“We’re looking for-”

“Yes. I know why you’re here,” Joan said. “Martin mentioned you at the council meeting. But there was no agreement. We didn’t vote on the issue.”

“We just want to talk to Martin,” Gabriel said.

“Yes. Of course.” Joan touched her daughter’s shoulder. “Take them up the hill to see Mr. Greenwald. He’s helping build the new house for the Wilkins family.”

Alice ran ahead of them as they left the clinic and continued up the road. “I wasn’t expecting a welcome committee when we showed up here,” Gabriel said. “But your friends don’t seem to be very hospitable.”

“Harlequins don’t have friends,” Maya said. “We have obligations and alliances. Don’t say anything until I can evaluate the situation.”

Bits of straw littered the road. A few hundred yards later, they reached a stack of straw bales placed next to a busy construction site. Steel rods had been embedded into the concrete foundation of a new house and the bales were being skewered on the rods like giant yellow bricks. About twenty people of all ages were working on the house at the same time. Teenagers wearing sweat-stained T-shirts were hammering rods into the bales with sledgehammers while three older people pinned a galvanized steel mesh to the outer walls. Two carpenters wearing tool belts were building a wood frame to support the home’s roof beams. Maya realized that all the buildings in the valley had been built in the same simple way. The community didn’t need massive amounts of brick and concrete, just plywood boards, wood beams, waterproof plaster, and a few hundred bales of straw.

A muscular Latino man in his forties was kneeling in the dirt, measuring a piece of plywood. He wore shorts, a stained T-shirt, and a well-worn tool belt. When he saw the two strangers, he stood up and approached them.

“Can I help you?” he asked. “Are you looking for someone?”

Before Maya could come up with an answer, Alice stepped through the doorway of the house with a stocky older man who wore thick eyeglasses. The man hurried over to them and forced a smile.

“Welcome to New Harmony. I’m Martin Greenwald. And this is my friend, Antonio Cardenas.” He turned to the Latino man. “These are the visitors we discussed at the council meeting. I was contacted by our friends in Europe.”

Antonio didn’t look happy to see them. His shoulders tensed up and he spread his legs slightly as if he was getting ready to fight. “Do you see what’s hanging from her shoulder? Know what that means?”

“Keep your voice down,” Martin said.

“She’s a goddamn Harlequin. The Tabula wouldn’t be happy if they knew she was here.”

“These people are my guests,” Martin said firmly. “Alice will take them down to the Blue House. Around seven o’clock, they can come over to the Yellow House and we’ll have dinner.” He turned to Antonio. “And you’re invited too, my friend. We’ll talk about it over a glass of wine.”

Antonio hesitated for a few seconds, then returned to the construction site. Acting as tour guide, Alice Chen escorted her visitors back to the parking area. Maya wrapped her weapons in the blanket and Gabriel slung the jade sword over his shoulder. They followed Alice back up the valley to a blue house on a side road near the stream. It was fairly small-a kitchen, one bedroom, a living room with a sleeping loft. A pair of French doors opened onto a walled garden with rosemary bushes and wild mustard.

The bathroom had a high ceiling and an old-fashioned claw-foot tub with green stains on the faucets. Maya stripped off her dirty clothes and took a bath. The water smelled faintly like iron, as if it came from deep in the earth. When the tub was half full, she lay back and tried to relax. Someone had placed a wild rose in a dark blue bottle above the sink. For a moment she forgot about the dangers around them and concentrated on this single point of beauty in the world.

If Gabriel turned out to be a Traveler, then she could continue to protect him. If the Pathfinder decided that Gabriel was just another ordinary soul, then she would have to leave him forever. Sliding beneath the surface of the water, she pictured Gabriel remaining at New Harmony, falling in love with a pleasant young woman who liked to bake bread. Gradually, her imagination pulled her down a darker path and she saw herself standing outside a house at night, staring through a window while Gabriel and his wife prepared dinner. Harlequin. Blood on your hands. Stay away.

She washed and rinsed her hair, found a bathrobe in the cabinet, and slipped down the hallway to the bedroom. Gabriel was sitting on the bed in the sleeping loft that occupied a half ledge in the living room. A few minutes later he got up quickly and she heard him swear to himself. More time passed and then the wooden ladder creaked as he climbed down to take a bath.

AT SUNSET, SHE rummaged through her travel bag and found a blue tank top and an ankle-length cotton skirt. When she looked in the mirror, she was pleased to see how ordinary she looked-just like any young woman Gabriel might have known in Los Angeles. Then she pulled up the skirt and strapped the two knives onto her legs. The other weapons were hidden under the quilt that covered the bed.

She came out into the living room and found Gabriel standing in the shadows. He was peering through a crack in the curtains. “Someone is hiding in the bushes about twenty yards up the hill,” he said. “They’re watching the house.”

“It’s probably Antonio Cardenas or one of his friends.”

“So what are we supposed to do about it?”

“Nothing. Let’s go find a yellow house.”

Maya tried to look relaxed as they walked back down the road, but she couldn’t be sure if someone was following them. The air was still warm and the pine trees seemed to have captured little patches of darkness. A large yellow house was near one of the bridges. Oil lamps glowed from the roof patio and they heard people talking.

They entered the house and found eight children of different ages eating dinner at a long table. A short woman with frizzy red hair was working in the kitchen. She wore a denim skirt and a T-shirt with the cartoon image of a surveillance camera and a red bar slashed across it. This was a resistance symbol against the Vast Machine. Maya had seen the symbol on the floor of a Berlin dance club and spray-painted on a wall in the Malasaña district of Madrid.

Still holding her spoon, the woman stepped forward to greet them. “I’m Rebecca Greenwald. Welcome to our home.”

Gabriel smiled and gestured to the children. “You got a lot of kids here.”

“Only two of them are ours. Antonio’s three children are eating with us plus Joan’s daughter, Alice, plus two friends from other families. The children in this community are constantly eating dinner at someone else’s house. After the first year, we had to make a rule: the child has to tell at least two adults by four o’clock in the afternoon. I mean, that’s the rule, but it can get a little frantic. Last week, we were making road bricks so we had seven muddy kids here plus three teenage boys who eat double. I cooked a lot of spaghetti.”

“Is Martin…?”

“My husband is up on the roof patio with the others. Just climb the stairs. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

They walked through the dining room to a walled-in garden. As they climbed the outer staircase to the roof, Maya heard voices arguing.

“Don’t forget about the children in this community, Martin. We’ve got to protect our children.”

“I’m thinking about kids growing up all over the world. They’re taught fear and greed and hatred by the Vast Machine…”

The conversation stopped the moment Maya and Gabriel appeared. A wooden table had been placed on the roof patio and lit with vegetable-oil lamps. Martin, Antonio, and Joan sat around the table drinking wine.