Tim

  Who sows virtue reaps honor.

  --Leonardo da Vinci

  “Someone might blow up the gate?” I ask, looking over at Dante. “He just… projected, I guess? I don’t know if we can move him.” I look over at Anton and Lyra, who are regaining their feet.

  Lyra looks noticeably steadier already. Then again, she looked basically comatose a minute ago, so it’s not a very high bar.

  “Projected?” she asks, walking slowly around Dante so she can look him in the face. I notice she doesn’t block his distant eyes’ view of the wormhole. Lyra glances from him to the gate. “Why was he projecting?”

  “A friend of ours went through first, at least in spirit,” I tell her.

  “Galen Anders,” Anton adds. “You’ll remember her. Though she usually goes by Ghost, now.”

  Lyra looks at us. “I know her by both names. And that wormhole…” She looks at it again, the ring of blue-green plasma whirling in place, the darkness threaded with deep blue and purple at its heart, and, of course, the spiral of dancing Dragons. Lyra shakes her head. “Mercaen wyrms,” she remarks softly, to no one in particular. “Here.”

  “If I’m right,” Anton says uncomfortably, “the other end of that wormhole leads to the Temporal Lock. And from there to the past. On the Island.”

  He and Lyra exchange a look. Then Lyra shrugs.

  “Most can’t use it,” she points out.

  “Most, sure,” Anton agrees, though his tone says something else entirely.

  Dante gasps and stumbles a step back.

  “Did you see her?” I demand, stepping towards him.

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  He nods, then looks sharply at Lyra and Anton. “You know where and when this thing goes?” he demands. I catch his eye, and he meets my gaze. “I think her spirit pulled back to our side. For now.” He looks from me to Lyra. “Tim here says you medivacked Ghost. Where did you take her?”

  “Waycross Trauma Center,” Lyra says, tapping a wristband. “Galen’s status?” she asks it.

  “Stabilizing,” a cool feminine voice says, “though she should be dead. And one of your former teachers has already paid a visit. And lent his assistance.”

  Lyra’s eyes narrow. “Which one?”

  “I believe he goes by Dr. Lucas Grimm in this iteration.”

  “Grimm?” Anton and Dante say simultaneously, the former sounding worried, the latter disbelieving.

  “What did he do?” Lyra demands.

  “Saved her life, apparently. Estefan Escalante pierced her heart, and your sister was not on hand to piece it back together. None of the superintelligences were. Aside, perhaps, for Grimm himself.”

  “How could he…?” Lyra presses her fingertips to her left temple in fierce thought. “Oversight, did he use a Hyperseed?”

  “That is my present working hypothesis,” Oversight responds. “Though all non-medical sensors in the area went down for several minutes during the time he appears to have entered the room.”

  “Has a Response been authorized?” Lyra’s eyes flash from the sky to each of them in turn.

  “There is no need to evacuate a blast radius. Apparently this was a contained use of the integral technology. No Balefire Strike has been called for.” Oversight’s voice pauses. “You get to live.”

  The roar of jet engines thunders across the sky and descends.

  We all jump. Well, Lyra just flicks a glance that direction, but the rest of us are ready to spring into action. Or at least into confused panic, in my case.

  Unless I miss my guess, Lyra and Oversight were just talking about all of us getting vaporized because of the tech used to save Ghost. And even if our execution has been called off, finding out your head was on the chopping block without even knowing it is a little disconcerting.

  Also, someone is flying towards us in power armor, followed by what’s either a mech or just a giant robot. Oh, and a guy glowing like the Sun and a winged girl who looks like an angel. With jetboots.

  “You guys okay?” the guy in silver power armor asks as he lands near Anton.

  “For now,” Anton tells him, like he talks to guys flying in wearing power armor every day. Which maybe he does. Anton looks up. “I guess you brought the rest of the heavy hitters.”

  The guy shining like a star lands in the square with us, his angelic companion not far away, her widespread wings of crystal catching his light and splintering its spectrum. I flinch back, the rainbows radiating from her and the torrent of light from him being briefly blinding.

  His radiance subsides, though, just in time for the over 30-foot-tall mecha to land behind them.

  I notice the girl in the mech’s palm just before she leaps effortlessly to the ground. I say nothing, at the sight of her purple hair and eyes and unmistakable face, hoping to avoid notice.“Tim,” Kei Kimura says with a nod to me. “See you’ve been making friends.”

  I bite back a sigh. Yes, I’m used to the shadows, given my natural invisibility. But it’s not like I can’t talk to other people. Just that I prefer to be… selective.

  Speaking of high standards and a narrow social circle, I recognize the angel as Andrea Aspect. Which makes her tech savant cousin Christopher a likely candidate for the guy in the armor, especially given his body language around Anton. Those two move like people who always have each other’s backs.

  I shrug at Kei. “I guess everybody knows everybody, then.”

  She starts to say something, but freezes instead.

  I see her staring past me and Lyra and Anton.

  Straight at Dante. She looks like she’s seen the dead rise.

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