And yet he’d also basically reconfirmed with the premier that he’d trade Keko for a Senatus seat.

But would he?

Aya broke through the hard, cold crust of earth and rolled herself onto the windswept prairie of southern Alberta. This spot was a few hours from the U.S. border, though that sort of delineation meant little to her kind. What did matter was that the land here had been worked over so much with plow and seed that there were very few purely natural, untouched areas left for her use as travel and entry/exit points. Except for this one spot where a great tree stood twisted like an old soldier standing sentry by the gravel road.

An icy, blustery night out here, where not much lived besides crops and the few farmers who tended them. And the Airs.

Spring ran cold here, and yellowed late-March grass poked up through the remaining patches of snow around the tree. She pushed her human body into being as quickly as the painful, awkward shift allowed. She magically fashioned clothing from the grass and the nearby dead husks of corn: a soft, woven suit that conformed to her body from neck to ankles. It looked strange, she knew, but she had no human clothing of her own yet.

Someday. Soon.

She started walking west under the blue-black sky made in the hours past midnight, the moon casting shadows and the stars guiding her way. On all sides she sensed the great space of central Canada extending out. She felt the unbroken rush of wind as it crossed the land and whipped across her body, and it made her smile to herself. Made her breathe in deeply the sweet scent of fresh air. Made her revel in what she could not get Within.

She’d been here before. Two months ago the premier had summoned her, wanting her counsel, when the Chimerans had been on the verge of declaring war on the Ofarians. And then one month ago, when she’d been informed that Madeline was no longer the Airs’ mind-wiper, and that her position had been filled by her brother.

A similar summons had arrived barely an hour earlier, its urgency just as potent. She’d been sitting in her cave, human eyes closed, trying not to think about the walls closing in, when the little glowing root had pushed through a crack and unfurled the premier’s message, written on a leaf in the way she’d only told him and the Chimeran chief to contact her. My compound. As soon as possible.

Her immediate thought? Griffin. Keko.

Now she trudged through the crunchy, barren aisles of dead corn, heading toward the massive white walls that loomed in the distance. When the crops gave way to the grass of the meadows that surrounded the Air compound, she passed several wooden signs staked into the ground.

HAVE YOU REPENTED?

WALK WITH THE LORD AND YOU’LL NEVER NEED TO RUN FROM ANYTHING AGAIN.

JESUS SAVES.

The white walls were two stories tall, impenetrable except for the iron doors big enough to admit a semitruck and stamped with a giant white cross. Razor wire coiled over the top of the wall. Security cameras covered all angles of the enclosure and the surrounding meadow.

As Aya approached, one side of the iron doors opened and a woman in a parka and hat and mittens appeared. She eyed Aya’s body, tightly clad in the woven suit, unable to disguise her shock and wariness. Peering out into the cold, dark night, and then returning her stare back to Aya, she said, “You can only be . . .”

“I am.” Though the female Air was taller than her by a head, Aya proudly lifted her chin and looked the Air directly in the eye. “Aya, Daughter of Earth. The premier is expecting me.”

The Air shuffled back to admit Aya, and Aya felt the Air’s awe pass over her like the wind. Aya could not wait to blend in better, to not draw such stares.

“This way.” The female hurried ahead, snaking through a vaguely familiar set of dark alleyways between narrowly placed buildings. The whole compound was like that, she remembered, a maze packed tightly with boxy, nondescript structures meant to hold and house the largest density of air elementals.

Aya could not keep track of their path. Just when she was sure she’d seen this particular corner or doorway more than once, and that the female was steering her back out the way they came, they popped out into a small square. Ahead rose a giant, ornate church topped with the massive silver cross she’d glimpsed from the other side of the wall. The other woman pulled open the heavy wood doors of the church and the two of them entered.

The inside looked nothing like the few other churches Aya had wandered into, but the interior didn’t matter, as long as anyone flying over or trying to spy inside the compound thought this place was dedicated to a Primary religion and inhabited by isolationist zealots. Each Secondary race had its own way of hiding in plain sight, so it was rather an important thing to have been invited into another elemental world.

And this marked the third time. This excited her. She needed stronger eyes on the Airs. Aya’s growing friendship with Keko had given her hope that she’d be allowed a peek into the Chimeran culture, and she knew Griffin would openly welcome a chance to meet with her eventually, but had both those opportunities been destroyed now? What then?

“Wait in here.” The female Air directed Aya into a windowless room in the center of the false church but did not enter herself. She nodded toward a closed door on the opposite wall, set with a mottled glass window that gave the vague impression of bodies moving behind it. “He’ll let you know when he’s ready.”

She left, closing the door, and Aya heard a subsequent click. On her last visit, they hadn’t locked her in. There was no place to sit.

A burst of raised voices, all male, maybe three in number, made her jump, her head swiveling in the direction of the mottled glass door. The voices ramped up to overlapping shouts, their words indistinct but the anger very, very clear. Something crashed to the ground, followed by a heavy thump against a wall. More crashes, more shouts, then the door flew open.

A male Air stomped out, and not just any Air. Him. The one with the curly hair and pale blue eyes. The one she saw last time she’d been called here. The one Nem had mentioned.

Inside the office, the premier and Aaron stood in the middle of a disaster. A bookcase had been overturned and something glass lay in shards on the wood floor.

“Go do your penance, Jase,” the premier growled.

The curly-haired Air halted in the center of the room, his back to the door. Fists balled at his sides, he closed his eyes and snarled back, “The name’s Jason now.”

“Ha. Changing your damn name doesn’t absolve you. You still owe me. You still need to pay for her.”

Jase—Jason’s—eyes opened, the intense stare spearing straight ahead, straight through Aya, even though she stood not three feet away.

“Fuck you.” Razors laced his whisper. Aya felt them slice across her human skin.

“Reno,” said the premier, his cowboy boots crunching on glass as he went to the door and gripped its edge. “Get it done.” The door slammed with such force the entire wall vibrated.

Jason drew a deep breath, his chest rattling as it expanded and collapsed. Then he blinked at Aya, shook his head, blinked again. “Who the hell are you?”

An earthquake of odd sensations shook Aya’s body and mind as she stood under Jason’s powerful scrutiny, anger flushing his skin and a terrible loss clouding his eyes. She did not understand what she was feeling, how to parse the peaks and valleys of the effects of such direct attention.

“We’ve met before,” she said.

His eyes narrowed. “No, we haven’t.”

She shook her head as a strange heat crept up from her chest, traveling the length of her neck to settle in her cheeks. “I’m sorry. You’re right. Last time I was here I merely . . . saw you.”