“The son or our leader anyway. Makis is one of our oldest. Both of his legs were broken, then he was left on a church doorstep. Medical care wasn’t much back then, and no one wanted a crippled baby, but he survived. As he grew, he realized he was different, started finding others like him, and slowly pieced together who we were, where we came from.”

“He must hate us.” I said the words without realizing their significance at first, just voicing what I felt.

“You would think, but he doesn’t seem to,” Peter replied, but I barely heard what he said.

“He must hate us,” I repeated. I dropped the machine back on the floor, took two giant steps forward, crushing another chunk of pottery under my boot as I did. “Is he a priestess?” I was too focused on my suspicions to worry over terminology this time. “Can he do magic?”

Peter lost his casual posture, stood erect. “Yes, but he doesn’t hate Amazons. I don’t know why he doesn’t. He has every reason to, but he doesn’t.”

“He’s a priestess and an artisan.” Again, to myself. I headed for the exit.

“Where are you going?” I could feel Peter moving behind me, heard him curse as he stepped on another shard of pottery or some other debris left on the floor. Still, he followed me.

I raised my left hand, blew air over my shoulder, and slammed the door in his face, mumbled a spell and twisted my fingers-using compressed air to turn the lock.

He’d get out eventually, but at least I had a head start. I didn’t think Peter was involved in the killings, but I didn’t need him arguing with me, slowing me down.

My life was a mess, but none of it mattered-not compared to stopping this killer.

I met Reynolds on the steps. I tried to walk past him. He stepped in front of me. My body shook with the need to get past him, to shove him out of my way and sprint down the stairs.

“I didn’t give you permission to come in here,” I said.

“This place is open to the public. I don’t need your permission.” He placed his hand on the railing beside me.

My jaw tensed. “I’m leaving. You do need something to stop me.”

One finger tapped the wooden rail…once, twice, three times. “Depends. Maybe I think you’re acting”-his gaze drifted over me-“suspicious. I have reason to suspect you, you know?”

Sane Mel, the Mel who wanted so much to blend, would have stood there and argued, would have played the game, but that Mel had disappeared when she’d realized her daughter was on her way to meet a killer, and that Mel wasn’t coming back-not for a long time, maybe never.

I kicked him in the groin.

The look on his face, the way his eyes rounded, then squinched together as he doubled over, would have been comical, if I hadn’t actually liked him, already regretted to some small degree the need for the move. But any humor or pity was lost as he fell to his knees and reached for his gun. I started moving, fast.

“Stop.”

I looked back. He was hanging onto the railing with one hand. In the other was a black handgun, and it was pointed at me.

I shook my head. “I can’t.” Then I turned my back on him.

Behind me, he cursed. I could hear him rustling, forcing himself to stand, I guessed. I quickened my pace, made it to the front door, and jerked it open.

“Mel,” he yelled. He was closer-too close. I sped through the door, thinking I’d have to lock it behind me, play the same trick on him I’d played on Peter, but as the breath seeped from my lips, a grayish-brown body streaked around the corner of the building toward me.

Open window, tree. Didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how Peter had escaped.

“Mel,” Reynolds yelled again.

Peter stared up at me, his eyes still his, just in the face of a cat.

“Please” was all I said. I didn’t have time to fight Peter and Reynolds too. Didn’t have the mental wherewithal to stand there and argue either. I needed to get to my daughter.

Reynolds’ shoes squeaked on the floor. He was almost to the door. I glanced back, could see him lunging forward, his gun still drawn.

Peter saw it too, leapt past me and into the building.

Reynolds yelled a curse. A shot fired, hit the door as the breath I’d been holding shoved it closed behind Peter.

I broke into a run.

It took less than three minutes to get to the address on Makis’s business card. It took twenty to find Makis’s class space.

I thought I knew the building where Harmony had been taking art classes-I’d driven by it thousands of times. But once I parked the truck and jogged toward it, things got fuzzy.

I found myself standing in front of the address, suddenly unable to remember where I was going, what had driven me here.

I turned, started to shuffle back to my truck and, just as quickly, my memory returned, my panic with it, but increased.

Three steps forward and the fog returned. I blinked. An older woman wandering past asked if I needed a drink. I refused, stumbled again to my truck.

I slammed into it, my palm smashing down on the hood. Harmony. How could I…? I stared back at the building, focused on the door that bore the same numbers as the card in my hand.

A ward. Makis had some kind of ward on the door, something akin to what Bubbe had cast over my front yard when the Amazons were gathered there trying to save Zery, I guessed.

I had no experience with the spell, no idea how to combat it. I forced my heart to slow and my gaze to wander over the building front. Through the glass door I could see ferns and vines hanging from seventies-era macramé hangers. The mass of plants blocked my view deeper into the shop. Murals, a scene of the Capitol, one of some cows, and a group of football fans wearing white and red, covered the front windows.

Makis had managed to provide his shop with complete privacy in a way no one would think to question. I glanced around, looking for inspiration-considered tossing a rock through the Badger fan’s red jersey, smashing the window, and maybe the ward. But there were too many people around. And a move like that would only alert Makis to my presence and state of mind.

The roof was flat. A one-story, probably with no attic, not even a crawl space. I glanced back at the plants, at their junglelike growth. Plants needed sun, and painted-over windows didn’t provide much.

I had an idea. I left my truck and jogged around the end of the block, into the alley that ran behind the shops.

A Dumpster was set a few feet away from the building’s back wall. It was an easy jump from there to the roof. I paused, checked my grip on reality. I still knew where I was and what I had to do. Makis hadn’t been guarding against someone trying to break into his shop, just been trying to stop the casual passerby from entering.

Letting out a relieved breath, I crept toward the front and the upraised white square I prayed was what I thought it would be.

I stopped next to the skylight, a grin breaking across my face. I allowed myself less than a second of self-congratulation before hunkering down next to it and peering inside.

It was darker than normal outside and lights were on in the shop, making the scene below well lit, if small. The window was only a couple of feet wide. Even leaning side to side, I could see only a small piece of the shop below, but it was enough. Directly below me, a paintbrush in her hand, stood Harmony.

My palms pressed on the window’s edges, I leaned forward, tried to see what was happening below-to decide what my next move should be. Makis had had access to Harmony for over a week. There was no reason to believe tonight was the night he would target her-not that I wanted to take the risk and leave her alone with him. But I also didn’t want to do something that would send him over the edge, cause him to attack if he hadn’t planned to.