At taser point he carried the chair outside, then up the truck ramp and into a cage just barely big enough to stand in. Tir seethed when he was bound to the chair, and the cage door closed afterward, immobilizing and securing him for the duration of the agonizing trip.

The animals, including the wereman and Raoul, were loaded next. The dragon lizards were driven into cages at the rear of the truck last and the tarp flaps pulled closed and tied down, trapping them all in the cool predawn darkness.

Hours and miles had passed since then, each one of them adding to Tir’s discomfort. The air was heavy, heated, filled with the dry, scaly scent of lizard. His skin was covered in a light sheen of sweat. Around him in the dim interior, the furred creatures panted, their body heat adding to what the close confines and sun-beaten tarp created.

The visitor left behind, Tomás, had barely spoken as they traveled, while the toddler, Eston—brought to ensure his mother would remain in the compound—fretted occasionally, but was already afraid enough in his father’s company not to give in to tears.

The heavy rumble of the truck’s engine drowned out the sounds of insects and birds. Tir closed his eyes, willing himself to ignore the torture of his confinement. He strained to hear something of nature, to escape the tether of his body and lose himself in the sweet hope of escape. Instead he heard the distant thump of rotors, the sound of a helicopter flying low and rapidly approaching from the direction they were heading.

Moments later Tomás uttered a single panic-laden word: “Guardsmen.” And the truck accelerated savagely then lurched violently as it took a turn.

Machine gun fire erupted behind them. The toddler began screaming, terror of his father giving way to an instinctive fear of death as the truck careened forward, plowing through anything blocking its path.

Jolt after jolt of pain shot up Tir’s spine as the truck bounced along, jerking and swaying dangerously each time it turned. Tree branches clawed and grabbed, stabbed and shredded the canvas, revealing the thick, dark forest hiding them from view.

Eventually the sound of the helicopter faded and the truck slowed. In the truck’s cab Eston’s screams of terror ended abruptly with the sound of a slap and Hyde’s growled “Shut up.”

“What now?” Tomás said, fear leaking through in his voice. “There’ll be ground patrols looking for the truck.”

The trapper’s only response was to brake at a turn, then accelerate.

ARAÑA moved through the woods as quietly as her companions. The last time they’d reached a spot affording a view of the bay and the Oakland skyline, she’d compared it to the one she’d seen in her vision. They were nearing their destination, the abandoned cemetery with the destroyed mausoleum.

Her eyes went to the gun Levi wore holstered at his hip and the crossbow slung across his back. She hadn’t known he was Were the night before, though it wouldn’t have made a difference to her. A Were among humans was almost always an outcast.

She’d tumbled out of deep sleep and into an urgent sense of wakefulness as soon as Rebekka and Levi stepped into the bedroom at sunrise. The first words out of her mouth were a request for paper and a pencil so she could capture the vision scene. And as she’d drawn, she’d answered their questions about what she’d seen and heard while waiting to run the maze—and quickly learned of their interest in the werelion Anton intended to pit against the dragon lizards.

Uneasiness slid through Araña. It seemed too much of a coincidence, like an elaborate pattern created by an unseen hand—Rebekka and Levi waiting beyond the maze, the vision and the blue-black thread, the nightmare glimpse of Oakland on the night she climbed into Erik and Matthew’s boat.

Her throat threatened to close thinking about them. She touched the sheaths that now held their blades, seeking comfort even as she steeled herself against the pain of their loss.

Her fingers curled around the knife hilts, and she tightened her grip until her knuckles paled and the fist squeezing her heart loosened. Live for all of us.

Matthew’s voice whispered through her consciousness, reminding and reinforcing what she knew to be the truth. They’d always lived in the here and now, cared only about the present.

It was enough she’d loved them while they were alive. They wouldn’t want her to grieve for them.

Araña took a deep breath and forced her fingers to loosen. The back of her hand brushed against the borrowed wrist-brace slingshot dangling from her belt. It wasn’t a weapon she favored, but she was proficient with it, Matthew had seen to that.

Shadow gave way to sunlight around her, forming a wall to block the sadness and press her toward anticipation as the cemetery came into view, a small patch of forgotten civilization not yet reclaimed by forest or covered in vine.

A narrow road ran through it, faded gray cobblestones no longer holding against the weeds. She read the sign even as Levi said, “Nothing’s passed through here recently.”

He didn’t ask if they were in the right place. Neither did Rebekka. From the road they had only to turn and look toward Oakland to see the picture she’d drawn at sunrise.

Rebekka knelt near the road and slid the knapsack off her back. She opened it and dumped its contents on the grass. Narrow strips of rubber, pierced with sharp metal and nails, lay in coils.

“If the truck has good tires on it, these might not be enough to flatten them,” she said.

Araña nodded. Most of the outlaw settlements had spike strips in place to prevent guardsmen from driving in at will in a hunt to collect bounties. Those strips were more substantial than the ones Levi had fashioned, but they couldn’t take the chance of arriving and relying only on their weapons to stop the trapper.

“I’ll look for something else,” Araña said, leaving Rebekka and Levi to position the spike strips and secure them so they’d remain in place when the truck drove over them.

She found a section of wrought iron fencing near a grave site, the ends jagged and sharp from whatever long-ago force had sheered it away from the base still buried in concrete. She liberated it and dragged it to the road.

Rebekka and Levi joined her in positioning the section of fence at an angle and fixing it there so the ground became its new base and the power of the truck would force metal through rubber.

Levi cocked his head. “Just in time,” he said, freeing the crossbow.

For a moment Araña heard only the sound of birdsong and whispering grass, but then the breeze shifted to bring the distant rumble of a truck. Her fingers brushed over the knife hilts again, but she didn’t draw the blades from their sheaths. She unclipped the slingshot and placed it on her wrist before pulling metal bearings from her pocket.

They split up, Rebekka going to a place of safety while Levi sought a perch where the crossbow could be used effectively. None of them knew what they’d be facing, whether there would only be a driver, or whether the truck would have a mounted machine gun and guards.

Araña slid into the forest and waited, one of the metal balls tucked into the slingshot’s leather pocket. She felt the vibration of the truck through her feet long moments before it roared into sight and accelerated when it hit the clearing, as if the driver was afraid of being caught out in the open.

The windows were tinted, hiding the cab’s occupants, but the lack of a mounted machine gun made Araña smile in anticipated victory. She heard the truck drive over the spike strips and saw the tires gape when it struck the wrought iron fence, the impact making the vehicle sway dangerously.

The driver kept going, his speed increasing, spinning the rubber off the rims even before he reached the end of the clearing and was swallowed by forest. Caution held Araña in place long enough for the shadow of a helicopter to sweep across the clearing, the sound of its blades no longer masked by the truck.