…and the portal opened.

Dust skirled around us, buffeting our cheeks. The wind had to come from the Glass Spider itself – air leaking out, or perhaps deliberately sprayed to keep dust from accumulating around the entrance. Putting my arm around Irene to keep her on her feet, I pushed forward against the gale, unable to see if the door in front of us was open. It was; and as soon as we had fought our way inside, it slid shut with a hiss, closing off the rasping rush of the duststorm.

«How about that!» I said to the others. «The sodding collage actually worked. The portal thought it was a picture of Irene!»

«This is a picture of me?» she asked, looking down dubiously at the scrap of cloth, the hair, the wood splinters.

«Absolutely,» I told her, laughing with relief. «We got approval straight from the portal's mouth.»

«Then,» she said graciously, «I must add this to my hope chest… to complement my other portrait.» She reached into her bodice and withdrew a cheap tin locket. «See this?» She opened the locket to show me a tiny watercolor of herself, perhaps thirty years younger. «Rather a good likeness, don't you think?»

I looked at the watercolor, then at the collage, then at the watercolor again. Don't ask me which was the better portrait – ask the sodding portal.

Miriam laid Hezekiah on the floor of the entrance area… not far from the smear of blood where we'd found the dead hobgoblin the first time we came to the Glass Spider. «How is he?» Yasmin asked.

«Still breathing,» Miriam replied, trying to sound unconcerned. «He'll come around when he's ready.»

«And what do we do in the meantime?»

«The last time we were here,» I said, «you talked about a portal to Mount Celestia.»

«Yeah,» Miriam nodded. «The place is supposed to be boring as a beadle, but at least no one will slip a dagger into your kidneys.»

«And Mount Celestia has gates to Sigil?» Yasmin asked.

«Every plane has gates to Sigil,» I said. «We'll find something.» I glanced back at Miriam. «Have you ever visited Mount Celestia?»

She shook her head without meeting my gaze. «Didn't think I'd be welcome. They, uhhh… the Mount Celestials have a reputation for hunting down evil.»

«You are not evil,» Irene said without hesitation, «you are simply gruff. It is unfair to judge people as wicked, just because… they are gruff.»

I got the feeling our orc friend was speaking of someone other than Miriam; but she suddenly shifted her bridal veil and lowered it over her face, turning away as she did. Whatever submerged pain had bubbled to the surface, she didn't want to share it.

There was a brief but awkward silence. Finally, Yasmin said, «Whatever any of us might have been, we aren't evil now. There's only one true evil in the Glass Spider, and that's Rivi.»

«She's probably not in the Spider any more,» Miriam muttered. «Odds are she's done a flit out one of the other portals… and not to Mount Celestia.»

«Do you really think she'd run?» I asked. «I doubt she's desperate enough yet to abandon a posh base like the Glass Spider. Who could she possibly believe would track her here? No one but us – we were the only people close enough to get through the portal before the Vertical Sea collapsed. Do you think Rivi's afraid of us?»

«She should be,» Yasmin replied, drawing her sword.

It only took another minute to formulate a plan. Miriam would carry Hezekiah to the Mount Celestia portal, and wait for us there with Irene. Yasmin and I would scour the rest of the building for Rivi; we would take appropriate action if we found her. Neither of us expected the job to be that simple, but we knew we had to try: Yasmin in the cause of Rightful Entropy, me on behalf of Wheezle, November, and Oonah DeVail.

Time to get on with it.

Yasmin and I started with a circuit of the Spider's upper floor – rooms full of the wights' chemical smell, but empty of opposition. Puzzling; but then, in the past few days, we had whittled down the numbers of Rivi's bashers, both the living and the undead. The personnel needed to work the Vertical Sea must have exhausted the rest of her crew. To all appearances, there was no one left in the whole of the Glass Spider… either that, or they were all waiting in ambush on the lower floor.

Outside the windows of the Spider, the infinite Plane of Dust lay quiet and gray. Patient. Ashes to ashes…

When we had assured ourselves the top floor was clean, we headed for the stairs to the basement. There was only one staircase to the bottom level, a perfect spot to set a trap; and considering how the Fox mass-produced firewands, Rivi must surely have kept one for herself. Even so, we descended the steps without incident, down to the spartan utility corridors that echoed with the throb of machinery.

«Maybe Rivi doesn't know we're coming for her,» Yasmin murmured.

«Or maybe she died laughing at the thought,» I replied.

«If we find her dead, we'll muss up her corpse and say we killed her,» Yasmin smiled – a beautiful, pure smile, as if for this one second in all eternity, we were together. I don't know if we were together as lovers, as brother and sister, as comrades-in-arms… and for that one second in all eternity, it didn't matter.

One second in all eternity: most people don't even have that.

She smiled again… and I opened my mouth to say something, I don't know what, I'll never know what, when she turned away from me and put out a hand to steady herself against the corridor wall. The gesture didn't seem out of place – I thought she just wanted to stop me from speaking, to let the moment last a little longer without being spoiled by words. That's why I held back, giving her time with her thoughts.

Perhaps thirty seconds passed, and still she stood there, head slightly lowered, hand against the wall… until finally, a needle of fear worked under my skin and I stepped around to look her in the eye. «Are you all right?»

She didn't answer right away, but finally she lifted her head, eyelids flickering. «I'm fine, darling,» she answered. «Quite, quite well. In fact, I'd be completely on top of the world if you'd kiss me.»

Another wide smile swept across her face as she stepped toward me and draped an arm over my shoulder. She leaned forward with her lips slightly parted, but I held up a hand to stop her. «Before you kiss a Sensate,» I said, «you have to remember that our perceptions are… heightened through intensive training. We have a better sense of smell…» I touched her nose lightly with my forefinger. «A better sense of hearing.» I brushed her earlobe. «Extremely keen vision… not just for seeing, but for observing. For staring at a beautiful woman, and taking in every nuance.»

«Do you see any nuances that… interest you?» Her voice was throaty.

«Definitely. A minute ago, your smile started in your eyes and bloomed through your whole face. Now, it's only your mouth that's smiling. Your eyes are as cold as the ninth level of Hell.»

She swung her sword, but I had my own blade ready, easily parrying the attack. Skittering back a few steps, she graced me with a glittering leer. «What a clever boy! Who would have guessed your wee male brain wouldn't be completely blinded by animal lust? Once I've made this tiefling slag my own, I must have you on my side too.»

The voice came from Yasmin's lips… but of course, it wasn't Yasmin speaking.

The woman in front of me held her sword with Yasmin's strength, but none of Yasmin's skill. I couldn't tell if she was even making an effort to guard herself; certainly, it would have been laughably easy to knock the blade aside and run her through. Just one small problem…