someone and not be able to go after her, and don’t you dare think you’re the only one making a sacrifice.’’ He jabbed a finger toward the door. ‘‘Never mind me. Including the winikin, there are fourteen people out there who dropped their lives to come here because they knew it was the right thing to do. Have you stopped to think for a second what they walked away from? Whether they want to be here? No, of course not, because it’s their duty to be here; it’s in their bloodlines. Well, guess what? Same goes for you, only double because you’re Scarred-Jaguar’s son. Get used to it.’’

‘‘Why, because you did?’’ Anger and worry rode Strike, had him lashing out. ‘‘Leah is mine. Just because you didn’t go after your woman doesn’t mean I can’t have mine.’’

‘‘She’s not yours!’’ the winikin shouted. ‘‘She’s human.’’

‘‘Did you ever wonder why you didn’t go after Hannah years ago?’’ Strike asked, aiming low when he used the story Jox had told him in confidence. ‘‘Did you ever stop to think that maybe you liked the idea of her more than the reality? That she was a pretty fantasy, but the reality would’ve been too messy? That—’’

Jox punched him in the mouth, splitting the crap out of his lip.

Strike reeled back, tasting blood as the winikin stalked out, slamming the door.

‘‘Damn it!’’ Strike took a couple of steps after him, then stopped when the door opened once again and he saw the others standing there, wearing blue trainees’ robes and looking pretty freaked.

Way to go into the ceremony nice and focused, he thought. Shit. And he wasn’t even dressed.

‘‘I’ll be back in five minutes,’’ he said, grabbing the red robe and bundling it under his arm. ‘‘Get comfortable. Or something.’’

Booking it to the pool house, he stripped out of his jeans, shirt, and briefs, and pulled on the ceremonial regalia Jox had dug out of storage. The floor-length robe had long, pointed sleeves and a draping hood, with the edges encrusted with small, intricately carved shells. The fabric was bloodred. Royal red, for the last of the royal line.

With it went a feathered headdress that fit close to Strike’s scalp and hung down in the back, gaudy with feathers and jade. Last but not least, he pulled three jade celts out of the pocket of the robe. Working by feel, he hooked the flat, carved ovals so they hung down in front of his nose and cheeks, distorting his profile and making it—according to legend—look more like that of a god.

Always before when he’d donned the ceremonial regalia, he’d felt thoroughly silly, as if he were getting ready for Halloween. But now, barefoot and commando beneath the heavy red robe, wearing something that looked like a bad roadside souvenir on his head when he glanced in the full-length mirror inside the pool house bathroom, he didn’t see an idiot.

He wasn’t sure what he saw, exactly. The guy looking back at him seemed like a stranger, like someone out of another time. Then he got it, and a shiver took hold in his gut, making him think the reflection in the mirror might be the source of his unease.

Because, gods help him, all of a sudden he looked like his father.

He felt a twinge when he said, ‘‘Let’s just hope I got more of the good parts of him than the bad.’’

He’d loved his father, worshiped him the way only a nine-year-old boy could. But at the same time, the king had singlehandedly wiped out an entire civilization. Not exactly a proud legacy. Then again, Strike wasn’t exactly proud of himself at the moment, either. Jox was right: He had a duty. Everything else had to take a backseat for the next four years, even Leah.

Especially Leah. Seeing her the other day—having her recognize him, and then realizing that she’d somehow come back into the ajaw-makol’s orbit—had gotten him thinking about fate and the gods again, about destiny and how many times their paths needed to cross before he’d admit they were meant to be together.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t about whether they were destined for each other. It was about the prophecy, the future. And in the immediate future, he needed to get his head off the woman and into the ceremony.

Scrubbing a hand across the back of his neck, where the creepy-crawly feeling of not-quite-rightness had settled in, Strike took a deep breath and headed back to the mansion, reminding himself that tonight wasn’t about him. It was about the trainees, and their bloodline marks. It was about the continuation, however tenuous, of the Nightkeepers.

In the ritual chamber, the trainees were ranged shoulder-to-shoulder in a loose semicircle facing the altar. Rabbit, smaller and darker than the others, stood on one end, slightly apart from the group. Patience and Brandt were at the other end. Although they already had their bloodline marks, Strike wanted them to have an escort for their first official jack-in. Besides, he might need their power for an uplink if things went wrong. It didn’t happen often, but newbies sometimes went missing in the barrier. When that happened, it was up to their escort to go find them. Which begged a question— where the hell was their second escort?

‘‘Where’s Red-Boar?’’ Strike asked as he stepped to his place beside the altar. If the bastard was boycotting because Rabbit was included in the ceremony, he’d—

‘‘I’m here,’’ the older man said, appearing in the doorway wearing his ceremonial robes, which were black and worked with intricate patterns of stingray spines and boar’s teeth. ‘‘I . . .’’ He paused, staring at the chac-mool . ‘‘Never mind.’’

Strike winced, realizing that while he’d never been part of the chamber rituals as a child, the older Nightkeeper no doubt had plenty of memories in the room. His own talent ceremony. His wedding. The barrier ceremony for his twin sons. Ouch. Serious ghosts.

Without another word, Red-Boar took position on the other side of the altar. ‘‘Proceed.’’

Strike nodded, feeling the power hum. ‘‘Let’s do it.’’ He rolled up the right sleeve of his crimson robe, baring his marks. Red-Boar followed suit, baring his. Then the trainees did the same, showing that they had no marks.

Strike passed the bowls, parchment scraps, and spines and gestured for the trainees to sit. Once they’d all assumed cross-legged positions, he said, ‘‘Okay, gang. Follow my lead, and no matter what happens, try not to panic. If we get separated, stay where you are. Red-Boar or I will come find you.’’

He picked up his bowl and set it in the hollow formed by his crossed legs. It was the king’s bowl, made of sand-smoothed jade and carved with glyphs spelling out the king’s writ. Touching the bowl, he sent a quick thought toward the heavens. Gods, please help me not fuck this up. Not the most eloquent of prayers, maybe, but he’d never pretended to be a poet. He was just a regular guy with a few upgrades.

Laying a square of parchment in the bottom of the bowl—okay, technically it was high-grade card stock from Staples, but it wasn’t the paper so much as the symbol—Strike picked up his stingray spine, braced himself, and drove it into his tongue. Pain slapped at him, then again when he ripped the spine free and blood flowed into his mouth. Shit, that hurt.

He opened his mouth, letting the blood fall into the bowl, where it soaked into the paper. Once the others had followed suit, he lit his taper, then touched it to the one held by the trainee beside him, Patience. The flame was passed from one to another, coming full circle until Red-Boar touched his lit candle to Strike’s, completing the circle.

Then, moving as one, they set the blood-soaked pages aflame and snuffed their candles as acrid smoke rose. They leaned in. Inhaled the smoke. And said in unison, ‘‘Pasaj och.’’ The world lurched and went gray-green, then solidified. And they were in. Or, rather, he was in.

Strike found himself standing in the middle of nowhere and everywhere at once, on a soft, yielding surface, with nothing but mist around him, eddying in random swirls created by an unseen wind. Either the others hadn’t made it into the barrier, or they’d landed somewhere else.

‘‘Hello?’’ He looked around wildly. ‘‘Red-Boar? Patience? Anyone?’’ His shout fell dead on the mist. There was no echo, no response.

He was alone.