A blast that followed the knife disoriented Harper for a precarious moment.

The front door exploded into splinters. Tiny wooden daggers flew in all directions, crashing into the china cabinet and shattering the glassware drying by the sink. She ducked behind a doorway, but not fast enough; multiple miniature cuts stung her face.

She screamed at Beth. "Run upstairs! Now!"

Her sister frantically scrambled up the staircase, Aisling pressed against her chest in a white-fingered clutch.

Harper kept one eye on them and the other on the front of the house as she retreated to the rear, cocking her gun. The clicking sound of her trusted SIG was a small comfort as four dark shapes filed through the gap left in the wall. She imagined this was what a mouse felt like when cornered by a clowder of rabid cats. Those who hunted her would love nothing more than to tear her limb from limb after she'd eluded them for so long.

Harper retreated to the family room in the back, and they clambered in pursuit.

That's right, she thought, follow me, you bastards. A shaky, frightened voice in her head added, just leave my little girl alone.

Her feet crunched over glass shards that speckled the lavender carpet. She flattened herself against an armoire in the far corner, scanning the frame of a broken window. Her eyes traced over a particularly nasty-looking serrated bit giving her the middle finger. If she jumped just right, she could get away with a cut that wouldn't pierce a vital organ. It would hurt, no question, but it was worth the risk considering the alternative. She really should have brought backup.

"Could it be?" said a gravelly voice she'd have recognized anywhere.

Too late.

"Do we have the honor, the privilege, of being graced with the presence of the greatest Researcher of Ra, Harper Gregory herself, in the flesh?" said the voice like claws dragging over arid rock.

The image of Theo plunging to his death flashed before Harper's eyes. Her throat constricted. Her nostrils flared involuntarily when she caught sight of Crispin's reflection in the broken window. His salt-white hair and pale skin looked like something had sucked all life out of him. Black eyes swallowed the pupils until they were nothing more than two pits of darkness staring back at her.

She fired a warning shot muffled by her silencer, in part to distract them from the footsteps upstairs.

"Tsk, tsk..." Crispin rasped like a laryngitic chain smoker. "That's no way to greet old friends." He shook his head and a shock of white hair fell across his eyes. He swiped it back with one gloved hand.

Harper briefly entertained the thought of going at them guns blazing, but she knew she wouldn't make it very far. She couldn't put the greater plan of the Watchers in jeopardy for a three-second revenge-suicide. She'd get her revenge another way, another day. She just needed to make it out of this one alive.

"You're not a Watcher, Harper," said a female voice with a light Indian accent. "You're one of us. You'll always be one of us. Come with us and we'll clear all this up." Unlike Crispin's raspy British, hers was the chitter of spring birds.

Harper couldn't believe that Shakti stood at his side. She and Shakti used to be colleagues—friends, even. People called them the Tomb Raiding Twins, although they looked nothing alike; Harper's porcelain skin was milk to Shakti's caramel. She was tall & athletic, unlike waifish Shakti. And while Harper's voice would get lost in a crowd, Shakti's laughter was a bell that could be heard over a siren.

The sound of the safety coming off multiple weapons across the room yanked Harper back to the present. Crispin would be above such dirty occupation as handling a gun himself, but he'd brought the only weapon he'd need—Shakti. She'd joined the Quasar Division before Harper, which gave her access to some dangerous artifacts of the quasar variety. The two goons with them, while physically imposing, were only brought in case there was trouble. Too bad Harper had told "trouble" to hang back while she did this solo. Really wish you were here, Declan. Of course, that wasn't what she'd said when the Watcher offered to come with her.

"You know, you really had us chasing our tails there for a bit," said Crispin. "We lost you in Paris. You convinced a lot of people you were really dead." His voice dipped lower. "If only it were so."

Her ear pricked at a shuffle in the back of the room. Cautious footsteps. Are you a friend, or a foe? No matter. Harper would be prepared. So long as it wasn't Beth attempting something foolish.

"You know what I find inspiring?" Crispin drawled. "The crocodylus niloticus. The Nile crocodile—everything sounds better in Latin," he chuckled. "A stunning predator with a lifespan to rival us humans and—more importantly—the patience to bide his time: after the gazelle has gotten away by a hair's breadth, long after she strides downstream to drink from the river again, thinking she's free, safe. . ."

Harper glanced around uneasily. There was very little maneuver room, but she had to try something, soon.

"The crocodile will follow her," Crispin continued. "Floating just below the surface of the water where he can keep his prey in sight, while she remains oblivious. And then snap!" He clapped his gloved hands. "Three thousand pounds of bite force slamming onto her neck, crushing every bone, every hope," he said mournfully. "She never stood a chance."

"Always with the theatrics, Crispin," Harper scoffed. It sounded forced, even to her own ears. The fear that strummed in her gut crept up in a pulse at her temples.

"Hah! She speaks yet!" Crispin sounded genuinely excited. "Come out, my little gazelle."

Why didn't they just. . . shoot her? It made no sense.

Unless. . .

A cold smile crept up Harper's lips. Could she be right? There was only one way to find out.

She let out a shaky breath and held her gun up as she stepped out from her hiding spot, pointing the muzzle directly at Crispin's chest. His goons lifted their firearms in kind.

Harper's gaze met Shakti's and there wasn't so much as a flicker of the friendship they'd once shared. This couldn't be how it all ended, could it?

Harper smirked, despite the knot in her stomach. "He sent you to retrieve me, didn't he? The Secretary wants me unharmed."

If Crispin were alone, she would have been dead by now, regardless of what Ethan wanted. But Ethan must have known about this mission and sent him in with backup. Crispin couldn't let the Secretary doubt his loyalty, but he'd surely plan an accident to befall Harper before she could tell everyone what she knew—what she'd seen—and ruin his plans. Not that anyone would have believed her.

"The Society of Ra would like its property back," Crispin said simply, the earlier manic spark extinguished.

Harper shook her head at him pitifully. "Ethan's loyal pet." Her voice took on the roughness of sandstone. "And never will be more, no matter what you do."

"That's enough," Crispin warned in a dangerous tone. If he grew any more pallid, he'd be as translucent as a night-dwelling amphibian.

So, here they were at an impasse, holding each other hostage. If he shot her, he'd have the Secretary to answer to. He'd probably lose his position as head of the Quasar Division for such a disobedience, and all the power and prestige that came with it. At the same time, he couldn't let her live when she knew too much. His secrets had bound their fates together like two driftwoods slamming against each other by raging rapids. One had to shatter so the other could be free.

"Hand it over," he said.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Beneath the cool metal of her gun, Harper's skin burned with fear that could melt an iceberg. It was at that moment that Harper made a vow to herself: if she made it out in one piece, she'd never come back into Aisling's life again. If that's what it took to keep the danger away, then so be it.

"No more games, Harper. Cooperate or force me to use, shall we say, less savory measures. I'd hate to see something happen to your sister's beautiful children upstairs," he said, picking off invisible lint from his dark vest.

The threat jolted Harper, reinforcing her prior conviction. At the same time, she could have sighed aloud with relief. He doesn't know about Aisling. He thinks all three are Beth's children. "She's your friend, too," Harper spat. "Or she used to be, before you became Ethan's lapdog."

"Yes, that would present an inconvenience," he continued. "But one must do what one must do in the name of Ra." He looked up at her with eyes like twin scarabs. His gaze burrowed into her skin. "We both know who's to blame for the situation they're in"––he spread his arms––"For the situation we're all, unfortunately, in. How many more lives are you willing to risk before your own?"

The window to run had closed.

They'd left her only one option.

She swallowed with dry throat and focused on clearing her mind before her free hand grabbed the stone beneath her shirt. Its energy answered like a second heartbeat over her sternum. Jade light shone through the fabric. The room's edges blurred while details close to her sharpened to incredible depths. Every speck of dust floating in the air. The microscopic debris on her coat. The coarseness of every fiber twisting out of the pale purple carpet. Her nostrils filled with weeks-old spilled milk and the plastic smell of crayons.

She needed to get out quickly, the transporter quasar was leeching the very last of her strength. Far faster than it usually did.

Harper moaned, doubling over as her body spasmed. She almost lost her grip on the gun. She didn't need to look up to know what she'd see: Shakti's hand raised with a half-moon object in it.

She'd used another quasar on Harper, specifically the counterpart to Harper's transporter quasar that rendered itself powerless after a single use, but it was enough to prevent Harper from transporting out of their reach. Ethan must have been adamant about bringing her in unharmed if he was willing to waste one of the Society's precious quasars.

Shakti hissed as she released the half-moon quasar. It clanked onto the floor, leaving a raw crescent imprint where it had burned into her palm. It was going to leave a nasty scar: a mark of a traitor, as far as Harper was concerned.

Crispin, being the showy power glutton that he was, cackled. "Did you honestly think we would simply let you disappear on us, quasar in hand? Perhaps wave goodbye as you transported to another country? Those Watchers have really brainwashed you. Have you forgotten? You are always within Ra's reach."

She got the ridiculous urge to laugh, imagining Gerard's old face frowning at her. Use your head, girl. Think! the old Watcher would grunt and whack her with his cane like he did whenever she was being particularly obtuse.

Harper feigned dizziness while she reached for the artifact around her neck again. Nothing happened. The half-moon had effectively blocked her transporter's power.

"It's over, Harper," said Shakti, airing her branded palm to the side.

"Seize her," said Crispin. The glee behind his graveyard eyes made Harper's stomach roil.

This was it, then. Harper's shoulders bunched as she readied herself for that three-second blazing glory of an exit. Her thoughts went from the Watchers to Theo, and to Aisling. Sorry, baby girl. I did my best. Beth would give her a good life, and Harper couldn't ask for more.

Three things happened then, all at once.

Crispin's men lunged to seize her.

Harper braced herself to give them one storming mad last fight.

The wall to their right erupted from the outside with sapphire smoke that filled the room in seconds, obscuring the new addition to their deathly tea party.

A gas mask clamped onto Harper's face before she could breathe in the second, ochre layer of smoke that curled through the curtain of blue. She could hear Crispin, Shakti, and their Ra henchmen coughing and gagging as if from a distance. Calloused fingers grabbed hold of Harper's and led her out the newly-opened exit. She'd know those hands anywhere.

Declan.

They vaulted over the garden's hedge like two wraiths and vanished into thin air, leaving a hazy blue-and-yellow cloud where their shapes had been mere moments ago.