Contents

Reality Weaver's Apprentice

Copyright

A Word From the Author

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Thank You

REALITY WEAVER'S APPRENTICE

Copyright © 2023 K. A. Excell

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rune and Gear Productions

RuneandGear.com

A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR

Hi everybody, and welcome to the world of Death Weaver!

If this is your first foray into this universe, congratulations. You’re starting from the very beginning of Kriska’s journey. If you’re an old hand, welcome! I’m glad you made it!

Sometimes life takes a turn for the unexpected and monsters we thought we’d conquered come back to haunt us. Sometimes the lives we’ve worked so hard to build start twisting and we suddenly don’t fit anymore. But I believe that stories will always be there to catch us when that happens. Demons that have been conquered once can be conquered once again. We can adapt to new circumstances and new trajectories. Human beings are just cool like that :-)

Enjoy the story!

K. A. Excell

REALITY WEAVER'S APPRENTICE

K. A. Excell

CHAPTER ONE

OZAKI THADDEUS OPENED the door to find Malcom Sexton there, paler than usual with a sheet of archaic paper clenched in his hand. He held his fist out.

Better judgment screamed at her to shut the door and go back to bed, but she didn’t. She took the paper and scanned its contents.

Malcom blew out a breath as she crossed the room to the trash incinerator and the paper vanished into oblivion. She paid him no mind. She stopped at the side of her five year old daughter’s bed, bent down, and placed a kiss in the middle of Kieko’s forehead. Her eyes clouded as she watched Jere stir in their bed. His eyelids fluttered, and he threatened to waken, but the gentle brush of Ozaki’s mind against his sent him back to his dreams.

She gathered her go-bag and returned to the front of the room where Malcom waited.

“It’s not too late, you know,” he whispered.

“It’s for the best.” Ozaki’s eyes burned with tears. They would hate her—she was sure of it. What kind of a mother disappeared into the night without so much as a goodbye?

“If you’re sure?”

She pressed her lips together. One day, they would work through their hate. Kieko and Jere would be safe, and they would all find each other again. Neither of them would have to endure her pain. One day, the world would be safe for every empath—and she was going to create that world.

Malcom shrugged and turned away. Ozaki followed. The sound of the door as it slammed shut broke her heart.

CHAPTER TWO

IO BASE HAD devolved into madness.

Two councilors missing overnight, stolen from their beds with no trace.

Von stood in the middle of the chaos, holding tight to a thread of calm as he tried to see through the illusion and to reality. A thin silver line speared each of the comps in the workstations that surrounded Io Base’s war room, ringing him, imprisoning him in the center. Paralyzed. The computers mattered—but why?

Behind him, Tro Bunnel squared off with Jere Thaddeus, wielding accusatory questions like a whip. Marie Fitzgerald stood at Jere’s side, trying to stem the questions and redirect the Conclave’s watchdog—coincidentally also Warbane’s Head of Security—into something more useful than his customary finger pointing.

Her mild voice cut through the chaotic chatter of the room by room search, the com traffic, and the blaring of security camera video. “We don’t know what happened. You should be helping us look.”

Tro’s insistent, nasally response. “What happened is that someone with unusually powerful Sight either stole them away, or they stole themselves away. Either way, the Conclave’s regulations about Sight use have been broken, and who better to know when someone is breaking the law than our own unusually powerful Mind Weaver?”

A boy tugged on Von’s sleeve, and he turned to see Eric Sexton, ragged blond hair drifting away in every direction. His lips were pressed tight and his eyes saw too far for a child barely five years old. “Scawd,” his whispered, those eyes filling with tears. “Where Da?”

Von went to a knee, voice soft even as he noted the trace of silver closing in on the boy. “We’re looking for him, Eric.” The threads of reality were coiling, preparing for something. But what?

Eric seemed to understand. A single tear slipped down his pudgy cheek and he looked down at the fabric enclosing his toes. No one had thought to get him out of his pajamas. His only parent was gone. “Da gone. Fowever.”

Forever?

The silver threads brightened, coiling tighter around the boy. Von tried to look deeper, tried to understand. “Why forever?” he asked.

Eric looked to the frenzy of mercs and Hunters crowding the comps that ringed the room almost like he could see the silver threads—which was ridiculous. Eric was too young, completely untrained, and yet, his father was a Tech Weaver.

“Do you see something in the computers, Eric?” Von asked quietly.

Eric looked back to Von solemnly. “Da bad,” he said. Another tear slipped past his cheek. “Da bad… Aunt Nilsa get hurt.” And he crumpled into tears.

Von jerked, arms enclosing the sobbing child even as the silver threads glowed brighter in his vision.

Malcom Sexton, bad? Nilsa?

Nilsa wasn’t even on base. She was on Titan, dealing with a routine callout.

Von pulled Eric close and laid his cheek along the child’s hair, as though physical nearness could bring him any sort of comfort even as the certainty that Eric’s words were true descended.

Malcom Sexton hadn’t been abducted. His disappearance, and potentially Ozaki’s too, was a diversion.

Nilsa Fitzgerald, his star pupil, was in deadly danger.

He looked for Marie Fitzgerald’s face and found it, glaring daggers at Tro Bunnel and Jere Thaddeus. Eric weighed nothing as Von scooped him up onto a hip and moved like the wind, hoping it wouldn’t be too late.

“Marie,” he snapped.

The head of Warbane’s council looked up from her staring contest with Warbane’s Head of Security.

Von didn’t wait. “Find a team near Nilsa’s and get them reinforcements.”

Marie blinked. “Nilsa’s on Titan. It’s a routine raid on a dark guild. What’s going on?”

Eric only cried harder, his sobs further clouding the chaotic war room. Von almost put him down but didn’t.

“No time.” No time to explain that he was acting on the muddy words of a sobbing child whose father had just been abducted or maybe, just maybe, betrayed Warbane and everything it stood for. “Nilsa’s walking into a trap.”

Marie didn’t argue, didn’t stare, disbelieving, just turned and started barking orders.

The chaos of the war room doubled.

Com chatter buzzed in the background; mercs directing search parties now enhanced by mercs trying to locate someone from the Titan Array who might be near Nilsa’s location and could provide emergency backup.

And still, the silver threads piercing the computers hummed.

Marie turned back, orders given. “What trap? How do you know?”

Von hefted Eric. “We’ve got a blossoming Tech Weaver. My guess is he found something in the computers.” Or, just maybe, heard something his father let slip.

“Councilor Fitzgerald,” one of the mercs called. Marie was at his side in an instant. Von followed a step behind. “We can’t establish contact with Nilsa’s team.”

She nodded. “Keep trying—” and then froze as a blinking red dot on the merc’s screen vanished.

“Coms have been cut.” The merc’s fingers moved over the screen, pulling menus, trying to get Nilsa back.

A sick pit of certainty began in Von’s belly. Malcom Sexton had betrayed them, but his betrayal wasn’t done.

The silver thread that had impaled the computers pulsed.

The lighting above flickered.

Another pulse of the silver thread.

Another surge of electricity.

“Everyone down!” Von shouted, twisting to put himself between the child he carried and the force of the fire as every computer in Warbane’s Io War Room exploded.

Bright light, searing. He closed his eyes, put a hand over Eric’s face, and felt a spray of debris ping harmlessly off the toughened nanofibers of his Warbane Hunter jacket—glass, metal. The unprotected would get hurt.

The explosions sputtered out with one last crackle of electricity and Von straightened.

Every light in the room had exploded, leaving nothing but deafening silence and black. His Hunter eyes cut through the darkness, elucidating shadows even as mercs stumbled to the ground, blind. He held the child close and danced through the stunned bodies of mercs and Hunters who hadn’t been turned away from the blinding light of the explosion. The door hissed open, letting him through and letting the untouched lighting of the rest of the base filter into the destroyed war room.

At least Malcom had possessed some finesse when he’d blown every electronic device in the war room.

When he turned back, Marie Fitzgerald was behind him. He met her eyes in the shadowed room. “Get the injured to the infirmary,” he said quietly. “Then detail two merc teams to get a report from Titan. Have them use separate comps in separate, uncrowded rooms.” Because it was possible that the search for Nilsa had set off the trap, or it was possible that just the computers in that room had been rigged.

She accepted his words like an order and turned to start sorting the chaos.

Tro Bunnel—the Conclave’s compromise when they’d allowed Von to found Warbane—was staring at him disapprovingly.

Tro didn’t like it when people used their Sights to discover unnatural things. Like that Nilsa was walking into a trap or that the computers in the Io War Room were about to explode.

Thaddeus didn’t waste time with dirty looks. He marched up to Von, who stepped out into the hallway to avoid blocking up the war room’s single door as Marie and the unhurt mercs started carting the injured toward the infirmary.

“You,” he snarled. “How did you know? Did Malcom Sexton kidnap my wife?”

Von closed his eyes so he could more clearly see the silver threads. He did not like what they said. “Malcom Sexton did not kidnap your wife, Jere. They both left together and of their own free will.”

Von had expected anger, but not the overwhelming tide of red-hot fury that slammed down around his own mind and began to churn in his belly, turning the entire room a purple-tinged hue as Jere Thaddeus, Warbane’s second most powerful Mind Weaver, lost his temper.

Von clenched his fists, focusing on the silver threads that reminded him this anger was not his own. He wove a silver shield, distancing himself from the emotional attack.

“My wife,” Jere said through clenched teeth, “is not a traitor.”

Behind him, Tro’s eyes had turned speculative and the Conclave pin on his collar caught the light—a chilling reminder. Of all the councilors, Tro wasn’t here to help Warbane, he was here to watch them for misuse of their Sight. “If she were,” he said smoothly, “you would have known.”

“Yes!” Jere shouted, turning on Tro.

Von could almost see the wheels turning, because there was no way two empaths as powerful as Jere and Ozaki Thaddeus could have kept a secret like that from one another.

Tro’s hand went smoothly to his sidearm and Von took a step forward, knowing that restraining the Conclave’s eyes and ears in Warbane would earn him a very small prison cell on Mars at Conclave headquarters. But Jere hadn’t known. That was fact, and Von knew it with the surety of a Reality Weaver.

But as Von prepared to snatch the gun from Tro Bunnel’s hand, a small voice stopped everything and a tide of peaceful goodwill washed over him, smelling like sakura blossoms and tasting of the cool spring wind.

The low level of chatter in the other room faded. Sounds of pain stopped.

Calm descended over everything, stealing minds away from bodies on a cherry-blossom scented river.

A little body in pink pajamas approached, lightfooted and yet somehow still sure. Somehow, she was still smiling. Somehow, she pushed that smile on everyone else.

Somehow, her power stifled her father’s.

“Do you know where Mama is?” Kieko asked in her dreamy sort of way.

Tro’s fingers left his gun. Jere’s emotional attack disintegrated. Their eyes glazed over, and they came to a restful pose, weight balanced on both feet, head level, looking at nothing. Completely overwhelmed in the girl’s empathy.

Only Von, only half secure inside his shield of silver threads, jerked his mind away from that padded, peaceful river of empathy streaming toward them like a tsunami.

He crouched down, trying to turn the dread inside into a smile and knowing that hiding his true feelings from an empath as impossibly powerful as Kieko would be futile. “Just the girl I’ve been looking for,” he said as lightly as he could.

Kieko looked up at him. “Me?”

“Yes, you,” Von murmured. The two councilors behind him were still caught in her spell of peace. He glanced over his shoulder, trying to gauge if they could even hear him, then turned back. What Kieko was doing—refting two councilors of sense, manipulating their minds—was illegal, and Tro Bunnel would be furious when she let the spell drop. “Can you take Eric for me? He’s having a very bad day.”

Kieko was smaller than Eric, but as Von held him out to the little girl, he uncurled from his ball and took her hand, his tears gone from unfocused eyes thanks to her Sight.

“Sure.”

“Good,” Von said. “No why don’t you go to the kids gym and play some Hunter Hopscotch?”

She left, taking her spell with her.

Tro Bunnel stammered with rage, glaring at Von. “What—did you do?!”

It hadn’t been him. That spell had been all Kieko, and as illegal as what Von had been prepared to do to stop Tro from arresting Jere.

And if he was already being blamed for it, then better him than a child. He pulled gently on one of the silver threads, splitting it into an illusion that made Jere Thaddeus appear to fade. Reality warped, changing perceived history, changing what was and what is so that, in Tro Bunnel’s mind, Jere Thaddeus’s presence faded. He wasn’t here, he hadn’t been, and that would create a conflict in reality because Bunnel was acting on the result of Jere Thaddeus having been here.

In a word, paradox.

But Reality Weavers dealt in paradox with the ease Mind Weavers dealt in emotions.

Von’s fingers flicked out, smoothing the knotted, angry silver threads even as Jere Thaddeus slipped away to find Kieko and lie low. He wasn’t stupid.

His wife was a traitor.

His child had just displayed empathic powers the Conclave would hate her for.

And, because he was an empath, he knew what Von was doing for them.

Tro Bunnel’s face darkened. “Protecting those traitors, those criminals?”

Von’s fingers still worked as the conflict he’d made in reality pulsed, threatening to tear through the fragile silver threads, and then he managed to smooth the knot. “You were about to do something you’d regret.”

“Manipulating reality in a way that influences others is forbidden by the Conclave!”

Von nodded calmly as he inspected his handiwork. A curved eddy in reality where it had once been straight and true, but no longer a paradox. “So it is.” Not that it had ever truly stopped him. He could see the threads, knew how much they could bear, knew what threads not to pull, knew how to avoid tearing a hole in reality like the one he’d just prevented, knew far more than Ms. McNight and her Conclave.

Tro’s long fingers grabbed at reinforced silver bracelets he always wore. “By order of the Conclave, you are under arrest!”

Von sighed. He’d heard that line before—but the important part was that Tro hadn’t connected the incident with Kieko and that he’d been able to push all thoughts of Jere Thaddeus from the Conclave spy’s mind. He drew himself up. “I suppose that is the case then, isn’t it?” He gave Tro a tight smile even as he reached for the silver threads yet again. “But the problem with arresting a man like me, Tro Bunnel, is that you have to catch me first.”

CHAPTER THREE

THE WINDOW CREAKED as Kriska climbed the sill, holding lush red curtains between small fingers. The window was opaqued, but she stared at her reflection all the same. Beyond the window, she could imagine the courtyard full of archaic stone paving and immaculately maintained hedges in the shapes of whatever she’d chosen that year. This year, they were dragons. Because dragons were like her.

Powerful.

Magical.

Dragons could do things no one else could.

But unlike dragons, she had to stay secret. Also, unlike dragons, her magic was real. She’d heard Momma talking about power like hers, how Sight could be used, manipulated to the good of her organization. And that’s how she’d learned what it was called.

Sight.

It flickered behind her eyes as she closed them, and her belly knotted. Weapons hidden in the foliage stood dormant, but still a nauseating red color.

Because Momma wasn't just rich, she was also bad.

And that was a bad thought, so Kriska hid it. She scrambled down off the sill and turned back to the library where her tutor would meet her as soon as he got through with the men wreathed in orange alertness in the entryway.

Orange-wreathed men who worked for Momma. Orange-wreathed men who had peppermint and caramels in one pocket and guns in the other. Guns she wasn't supposed to see, or know about, or sense.

Momma would be angry if she found out just how much Kriska could see. Not the kind of angry when she got a stern voice and made Kriska feel two inches tall. Not the angry that meant no supper.

The kind of angry Momma got when she was across the courtyard and across the street, in the warehouse. The bad place stained with blood where Monsters reigned and guns sat in big crates of orange and red. The place Momma wasn't supposed to own, but she did.

A place she would take Kriska if she ever found out.

Kriska held her breath and then blew it out like Momma did when she started to get angry. It helped make her heart not beat so fast. It helped push some of the images of red and purple claws and Monster eyes away.

The door to the library opened and the tutor walked in. “Little Kriska,” he called, sing-song. “It’s time for math.”

CHAPTER FOUR

IN THE HOLLOW unfriendliness of his quarters, Von checked his bag, shouldered it, and stood. There was no time to take anything except his standard gear. Everything else in his quarters would have to stay—and there was no telling when he would return. Still, nothing here was worth his life, and the Conclave had never sugarcoated their dislike of him. There was a reason Tro had been set as a Conclave watchdog.

He stiffened as something slid beneath the door. A plas sheet.

He picked it up, scanned its contents—a warning, as it turned out—then left it in the trash incinerator to melt.

Tro moved faster than Von had anticipated. Mercs were stationed at all the main entrances to the compound with permission to use deadly force if it meant he was detained. They were taking his abilities seriously.

If this is how he was prepared to react, it was a good thing he wasn’t against Jere Thaddeus. Without Von’s intervention, the empath would have turned the entire base comatose if it meant saving his daughter. His wife had always been the subtle one.

Von reached out to the silver threads of reality and wrapped them around himself.

Mercenaries under Tro’s control roamed the hallways, but none of them saw a thing as he ghosted past. Ten minutes later, he found a transport crewed by one of Marie Fitzgerald’s Bounty Hunters.

“I can’t believe how fast everything’s falling to pieces,” she said as he boarded. “Nilsa, dead? Tro hounding after you, Malcom and Ozaki, traitors? And no one can even find Jere Thaddeus right now.”

Von nodded a short acknowledgment as he checked the fabric of reality for undue wear. The strings where he’d hidden himself were fraying. He forced his fists to relax. He’d made it, and that was what mattered.

“Nilsa was a bright kid. That two of our own councilmembers would—”

“Ozaki Thaddeus and Malcom Sexton were never truly Warbane,” Von snapped as some of the rage he’d strangled slipped out. “Warbane doesn’t kill Warbane.”

Warbane doesn’t pursue Warbane, either. But he’d had to make concessions when he’d petitioned Ms. McNight to lift the bounty on his head all those years ago. One watchdog in control of Warbane’s security forces in exchange for the Conclave’s permission to build a family.

The Hunter took a step back, arms raised in a sign of peace. “Sorry. I didn’t think.” She ducked into the cockpit, and started up the shuttle car.

Von strapped in, fueled by reflex more than thought as he berated himself silently. Even he hadn’t known they were secretly dark guild Hunters. Even he hadn’t been able to see that they would betray Warbane and kill one of the most talented Hunters the guild had ever seen. Nilsa Fitzgerald was more than a member of Warbane, she was it’s heart. And now she was dead.

He’d told her to never trust her eyes. He’d warned her that everything could change in an instant—so why was he the one blindsided? How did he feel her death so keenly?

Von closed his eyes against the tears as he saw a younger Nilsa and felt her tiny hand in his. And then that face morphed into a mischievous woman, eyes deeper than time.

Come with me, she’d said. We can disappear together.

He hadn’t. He’d chosen teenage Marie Fitzgerald over Atali Grino. He’d helped her build Warbane, given her a safe place to raise her family. She’d been the parental type she’d needed back then.

And when the guild was on its feet, he’d taken Nilsa to meet Atali once, nine years ago. The proof that his choice had been correct.

But was it?

Had he built this guild for nothing?

For the first time since Eric had tugged on his sleeve, his eyes began to tear—and what right did he have to cry, when even her mother hadn’t had the chance? But he couldn’t stop the tears. Two of his best friends had betrayed him, his guild was in pieces, and all he could do was run.

CHAPTER FIVE

SHE ESCAPED FROM the lesson with only a little book to read before he came back in two days, and hurried down the the game room where Jake sometimes waited. Jake was Mother’s second, in charge of helping her with all the things she needed to run her organization. Despite that, he was usually nice. Last week, she’d finally convinced him to teach her Black King White Queen.

Kriska sat down in her usual spot in the middle of the room, in the smaller roundback chair with her back to the open door. Someone had been playing since the last time she was here. She leaned forward, looking at the unsteady holographs of spaceships, Bounty Hunters, and mercs. Two white Bounty Hunters, a castle, a spaceship, and half of the mercs were gone from the white set, while the black set had everything except a few mercs, and one of the Bounty Hunters. The pattern was mesmerizing even if she could barely remember how a spaceship was supposed to move, let alone how to get a merc from one level to another.

She reached her fingers out and passed them through the image of the black Bounty Hunter. It made a soothing sort of fizzing sound.

“Hey!”

Kriska jumped at the sudden shout and whirled around. An unfamiliar man, over twice her height and built like a fire brigade autotruck, stomped into the game room. Automatically, Kriska closed her eyes to assess his connection to the web of violence. His muscles were wreathed in orange.

“Did you just touch my game?”

Kriska shook her head as her thoughts raced. Had he been standing there the whole time? Should she have not touched the hologram? Was he one of Momma’s associates?

“Look at me, you squirt!”

She saw his arm flash orange, and knew it was coming, but she couldn’t get out of the way fast enough. He grabbed her arm in a hand so big that he could fit his whole hand around it. It pinched so hard Kriska knew it was going to bruise.

She peeled one eye open so she could see the outline of violence and do what he told her.

His other hand flashed, and she tried to squirm away, but she was still too slow. He slapped her across the face hard enough to make her ears ring.

“Stop it, you’re hurting me,” Kriska cried, but he only tightened his grip.

“I asked you a question.”

Her arm was starting to tingle, and her face was all hot—whether from the impact, or the tears on her cheeks, she didn’t know.

“I didn’t touch your game, I swear—”

He grabbed her other arm and shook her up and down until she was nauseous.

“Mom!” Kriska screamed. He threw her into the round backed chair, and she lay there, stunned. There were no lights behind her eyelids. No way to tell where he was until he grabbed her again.

“You’re a filthy liar.”

A gunshot split the air. He screamed.

Kriska twisted out of his grasp, then put her foot squarely in his crotch as hard as she could manage.

He fell over, clutching his leg where blood was already seeping through his clothes.

Kriska ran to her mother, who stood just inside the game room door with a handgun in one hand and her whip in the other. Her mother barely looked at Kriska as she grabbed onto her waist and buried her head in her shirt.

“Get. Out. Of. My. House.” Kriska’s mother’s voice was dangerous.

Kriska squeezed her eyes shut just in time to see the man vanish from the web of anger and violence in a shower of terrified blue sparks. Kriska didn’t see how he left, but she saw her mother calm from red-orange to the kind of light yellow that gave her a headache if she stared at it too long.

Momma holstered the sidearm and looked down at Kriska. “Are you alright?”

Kriska managed a nod.

“What happened?”

“I-I was just waiting for Jake!”

Momma darkened to an orange-red that just made Kriska shake harder.

“I promise!”

Momma brushed her fingers through Kriska’s hair, that touch reassuring and terrifying at the same time. “I know, Dearest. It’s okay.”

But the orange-red in her outline didn’t go away and Kriska grabbed Momma’s hand, like that would stop her from drawing the gun cooling in the holster at her hip. “Are you going to kill him?”

Momma stiffened. “Why would you ask a question like that?”

Kriska whimpered. She shouldn’t have said that. If Momma knew what she saw, she would make Kriska kill. Momma never killed where Kriska should see. “You have a gun,” Kriska blurted. It was the only thing her paralyzed mind could think of.

“Do you want him dead?” Mother asked.

The question only made Kriska cry harder. She could see the man outside the house now. His aura was climbing back toward a killing red. And maybe he would come back with a gun, and maybe some of Momma’s people would die, and he would definitely die, and more Monsters would come through.

So wasn’t it right to kill the person who would kill?

Feeding him to the Monsters would keep him from feeding others to the Monsters. Right?

But that thought made her belly cramp and her face get hot, and she held Momma close because she couldn’t say any of it.

Momma spoke words into a com unit, and glowed a low, satisfactory red as she heard the response. Kriska saw a second figure light up purposeful red, and a silenced gun coughed once. Her sobs only intensified as the fabric of life knotted, and the Monsters stole her attacker’s soul.

One more rip in the fabric of life balanced a dozen future holes, but Kriska still couldn’t stop the tears.

Momma stroked her hair. “It’s going to be alright now, Kriska. He won’t bother you ever again.”

And the thing that made her chest twist in two was that she was glad. Glad he was dead.

CHAPTER SIX

KRISKA STARED AT the gun like it was a viper. If she made any sudden moves, it would strike. Her mother stood beside her, smelling like gunsmoke and oil.

“Go on, now. Pick it up.”

Kriska put her hand on the silver casing. “Isn’t this good enough for today?”

She could almost see the flashes of violence and death from across the street. She could see them, and with every breath, it felt like she was getting closer to making one of them.

Closer to helping Momma.

Closer to Monster claws and teeth.

Momma barked a laugh. “You can’t just stroke it—you have to hold it. No, don’t clench it in your fist.” She put her hand over Kriska’s and adjusted the girl’s fingers. “Imagine you were holding hands with someone. You don’t want to squeeze their hand off, but you don’t want them to slip away, either. A weapon isn’t a slave, nor is it your master. Think of it as a companion. If you treat it correctly, it will never let you down.”

The metal was warming in her hands, like the weapon was greeting her. Beneath half closed eyelids, Kriska could see the muzzle turn to the lightest shades of yellow.

It felt almost alive, almost friendly.

Gold ran around the edge of the yellow, welcoming.

An instrument of death shouldn’t be that color.

“There you go, good girl!” Momma took a few steps back. “Now try to hit the target in the back of the room.

Kriska squeezed her eyes shut so she could make sure the gun didn’t flash red. If it did, she promised herself that she wouldn’t pull the trigger. But it stayed that same yellow as she pulled the trigger. The gold at the edge didn’t flash, didn’t change, and yet it felt somehow soothing.

Laughter came from behind her, and Kriska spun around—careful to point the gun at the ground as she did so. “It’s not funny!”

Momma only pointed down range. The bullet hole from her shot was as far right as possible, buried in the corner. Kriska’s face heated. She hadn’t even hit the target.

But wasn’t that good? If she couldn’t hit anything, she couldn’t call the Monsters.

Momma couldn’t use her Sight.

“That’s what happens when you aim with your eyes closed,” Momma said.

Kriska’s frown only deepened. “I know how to shoot now. Can we go?”

Her mother sobered. “You don’t know how to shoot, girl. You only know enough to be a danger. Now, perhaps you won’t get to the point where you’re dangerous in one lesson, but I’m not letting you out of here until you hit the target at least a few times.

Kriska shuddered at the thought of spending hours drilling in here with the weapon, and retook her stance. This time, she kept her eyes open and hit the edge of the target.

“Keep practicing.”

After three magazines, Kriska finally managed to hit the inner ring. She nearly jumped into the air with excitement. The gun in her hand glowed gold, mirroring her exuberance, then faded back to yellow, although a thread or two of gold remained, thicker, like an echo.

“Careful, girl. That was only a lucky shot.”

Kriska focused on the golden glow of the weapon and pointed that aura in the direction of the target.

Momma’s eyes widened as Kriska pegged the center of the target three times in a row. “Impressive.”

Kriska slapped a new magazine into the bottom, directed the weapon’s golden glow, then stopped. This same ability that sent her nightmares night, after night, after night, helped her to guide the bullet’s path as it left the gun.

Momma knew about Sight.

If Momma knew what she was doing—knew what she could see—then Momma would use her.

Maybe not now, but later.

Because that’s what Momma did.

Her heart pounded as she lifted the gun again. It made her arms ache and she just wanted to put it back down, but she reached back out to the golden and pointed it somewhere else. Still at the target, but not at the middle.

But what if Momma already knew? What if she could tell Kriska was faking?

Kriska squeezed her eyes shut again.

“Kriska!” Momma’s voice was annoyed, so Kriska peeled one eye open again and pulled the trigger.

The gun twisted a little in her hand and the bulled skimmed the edge of the target. Then it glowed gold behind her eyes again, almost like it was saying see? I can do good.

So Kriska found the golden feeling, felt it spread in her chest, happy and comforting—a coconspirator in her deception. The next bullet jerked off in a different direction and her hands stung.

And sometimes she hit the middle, and sometimes she missed entirely, and it didn’t matter.

Momma didn’t know.

And somewhere inside her heart, she had to admit that she liked this golden feeling. If only weapons were only used for sport instead of killing. Then, she would be the happiest girl alive. The golden glow of the weapon, almost constant, now, echoed that thought. Red was a terrible color.

When Momma told her to put the gun away, Kriska was sad. The golden feeling went away and the room felt cold and dark, and Momma’s eyes felt sharp.

“Is this one mine?” she asked as her mother took it apart to show her how to clean it.

“Do you want it to be?”

Kriska found herself nodding before she could remind herself that she never wanted anything to do with a killing machine. “I want to name it.”

“Name it?” Momma looked back at her. “Why would you want to do that?”

Her cheeks heated, and she shrugged. “I don’t know. I just thought—well, you said it was supposed to be a companion, right? Shouldn’t all my friends have names?”

Her mother laughed. “I suppose so.”

“Then I’ll call her—”

Roma.

The name just popped into her head with an echo of that golden feeling. “Roma.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE SHUTTLE PORT on was silent as the sound of lift engines faded into oblivion. Von looked around into the motionless dark and deflated. This was Earth, alright. The only place in the solar system that barely acknowledged that the rest of the solar system existed.

The place he’d taken Nilsa nine years ago.

A helium car squealed as it trundled toward the dropship he’d commandeered in his escape. His welcome wagon from the Establishment, no doubt.

He turned the other way and moved. It was only a gentle lope for a Hunter, but faster than most non-Hunters could run. At the same time, his fingers pulled gently at the strings of reality. The threads here were still thin and weak, strained from holding reality together after the apocalypse. He couldn’t render himself invisible without breaking them, but he could turn into a ghost—so he did.

The Establishment liked to keep their half of radioactive planet nice and orderly, which meant knowing exactly who they’d allowed within their borders. And if Von knew either Ms. McNight or Tro Bunnel at all, the Conclave had already put a bounty on his head.

Best to avoid the welcome wagon.

He strode across the blacktop wasteland and took in an eyeful of the ash-gray sky. If Earth had only managed to regain their pre-split level of technology, they’d be able to do something about this mess, but they hadn’t and they couldn’t, and they—frankly—didn’t care to. And the Conclave was alright with that, too. They’d destroyed one planet. Best to keep them there rather than let them run rampant and destroy the other ones.

No one could leave if they didn’t know the rest of the System existed, so the galactics stayed off the wasteland, the governments implemented a rather fascinating bit of education that roundly ignored the existence of the big wide solar system, and everyone stayed happy. Well, mostly. The governments had outposts on Jupiter and Titan, and those flared into occasional conflict or worse, thereby providing Warbane all the work it could possibly want. Governments still hadn’t learned their lesson. Von snorted and shook his head.

But governments and Ms. McNight didn’t play nice. That was why Atali had chosen to settle here. It was the one place the Conclave would have to strain to find him. Well, the one place that wasn’t an asteroid floating in the black, and Von preferred the illusion of ground and atmosphere.

Von adjusted the shoulder strap on his back and checked his weapon. It was no use dwelling on the situation—this was the hand the universe had given him, and he would play it until he ran out of cards. Similarities aside, Earth was better than prison.

Something shifted in the night shadows.

Von froze. Someone else was there, moving behind him, keeping pace with his easy lope. A Hunter, then.

The breaths drew closer as the lights of the nearest town broke through the smog and ash.

It seems there had been two welcome parties and although he’d ditched the one, the other would be harder to shake.

Atali would probably poison him if he shared the welcome party with her.

CHAPTER EIGHT

ROMA WAS COLD against her leg. Uncomfortable, even though the sense of her behind Kriska's eyes was warm and soothing. The halo of violet lurking, not quite visible, in her shadow that made Kriska's legs shake. Because there was some part of this terrible power that made it easy to use things like Roma. Easy to do what Momma did, and that thought made Kriska’s skill feel all prickly.

She wouldn't be like Momma. Not ever.

And yet, Roma against her leg would make it so very easy.

She practiced walking around the library while she waited for her tutor. Momma’s words echoed around her head over and over. No one could know about Roma, or the surprise that would protect her would go away.

Those words were part of Momma's purple shadow. She thought about surprise and how to make the most violence in the smallest time. She called the purple claws—the Monsters that claim souls.

Kriska didn't want those words. She didn't need them. She was like a dragon—powerful with big teeth—but she didn’t want those big teeth. Part of her was already crying and she fought the parts of her that wanted to sit down and bury her head in her knees. But Duantis are strong, and that meant no crying if she wasn't in her room. Crying made everyone feel angry.

She stopped in the middle of the hundred back-and-forths Momma wanted her to do and looked down at the emerald carpet beneath her feet.

She had to have Roma, even if she didn't want her, and there was an edge of golden next to the edge of purple that made her think she might be able to be a friend instead of a Monster.

But she couldn't tell Momma that. She couldn't tell anyone that.

And the silence was killing her.

The door opened behind her as she thought, and Kriska jerked her head up. She wasn’t done with her paces yet. If that was the tutor, then time for paces was up and Momma was going to be annoyed. She would have to eat extra Brussels at dinner.

But when she turned, the man in the doorway wasn’t the scrawny, grinning tutor, but a dark-eyed mountain of a man with purple in his outline when she blinked.

Her hand found Roma of its own accord, snaking into the waistband of her stretchy horsey skirt. “Who are you?” The words were steady, maybe because Roma’s golden aura was bright and comforting.

He chuckles. “I'm the one who will finally gain ascendancy over you roaches.”

He lunged, hands outstretched, and although Kriska closed her eyes out of sheer reflex, his outline lit up red too slow and her ears rang. Pain exploded in her head, and she started to fall to the side.

Roma was in her hand, lifting almost by herself.

Pain lightninged in her shoulder and he almost jerked her arm out of its socket. Fear opened her eyes and she stared into the barrel of a gun.

“Hel—”

A calloused hand filled her mouth, tasting of salt and dirt, and a bitter, metallic tang that Momma sometimes smelled like.

“Quiet brat!”

She bit down hard.

The world spun. Stars flickered in and out of existence and something wet and sticky dribbled down her cheek.

“Try that again, and you'll go from collateral to collateral damage,” he growled, and the sound reached into the pit in her belly and iced it over.

She didn't know what either of the words he used meant, but she could see the Monsters gathering in his shadow. She froze, barely even daring to breathe as he grabbed her collar in his fist and hauled her up to his height. “You're gonna be silent and you're going to do exactly what I tell you. Got it?”

The ice inside her was too thick. She couldn't even nod her head. But he must've seen it in her eyes because he didn't hit her again and just set her down instead.

A whisper in her mind, more felt than head. A warming in her hand that was still shoved down the stretchy waistband of her favorite horsey skirt, reminded her that Roma was still there.

And when the man turned to see if the coast was clear, the gun stuttered up hairbreadth by hairsbreadth to point at him.

Warmth in her heart, reassurance even as the trigger depressed itself and the gun jerked up, and a golden line smashed into his back.

He stumbled forward, and through closed eyes, Kriska could see the fabric of life start to warp.

No!

She'd seen that night after night, the tearing destroying her opinion of the world and her mother, and she couldn't be that, too.

But she couldn’t stop the bullet.

She ran.

Ran down the hall.

Ran through a puddle of sticky red and kept running.

Ran so fast and so far that she didn’t see the fabric of life split and a golden thread spear through Monster claws and into the space beyond that wall.

She ran until the air tasted of ash and she stumbled on cobbles beneath the gaze of topiaries with dragon wings and ran through open gates onto a barren street.

She kept running.

CHAPTER NINE

VON WHISTLED SILENTLY as he made his way down nearly silent streets and tried to ignore the feeling of a shadow following him.

The tail was being incredibly difficult.

He’d moved for over an hour at a dead sprint but the shadow had matched him move for move. Most Earth caliber Hunters couldn’t do that, which meant the Conclave had gone above and beyond.

But if they’d pulled from their galactic contacts, they hadn’t taken someone from Warbane. None of his Hunters would tail him and none of Tro Bunnel’s kiss-ups were this good. Maybe they’d given the hit to SpecCon, because the guild of Special Contracts kept their members silent and well trained. Unlike Darkbane, Warbane didn't interact with them, which meant he wouldn’t know his pursuer. And if the conversation was about well-trained galactics, it was limited to the top three guilds. Only those guilds—Warbane, Darkbane, and SpecCon—had Hunters who would be able to keep up with him.

But even SpecCon Hunters didn’t have the ability to shatter Walls. They might think they knew what they were getting into with this contract, but they had no idea.

Especially once he found the place he was looking for.

At one time, Atali Grino could have destroyed time itself—not that she would have.

But if he led the Conclave straight to Atali, she would probably force-feed him a cookie. Of the arsnic variety.

Not only did he need to stay as poison-free as possible, he actually needed Atali’s help to go to ground on this galaxy-abandoned planet.

So instead of striding down the paths that led to Atali’s house, he took a detour, and then another, and then another as the heavens opened and started to drizzle. Atali’s hometown, he quickly noticed, was not on the nice part of the planet. Sure, there were green things they might call plants, and the houses were more like estates, but the rings and snake of the Duanti Crime Family were everywhere. They controlled this place.

Why in the galaxy would Atali choose to settle here, of all places?

Except, she was the kind to try and singlehandedly poison all the terrible things in the world for fun. And everyone had better hope she didn’t run out of bad guys to poison, because then things would get ugly.

After he finished weaving through dank streets and the footsteps receded just a bit—just enough—he gathered himself and leapt, silent and strong, to the top of a building. Through closed eyes he could see that the strings of reality hung slightly askew. The silver had leached out, replaced by the purple of death.

A Duanti Crime Family workplace, no doubt. And if he could risk accessing his bounty board, he would probably be able to fulfill two dozen illegal arms recovery bounties in less than five minutes. But with his own head on a bounty, his bounty board would be locked and the same people he would have to surrender the weapons to would cash him in alongside them.

He crouched low and looked at the black-clad slender man creeping near the wall, his footsteps quiet, but not silent.

He stopped, looked around, and bent to touch the ground.

Von grasped the strings of reality and bent the damaged threads as far as he could conscience. The Hunter straightened and moved on cautiously, perhaps hoping that he could regain the trail.

The silver strings started to strain, to unravel, and Von released them gently, massaging them back into place.

And just then, a girl ran out of the estate across the street, leaving a bloody trail of footprints behind her.

The Bounty Hunter in black turned, flashed back around the corner. “Who are you?” he demanded.

The girl stuttered to a stop, and that’s when Von noticed the gun in her hand that stained the silver threads golden. It, too was trailing blood. Not the red blood of humans, but the golden seeping stain of Angel blood.

The girl held an Angel, and both bled.

His heart cramped and he nearly hauled himself over the edge of the building.

Her eyes were wide. Terrified.

Violet.

Just a hint that flashed toward him as he reached toward his Sight. The flash of violet subsided, replaced by gold. Two potentials, fighting.

The Angel in her hand shook, and Von wasn’t entirely sure which of the two were moving. The Angel was weak. The girl was terrified.

“K-kriska.” Her feet had stopped, but her eyes darted around, needing to flee.

But something about that name stopped the Bounty Hunter. His attention sharpened, like this girl was somehow a target. He took a step toward her, hand moving for the gun.

The Angel in Kriska’s hand fired, but gold did not pave its way. The bullet careened to the side as though the child were just a child and not a Death Weaver.

Von stiffened, gripped the edge of the square roof.

The Hunter was after him. Why go after a ki—

The answer came as the Hunter wrapped her close, hit her elbow joint, leaving the girl’s arm useless and the gun on the asphalt with a clang.

Kriska. A child, running from the Duanti household?

He didn’t keep up with intrasystem black market activities like he once had, but everyone knew that six years ago, the Duanti Crime Family head disappeared. Operations hadn’t scaled back or fractured the way they would have if she’d finally succumbed to one of her competitors. She’d just disappeared from the galactic stage and her operations had held their ground. Like she was distracted.

Six years.

And a six-year-old child running from an estate on a part of the planet that served as a haven for one of the largest black market suppliers in the System.

Kriska Duanti.

She was too young to be a bounty target, but if her mother had slipped into hiding for her birth, then she’d move planets to get her child back. Making Kriska the perfect target for a Bounty Hunter looking to cash in on Celeste Duanti’s head.

And the SpecCon Hunter had just lost the paycheck he’d been so counting on when Von had slipped away.

Cuffs flashed and the girl’s scream cut through the air.

Von was moving before he could stop himself. She looked like little Nilsa. Like little Verdell. Like little John and little Eric. And that meant he couldn’t just watch.

He’d re-written reality for Kieko to save her and her father, and in doing that, he’d abandoned them.

He wouldn’t abandon this child.

The Hunter who’d been after him looked up from the cuffs with a snap. His eyes glinted snowy white. “The brief said you had a soft spot for children.”

And then the world grew cold. Not chill, but icy. The rain water that had dampened the asphalt iced over in a split second.

A trap.

Von’s feet skittered as they touched down and he redirected his momentum, trying to get his balance. The silver threads of reality here were too thin to pull on. He had to do this without Sight.

The Hunter leapt at him and Von dove, moved under the strike, rolled, and came up between the Hunter and the kid.

Soft spot for children, he thought with derision. What sort of Hunter would hurt a child just to get at a target?

The kid jerked and went to her knees. Von glanced back to see what was wrong and caught a glimpse of something metallic stuck to her throat spitting lightning.

Clatters from inside the house told him they’d have company in only a few seconds.

The other Hunter moved fast, taking advantage yet again, but Von was faster. He shifted slightly, caught the strike—a foot thrust out at his ribs—twisted, and helped the strike on its way.

The Hunter went with the twist, recovered his balance, and re-oriented himself, but Von’s fingers were already pulling at the still zapping disk on Kriska’s throat.

Being tazed never was his favorite activity, but he shrugged the twitching pain off. The SpecCon Hunter was between him and the house.

The kid’s house.

The house with a trail of blooding footprints leading through the cobblestone courtyard and to the door behind which three heavily armed guards were settling very large weapons and heading out.

The girl, death and life battling in her eyes, wasn’t crying.

She shook with shock and adrenaline—but not the crippling kind—because against all odds, this child was a Bounty Hunter.

If he let her go back there, they’d make her into a monster.

She could destroy everything.

He made his decision as the cold moved for the second time, but he wasn’t fast enough.

CHAPTER TEN

HER LIMBS JERKED, her neck stiffened, and she couldn’t look away from the man who’d saved her. He dressed in all black like some of Mother’s associates did, but when her eyelids blinked against her will, he didn’t carry a purple shadow.

He ripped the electric disk off her throat and the pain lessened. She could almost breathe, could almost move.

And behind her, she knew Momma’s men were getting ready to kill.

The man who’d saved her met her eyes and she knew that everything would be alright. It felt like that golden feeling, only all around her. Warm, despite how her breath froze the air in front of her.

And then he turned to ice.

It happened in a blink. He looked at her—not long, just a glance—and then his eyes widened. His lips turned blue. His muscles spasmed once, trying to get clear, and he froze halfway gathered for a leap at her attacker.

Momma’s men burst through the door, weapons leveled.

“No!” Kriska tried to say, but her voice guttered out. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Agony burned like a fire in her elbow.

Ten bullets in a burst of gunfire, but her attacker moved too fast and the bullets smashed into black asphalt.

“No.” Her voice was a whisper because they wouldn’t listen. Even if they could hear her. And one of those guns swung around to point at the man who’d saved her.

Roma was on the ground. She felt weaker, somehow, than she’d been. Weaker because she’d killed a man?

Kriska’s muscles didn’t want to obey, but she made them. She dove to the ground, hand outstretched toward her friend.

Another spray of bullets smashed the asphalt behind her.

She waited for the Monsters to come tear out the soul of the man who’d saved her, but when she closed her mind, the Monsters were nothing but a vague shadow in the background.

Roma went in her other hand, and that felt funny, but she turned the muzzle of her friend to point at the bad man, and her elbow screamed, and she just wanted to curl up in a ball, but she didn’t.

She found the bad man on the ground with a knife in his hand and somehow her rescuer was unfrozen and on top of him but her rescuer didn’t have a knife. A trickle of red stained her rescuer’s side.

Kriska pulled on the little thread of gold around Roma’s aura and fired.

Red exploded in her attacker’s shoulder.

Another burst of bullets from Momma’s men.

Momma in the doorway. Her hoarse scream. “Kriska!”

But the bullets were going to hit the man who made her feel safe so she tried to grab the purple in them.

A tearing feeling in her gut.

Momma’s voice. “Cease fire! Kriska’s out there!”

The purple didn’t want to stop. The Monsters wanted to eat her rescuer.

Kriska pulled harder.

Agony in her belly.

Arms scooping her up.

Pain jostling her broken arm.

Darkness.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

VON MOVED FAST as Celeste Duanti’s grunts charged after him, but at least they’d put their guns away. His side ached where the knife had gotten him. That SpecCon Hunter had been skilled, and the cold had slowed him. He’d had to use one of the threads, and it lay half unraveled and clinging to life behind him.

He’d damaged the Wall of Reality because he’d had to save this child.

Maybe Ms. McNight was right. Maybe those with his kind of power couldn’t be trusted.

Kriska lay unconscious in his arms as he moved, eyes half closed to watch the subtle distortions imprints on the other walls created on the fabric of reality so he could avoid the thousand grunts mobilizing.

He’d stolen Celeste Duanti’s daughter.

Ms. McNight was officially the least of his problems.

Of course, she’d become one again when she learned that a six-year-old had shifted bullets. Not a lot, and almost not enough to save him, but she’d done it. This was the kind of power Marie Fitzgerald, the woman with enough Angels to singlehandedly stop a System wide war, could only dream about. A true Death Weaver—the first in at least a hundred years, maybe more—and she’d nearly been raised by the Duanti family.

The grunts fell away when he took to the rooftops. None of his pursuers were Hunters, for now, and they were infinitely easier to lose than the SpecCon assassin. When he was fairly sure they were sufficiently confused, he stopped in a sheltered corner on the top of an eternacrete building and set the girl down.

He was breathing hard. Not from the run, but the fight, and from the burning pain in his side where the knife went in.

Stupid to think that someone who could manipulate shards of the wall of physics would stick to icing the ground beneath his feet. Stupid to let him to suck the energy from Von’s body. It had very nearly killed him, and it had slowed him. He still shivered as he examined the wound and grabbed the emergency ‘bots patch from his pouch.

But he only had one. Patches were expensive, and he couldn’t exactly go to a medical center on this planet. They had ‘bots still because the Conclave wasn’t a monster and a healing technology of that power could save thousands of lives, but anyone with his bounty would be alerted the moment he set foot on the premises.

So he put the patch back in his pouch and looked at the girl.

She shouldn’t be unconscious, except whatever she’d done to shift those bullets had been beyond her abilities. Overuse like that could cause neurological problems.

The elbow wasn’t too bad, and he could patch the Angel by himself with a quick energy expenditure—so he did. The Angel extended a feeling of gratitude and retreated back to her home dimension, leaving the gun a hollow shell. The Angel was a young one. Young, but powerful. When she fully recovered, she’d be a force to be reckoned with. But she wasn’t the one he had to be concerned about now.

He shifted his attention back to the girl, who looked so tiny as she lay propped against the eternacrete. Her elbow was already bruising from the force of the blow that had dislocated it. Hopefully the joint hadn’t cracked. He felt it gently, checking for fragments. Nothing big. She groaned, but didn’t wake.

He braced against her, careful not to grab hard enough to further bruise her, and pulled.

Her eyes flickered almost open, her eyes still rolled back, and she tried to jerk away from him, but it was already done. The joint was back where it should be. She collapsed back against the eternacrete almost immediately. He cushioned her head so she wouldn’t hit it.

With a full medical suite like he had back on Io, he could treat her. But each Weaver had different consequences when they overused their abilities. Without that medical suite, there was no way to know if she would just wake up or if there was real damage.

Von pulled the bot patch back out of his bag and took a long breath.

She was just a child. A Death Weaver child, but a child nonetheless.

He peeled off the back and pressed the patch against her skin. The discoloration faded from her skin and she seemed to breathe easier.

The ‘bots would patch whatever was wrong.

He popped a med from his pack to dull his own pain. It would leave most of his senses intact. The bleeding had already slowed, but even Hunter healing wasn’t fast enough to close up his wound. He bandaged it with the ease of practice so he wouldn’t leave a blood trail if the bleeding picked up, then hoisted Kriska carefully over his shoulder and pinned her arm so it wouldn’t get jostled. Then, slowly and as smoothly as he could, jumping rooftops, he started toward Atali’s.

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE WOUND IN his side was annoyingly stubborn. He’d had thousands worse, and yet keeping his attention out for the SpecCon Hunter—who may have survived, but perhaps not—avoiding the Duanti grunts, and keeping the girl as comfortable as possible made it hurt more.

When he made it to Atali’s, he set the girl down in the little covered swinging chair by Atali’s front step—gray, like everything else in the Establishment—and wiped his forehead before he knocked.

Atali opened the door almost immediately, looked at him through shrewd green eyes, and slammed it shut again. “You aren’t the pizza boy. Go away.”

She didn’t recognize him. Or maybe she did and was just being crotchety. She’d earned that descriptor far before age made it fit so well and had demonstrated it several times the singular time he visited her here nine years ago. Von shoved his annoyance and his exhaustion away and pasted on a smile. “Ah, but I know how to make pizza. That’s better than just a delivery, no?”

She opened the door again—this time long enough for Von to take in her old, weathered face. Time and radiation had not been kind to her. Her hair was already going silver, and wrinkles were trenched into her skin like scars—and perhaps they were scars of a sort. Earth had a tendency to make its inhabitants go insane. Her particular bag of talents would only help that along.

“I know you.”

Von nodded. “It’s been a while, old friend.”

“Old friend!” She snorted. “You went off with the Conclave, you turncoat. I should give you a cookie.”

Von made a face. “No, thanks.” He motioned to Kriska. “I’ve managed to tick off some local crime lords, SpecCon, and the Conclave all in one go. Can I come in?”

She didn’t say anything. It almost looked as if she hadn’t heard a word he’d said. But she opened the door, turned on her heel, and hurried toward the kitchen, so Von scooped Kriska up and followed, only to stop when she reappeared with a broom in her hand.

“Did I say you could come in here?” she asked.

Von shifted Kriska to one hand and raised his other hand in a gesture of peace as he faced down the broom bristles. “You know they have cleaning automatons now, don’t you?”

She shoved the bristles at him. “Don’t insult Tomtom. Now get! I don’t want any Conclave lackeys in my house. You heard me,” she shoved the broom at him again. “Get!”

Von stepped back. “I’ll go—that’s fine. But are you going to shove her out in the cold?”

Atali looked at Kriska, her face inscrutable, then dropped the broom with a clatter and hurried back into the kitchen. Von prepared for her to return with a knife, but instead she held a plate of cookies.

He looked at them dubiously, but Atali waved at him with her other hand, pushing him and his little charge toward a little room off the hall, heedless of the broom laying haphazardly on the ground or the door that was still letting a chill run through the hallway. When she noticed, she was totally going to blame him.

He stood there, wondering if he should close the door first or just follow her into the sitting room when her cheerfulness vanished. She looked at him through suspicious eyes. “You don’t want coffee, do you?”

Von waved a hand to dismiss her concern and followed her into the sitting room. He deposited Kriska on the couch and checked her injury. It was almost healed, and she’d probably wake up soon. He’d have to make sure she didn’t eat anything when she did. Atali’s baked goods were delicious and deadly.

Atali shoved him down on the couch next to Kriska and he let her. Then she opened his hand and stuffed cookies in them, then disappeared again. The door shut with a final gust of cold air, then there were some rustles in the kitchen. A few moments later, she glided into the room with a tray of apple pastries balanced on one hand and a tray of pumpkin muffins on the other. On her head, she carried a banana cream pie.

Her sense of time, poison, dimension, and society might have been shredded to nothing, but at least she retained her sense of balance.

In a moment, everything was arrayed on the table. More baked goods than anyone could hope to eat in a month, let alone an afternoon. To his questioning looks, she replied, “I can’t give them away. The neighbors think they’re poisonous or something.”

“Are they?”

Her eyes sparkled for a moment as though she was contemplating a graveyard of bodies, but then she sighed. “Only the muffins. They’re out of season, you know. Can’t get the right zing without something extra… Or, I think that’s why. What time of year is it? Actually, what year is it?”

Von arched an eyebrow and ignored her question. If he told her the year, she’d just accuse him of lying in about five minutes. For a Time Weaver, her sense of it was abysmal. “And if I had eaten one of your poisoned muffins?”

She put her hands on her hips and stuck out her chin. “Don’t give me that look, Von, I’m not one of your students. Plus, they smell like almonds.”

Von sniffed the apple pastry he was about to eat, caught the hint of nuttiness, then put it back down.

Atali clapped her hands together. “See? I knew you were too smart to accidentally suicide.” Which might’ve been comforting if he hadn’t been able to hear the muttered, “I could’ve sworn those were safe,” under her breath.

Von took a long breath, which made the fire in his side burn hotter. “Well, we’d better make sure Kriska doesn’t get into anything.” But, then, as a Death Weaver, she might have a better sense about Atali’s cooking than he did.

Still. Children and cookies. Best to avoid that.

Atali looked at the girl laying on the couch as she settled into a rocking chair in the corner and kicked off hard, like it was a swing instead of a chair. “She’s a daughter of crime.”

It seemed as though her eyes were still intact, if she could see that. “And of Angels.”

She shook her head. “The girl’s going to be trouble. Heartache. If you couldn’t stay for me, you won’t be able to stay for her. Angels make terrible friends. You get all—unmoored. Adrift in time, adrift in death, adrift in reality.”

And yet, when Kriska had fought, her Angel had fought for her.

Von sighed. “I’ll be on Earth for at least the next five years. McNight’s after my head again.”

Atali erupted to her feet, cackling. “I told you, I told you. I. Told. You!”

“So you did.” Von smiled just a bit in spite of himself. Because when they’d parted on the surface of an asteroid colony at the edge of the solar system, she’d warned him that building a family would only end in pain. Hunted, like she’d been. Like they’d been.

But Marie had needed him.

And what father, by blood or not, could stay away when their child needed help?

And his family had grown from a rebellious teenager only ten years younger than he to an entire guild with twelve children and a mission of peace.

Atali handed him a muffin. “They’re really good this time.” And then she sat back down. “Wait, who’s the kid?”

His heart twisted just a bit, because she wasn’t trying to poison him. But the silver threads of reality were painted in a thousand shades of brightness as different realities clashed. She’d jumped dimensions again, moving from timeline to timeline without any awareness that she’d moved. And how long had she been gone? She probably didn’t even know. He could only see the very edges of her power.

He tried to keep his voice neutral of judgment and pity. “Atali, you’re drifting again.”

She sniffed, and abruptly the threads of reality were all the same color again. “Mind your own business, youngster. Who’s the kid?”

Kriska shifted just a bit, her nose twitching at what had to be a heady mix of baking scents for a kid who grew up in Celeste Duanti’s house.

Her eyes came open and she pushed herself up.

Von noted with satisfaction that her arm didn’t seem to be bothering her.

“Momma?” Her voice was soft and just a bit uncertain.

Von looked at Atali. “No sweets for her. Got it?”

She slapped his shoulder. “They’re my sweets. I’ll give them to whoever I want!”

“But…” Von prompted.

She deflated a little. “But I will just not want to give them to that adorable little girl.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

KRISKA BLINKED AT the unfamiliar house around her. It smelled of sweets and yeast and cookies and apples and cinnamon. Almost like last Holiday season when Momma brought a baker in for two whole weeks before the new year and she got to eat all the cookies and sweetbreads she wanted to eat.

The man who rescued her was sitting by her and holding her arm. For a wonder, it didn’t hurt. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

She snatched her arm back and checked for Roma. She was where she belonged, in the holster strapped to her leg that had seemed so uncomfortable before. Golden happiness radiated from the gun, but so weak she could barely feel it.

Kriska took a breath and some of the panic faded. “Who are you?”

The man let her have her arm back, and she remembered how much it had hurt before, and how much her head had hurt. Nothing hurt anymore.

“My name is—” He looked at the old woman who was sitting in a rocking chair stuffing a muffin in her mouth. Crumbs trailed down the front of her dark gray shirt and she was shaking her head.

“Conclave…” she said softly.

The man looked back at her. “It doesn’t matter what my name is. I know you have Sight, and I know what your mother would do with you.”

Fear, lightning fast and deep cut through her heart. She scrambled back. “I don’t have Sight. I can’t see anything.”

He sighed and murmured, “Too fast.” Then, louder, “Kriska, do you want a slice of pie?”

The old woman gave him a dirty look. “Not my pie, you don’t.”

But the man handed her a little plate and a triangle of yellow and white jiggling sweetness. There was a fork in her hand before she could stop herself and whipped cream on her nose and she didn’t care.

She ate in silence while the two adults watched her, and after the pie was done, she wiped her nose off on her hand and then stared on at the sticky on her hand. She couldn’t wipe it on her clothes because that would make Momma mad—

Except Momma wasn’t here. Momma was back at the house and probably worried sick.

A quivering sadness started to bleed in her chest and she found tears. “I want Momma.” Even though she shouldn’t. Even though Momma might have seen what she did and even though Momma might make her hurt people and she didn’t want that, but Momma would give her a hug.

The man handed her a wipe as though he could tell the sticky on her fingers made her want to cry, but it wasn’t the sticky. Not really.

But wiping the sticky off helped.

The tears on her cheeks were silent. She’d stopped crying loud because no one could know that the midnight deaths she shouldn’t be able to see made her curl up in a ball of pain and fear.

Warm arms enfolded her and the man smelled like pine as he pulled her close with even pressure. “If you really want to go back to your momma, I’ll take you,” he whispered. “But you can’t let her know about your friends and you can’t let her know about the colors you see.”

Because if she did, then she would be just as bad as Momma.

He let her go, but some of his warmness lingered.

She dried her tears. “I don’t want to be bad.” But she could see the Monsters.

And she could remember the man who’d grabbed her and smacked her head and called her collateral. She’d pulled the trigger.

Maybe she was already bad.

“You’re not bad,” the man said, like he could see what she was thinking. “You’re special. But sometimes special people can make bad things happen.”

The lady picked up the plate from the little table and put another slice of pie on. “Here. You look like you need some of this.”

The man looked at her and then there was another plate of pie in front of Kriska. She was careful this time. No whipped cream on her nose.

And the tears were back because she didn’t know what to do.

She wanted Momma. Needed her.

But she couldn’t go back.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

VON MOTIONED ATALI into the corner as Kriska started in on her second slice of pie. “The Duantis can’t have a Death Weaver.”

Atali shrugged. “You know, those people are remarkably difficult to poison.”

Von arched an eyebrow. “Is that what you’re doing here?”

Atali was trying to single-handedly poison the Duantis? How could she possibly think that would work? But it didn’t really matter. “I’m on the run, Atali. I can’t take care of her, but I can’t send her back. McNight’s overzealous, but she’s right about some things. The walls are fragile, and the Wall of Death is more fragile than most. And that little girl—if she gains half as much power as I think she will—that girl could bring it all tumbling down.”

Monsters roaming on this side of reality. Immortality for everyone, except the billions who got caught by those violet claws. It would be a living nightmare—humans as prey—and there weren’t enough Angels to defend humanity from the flood of evil bringing down that wall would release.

“Oh fine,” Atali said. “I’ll keep her.”

Von’s eyes widened and he looked back, past the tray of poisonous baked goods, to the girl who was halfway through her pie.

Atali wouldn’t mean to, but she’d kill the girl inside of a week.

“No.” His voice was harder than he’d meant to make it.

Atali reached over and flicked him in the forehead.

He glowered. “What was that for?”

“You just want another kid to replace the ones you’ve lost.”

“No!”

His voice, like an oath, made Kriska look up.

He turned and smiled, and she went back to her pie.

“No,” he said more quietly but with no less acid. “She needs help. No one will ever replace the ones I’ve los—” His voice broke and he steeled himself against a sudden burning of tears.

And when he glanced back over his shoulder, it wasn’t Kriska sitting there, but little Nilsa as she’d looked nine years ago. Little fingers stuck in the pudding, licking them off her fingers with delight.

And then it was just Kriska.

Because Nilsa was gone.

The burning in his eyes doubled and he shut them to keep the tears inside. “Don’t you even think she could replace Nilsa. She’s gone.”

“Gone?”

The shock in Atali’s voice forced his eyes back open. A tear ran down his cheek. “Gone.”

Atali’s face was like stone. “I’ll light my oven back up right now. Just give me the address.”

When Von had brought Nilsa here nine years ago, it had ended badly, with Atali screaming him out of the house because there was still a bounty on her head and his had been cleared. But she’d given Nilsa a bucketload of treats, which Von had thoroughly tested before letting her eat. She’d doted on that girl.

One day, nine years ago.

But these weren’t the kinds of enemies that could be defeated with a cookie and Atali wasn’t the same person she’d been when they’d parted on that asteroid. Then, she could have single-handedly ripped reality to shreds.

Now, she baked cookies.

“It was two Warbane councilors who betrayed us,” he said, his voice bleached of the hatred and anger he could not allow himself to feel.

Once, Atali could have ripped reality to shreds.

He still could.

Atali met his eyes and leveled a finger at the little girl finishing her pie behind him. “You lost a little girl you loved, but this one doesn’t have a home, doesn’t have a Momma, and she could destroy the world we live in. She needs you.”

“But she does have a mother.” And that was part of the problem.

During the fight, it had been simple. Remove the threat. But wasn’t that the kind of calculation McNight used to sic the Conclave on him? He could destroy reality, so any hint of his abilities being abused should be met with imprisonment?

Except Celeste Duanti would turn her daughter into a monster. There was very little question of that.

But to take a little girl away from her family?

He didn’t even have a home. How could he build one for her?

And yet, something about her made that hole in his heart hurt just a little less, because what was he if he wasn’t a teacher?

He turned and crossed the room.

Kriska was just finishing her pie, and starting to vibrate just a little bit from the sheer amount of sugar. She met his eyes gravely in spite of that. “Momma is bad,” she said, and in those words, Von heard the echo of little Eric’s voice.

Da bad.

“Your Momma has made some bad choices,” Von said carefully. He would not be the one to turn Kriska against her mother. Kriska was a smart girl. She’d figure it out by herself. Maybe she already had.

Kriska looked down at her lap and he could see the tears in her eyes. “I want the Monsters to stop. I want them to go away.”

He took her hand in his. She was cold, like the air outside. But her eyes glinted gold and purple in turn, a tint that existed more in Sight than sight. Wavering, but not for much longer. “I can teach you to fight the Monsters. I can’t make them go away—I wish I could.”

She nodded.

Behind him, Atali moved with the slow swish of fabric. He turned to see her holding a black bag almost identical to his own go bag. “Keys, identities, money that will keep the Conclave away. They were for me, but this old woman can still control the slide of time and dimensions just a bit. Enough to find a world where they were for someone I might’ve stayed with and a child we might’ve had.”

His throat thickened as he took the bag. Because he remembered the moment when he’d turned from that path. The moment where they’d both stood on the surface of that asteroid, tears streaming into the black. She’d said come with me. He’d said the same.

In the end, they’d parted.

“Thank you,” Von rasped.

Her eyes glinted with everything that might’ve been. He turned away from that glimpse, because if he’d stayed on that colony all those years ago, he never would have joined Warbane.

Kriska was looking at him with trepidation tempered by hope. “We can run from the bad people?”

Von nodded, stood, and shouldered the bag.

“Wait a minute!” Atali screeched, and Von winced.

“What?”

Her hands were on her hips, and that was never a good sign. "You said you know how to make pizza!”

Kriska laughed. “I want pizza! Gramps, I want pizza!”

Von looked at her, his eyes wide open. Gramps?

Kriska was smiling. “You’re Gramps, now.” She was vibrating with excitement and no small amount of sugar. If she didn't get pizza, she’d probably crash in an hour or two.

He put the bag back down and sighed. “I suppose we ought to go to the kitchen, then.”

Atali clapped her hands like a three year old on Christmas. “Pizza! Oh, how I’ve missed pizza!”

Kriska frowned. “But aren’t you an adult? You can have pizza whenever you want!”

Atali froze in the middle of a clap and looked up through her eyelashes guiltily. “Um… I think I poisoned the pizza boy.”

THANK YOU

Thank you for reading Reality Weaver’s Apprentice!

This is only the beginning of Kriska’s journey. If you’re looking for more, the story Death Weaver follows Kriska twelve years after Von picks her up. She’s a full Bounty Hunter and still on the run from her mother, but Von is nowhere to be found. Everything changes when Kriska and Warbane collide and Kriska is forced to learn what a Death Weaver truly is.

You can find Death Weaver at www.payhip.com/RuneandGear or at www.kaexcell.com