The meaning of it, remaining hidden, chilled her.

She could do only so much; she had certain words to say.

She said them and the dark witching room was lit with balefire. The lighttouched the globe in its hidey-hole of nothingness and the globe began to spin.

If there was some bond of fate between her and egregious Tempus, the thread mustbe cut. Even if it were Niko's life, she must do the deed. And the baby godcould not be suffered to survive. Both children's lives and souls were promisedto a certain demon of her recent, intimate acquaintance.

And the cold she felt, which raised gooseflesh on sanguine Nisi skin as smoothas velvet, which drew back lips as beautiful as any that had ever spoken deathfor men-that cold had to do with failing and winning, with perishing andsurviving.

As the door to her outer chamber shivered from something scratching on itsfarther side, she decided.

She let the globe spin faster, let the colors from its stones bathe her in theirlight.

A rushing wind filled the scrying room and in its midst was a woman's form,changing shape.

Black mist spun around the comeliest of female guises. Black wizard hair grewlong and covered limbs cut clean and meant to hypnotize any man. Her fine longnose grew chitinous, then hooked; her firm flesh sprouted feathers.

And by the time Snapper Jo, still wiping his claws on his barman's apron,thought he'd better open up the door himself, an eagle with a wingspan ten feetwide stood where Roxane was before.

And Snapper, her spy among the Sanctuary denizens, who tended bar at the VulgarUnicorn, clacked prognathic jaws together and wrung his clawed and warty hands.

"Mistress," he gurgled in his fiendish, grating voice, "is that you?" His eyesthat looked every which-way squinted at the eagle swathed in dusky light. Hesquatted down, gray gangly limbs akimbo in submission. "Roxane?" said the fiendagain. "Call Snapper, did you? Here I be, for what? Some murder? Murder do,tonight?"

And the eagle cocked its head at him and let out a screech no fiend couldmisconstrue, then took wing and flapped by him, out the door, leaving himbleeding from a flesh wound made by claws much sharper than his own.

Muttering, "Damn and damn and murder damned," the fiend scuttled after her.Looking askance at her black shadow in the moonless sky. Snapper Jo chewed along orange lock of hair in dark frustration. To be human was his wish; to befree of Roxane his hidden dream. But sometimes he thought he never would be freeof her.

And the trouble was, at times like these, he didn't care. He was hungry as thenight for blood; just the thought of carnage made him giddy.

So he scuttled on, following the eagle in the night, cackling wordlessly underhis breath as Roxane, in eagle's guise, led him toward the winter palace, thenlost him in Shambles Cross when he came across a fresh and bleeding morsel of acorpse.

Jihan was alone with the two children, her scale-armor discarded, cuddling oneto either breast on Niko's bed in the nursery when the snake, man-sized butsilent, slithered in.

The Froth Daughter was not human, but she was lonely. Tempus was no man forprogeny-he considered nothing but himself.

Jihan had wanted children of her own and been refused by him. Now, thanks to herfather, fate, and Niko, she had two fine boys to care for-one of them Tempus'sown.

She would never give them up. She was ecstatic in her joy, and drowsy.

Thus she didn't see the snake until it reared, fangs wide and gaping, and strucklike lightning, biting Arton on the arm.

Then, wide awake with two terrified babes to hold, one wounded and screaming,the other howling just as loudly, she cowered.

To reach her sword or freeze the snake, arching high above the bed and glaringfire-eyed down upon her, she'd have to put down one or both children.

This the frustrated mother could not do. She tried to shield Gyskouras with herbody, interpose her own arm, even force it like a gag into the snake's gapingjaws.

But the snake was wise and quick and its jaws unhinged, so that it bit rightthrough Jihan's arm and punctured the godchild's flesh and shook the FrothDaughter and the child, stapled together by its fangs.

Jihan wailed in rage and agony-a sound the like of which had not been heard inSanctuary since Vashanka battled Storm-bringer in the sky at the Mageguild'sfete.

And that brought help, though she barely knew it as her body fought the poisonand her arms, about the snake's neck, grew weaker as she wrestled it. EvenTempus and Niko paused in horror at the sight of Jihan locked in bodily combatwith the viper, the god-child being crushed in between.

Beside Tempus, Niko drew a breath and then reached out: "Riddler! Quickly! Takethis dagger."

The dagger, like Niko's sword, was dream-forged and it felt hot in the Riddler'shand.

He raced his Stepson, on his right, to reach the snake and the two of them beganto hack away.

With every stroke acid ichor spouted, so that Tempus's skin sizzled, blistered,and peeled.

There was no time to fear for Niko, beside him as if they were once more abonded pair.

Jihan was wound in coils, protecting one child who was absolutely silent. Theother, Arton, was curled up moaning, forgotten on the floor except when ichorstruck him and he squealed at the pain.

The snake didn't flail or shrink from the damage Niko's sword did, thoughTempus's deeper cuts could give it pause.

The Riddler realized just in time what must be wrong-just as the snake wastensing and Jihan, mouth open and eyes bulging as the breath was squeezed fromher, called his name and the viper fixed Niko with a gaze that pushed Stealthbackward and made him drop his sword.

For no snake, not even a Nisibisi snake, should be growing larger and bolder asit fought and bled.

Tempus looked up and around and saw the source of the snake's supernaturalpower: an eagle perched, bating, in the bolthole of the palace wall.

Beside him, Niko faltered, his face blistered, his ankles entangled in the evergrowing coils of the snake.

Tempus knew he risked Stealth's life as he stepped out of striking range andraised his knifehand.

His eyes met the eagle's and it called softly, a cry like a baby's, and raisedits head and clacked its beak.

Then the dagger Stealth had loaned him flew through the air and struck theeagle's breast.

A screech like a witch burning at the stake resounded, so that Niko lost hisfooting, hands clapped to either ear, and fell among the deadly coils.

But it was a chance Tempus had had to take.

And as he strode forward, faster than anything else within that room because, atlast, his wrath had brought the gods awake and power rose within him, the eagleoverhead burst into flame.

The flames began around the dagger in its breast and licked hot and higher asthe bird took wing.

But Tempus had no more time for watching birds or taking chances; he heard adagger fall from the bolthole's height as he waded amid the coils-first toStealth, who still fought gamely though ichor had burned one eye shut and hislimbs were bound with writhing snake.

Pitting all his strength against the failing power of the snake- now shrinkingbut perhaps not fast enough-the Riddler struggled.

Vaguely he heard voices behind him as palace praetorians gathered. "Stay back!"he shouted without looking.

He was watching Jihan's eyes pop, her more-than-mortal hands clutching the nooseof snake still at her throat.

The damned thing was dying and as it did it was whipping back and forth, tossingNiko like a hook on a fishing line, crushing Jihan. And somewhere, in thatthrashing mess of green slime and human limbs, a child was lost.