Roselyn had promised Arden a murder documentary to decompress from yoga. The presence of a cursed swordsman with a mechanical rig would not interfere. She gathered her cards back into their case, wished Shane and Steven luck in breaking his curse, hugged Clive in a more than perfunctory way, and booted the latter three from Roselyn's apartment. While the door closed, she promised she would talk spells over with Roselyn once the show ended, and they could call if needed--but she would prefer they not need for a few hours.

Shane considered this more than fair in trade for the reading.

"You haven't slept?" she asked Steven when they got back to the street, though partly because she couldn't imagine unconsciousness with a curse on her head and sword taped to her hand. The streetlights had turned on while they were inside, assembling his rig and path, bathing the streets in a thin, yellow light.

"Not since the job," he said.

"And you are not exhausted," she said, having no need of a question. "Once we break this curse, you are going to sleep like the dead." Shane paused, wondering if this phrasing was callous, but Steven was a big boy. He had accepted the possibility that this all ended with him rendered to bloody tatters. She added, "I prefer sleep, but I'll make do for the next 68 hours or so."

"I don't need sleep either," said Clive, trying to keep pace with Steven and the conversation.

"You very much do," Shane reminded him, "no matter that you feel jazzed from creating another 'masterpiece.' Go home."

"That does not remotely sound as fun," he noted, throwing an arm around Shane's shoulder. "When did you become so maternal?"

"I promise Steven and I will limit the amount of fun we are having in trying to prevent him from exploding. You're going to find us some sacred sheath--no, not a sex toy--on the internet. Then I want six hours of uninterrupted sleep from you."

Clive's eyes went from delighted to pleading in a flash. "For a magical sword whose name you don't know, whose purpose is shrouded, you want a sheath? Maybe a vibrating one, silicone--"

"No," Shane said flatly, not wishing to encourage this.

"A scabbard, then? Bejeweled? Rhinestones?"

Shane would not welcome his next joke. "That is a much better option, yes."

"Fool's errand, that's what this is," Clive confided toward--but not to--Steven, whose lips pinched in annoyance.

"Only because you are our beloved, irreplaceable fool, but I don't think it is useless." She kissed him lightly on the cheek. "We should explore every option, and you should sleep at some point so you remain useful to me tomorrow."

"This seems pandering, but you did kiss me in the cheek and promise to buy me a vibrating sheath--"

"I did no such thing."

"--So I will allow myself to be persuaded."

Clive took off without much further complaint -- but not without any.

"You think Junior needs sleep?" Steven asked what Clive was barely out of earshot.

"Not as much as you need a break from him."

Steven rubbed the back of his neck, making no other response.

Shane called a car. Her own was back at Annandale.

She had a few safe houses in the area for such situations -- and these were not rare. The places were not always cozy, furnished with cast-off furnishings from the curb. Beyond reading cards, this is where Arden excelled, making temporary homes out of detritus. Then, Roselyn and she warded them to make them defensible--though they could only repel generalities. The cost of time and supplies would be prohibitive to cover all bases.

These were often rented out from under them--which worked to Shane's advantage. Anyone looking for a goblin under her protection would only find five college students trying to live in a space meant for two.

"You need to tell me about this kid," Shane said as they waited on the corner.

He considered the lie. Shane could see it in how his eyes squinted as though against sunlight that had receded hours ago, and then his brow eased.

"I don't know him. Spent a month with his mom between jobs about sixteen years ago, give or take." He laughed once, no pleasure at the memory. "Guess it took. Didn't know until the mermaid's contract. Wasn't sure that I totally believed it until your friend. She wasn't the first to say it, just the only one who read me cold and didn't have a stake in manipulating me."

"You took a job that might kill you for the chance you might meet a son you did not know you had, and might not?"

He looked at her as though she had missed something crucial, something he could not convey to her in words because it was so far out of her experience. "You don't have kids."

She did not have to point out that, as far as they could be sure, neither did he, so assuming this position with her was tenuous. Even if the kid was what Steven thought, it was half his genetic information, not his son. Fatherhood should mean more than neglecting a condom.

"I sort of did have a tween for about 48 hours," Shane said, voice dropping. It was not a matter she liked to discuss with those who had not been present, and she tended to change the subject when her friends mentioned the girl. Shane's face tensed, remembering the rich earth scent of the child's hair, her encompassing embrace, how no one had ever made Shane feel so unreservedly loved. Sending her away was a mercy--for the girl, for the world--but it would always feel a little like abandonment. "It was complicated."

He softened, reading Shane's sincerity in her discomfort. "It tends to be with kids. What happened?"

Shane swallowed, then gave a laugh she could not mean, all breath without vocalization. "Oh, the usual: opened a portal so she could resume being a fairyland in another timestream with a guy who wanted to worship me."

The joke had no impact on him, failing to rise to the level of something implausible. "You had her for a couple of days," Steven said. "Would you have stolen this sword to keep her safe?"

Shane's mouth twisted. "Ten times in a row. Eleven if I didn't have to send her away."

"Then maybe you get it."

"Is your son unsafe?"

Shane expected this would provoke him, a crack in the gruff facade, but she erred. The question of danger was more familiar to the swordsman. "His mom was. Murdered. Not a pretty death, the way I heard it."

"Why does the mermaid have him?"

His mouth turned up at her apparent ignorance. "It's not like that. She could get him back. It's how they work."

Shane was not aware that this was how mermaids worked. She knew the mythology of them as well as any American girl--and a little better, given that the Disney canon had once been used to torture her--but she did not consider them helpful creatures. They were far more likely to sink ships and waylay sailors. Steven was sure his statement was true, so Shane would follow suit.

The driver pulled up, barely looking at them. Shane gave him an address within walking distance of the safe house. She would not endanger him by revealing the exact location.

They had gone only a few miles before the front windshield shattered in a concussive crack. Several things shot through Shane: the satisfaction that she had left her friends in safety, the guilt that she had drawn some poor driver into this, the annoyed fear that it had escalated so quickly, and the bright scorch of a .22-caliber hollow point to her left shoulder, followed by a buzzing numbness. She guessed the last one, but she had been shot enough to have a sense of holes and explosions.

She ducked down, ordering the men to do the same. Shane could and had survived what would be fatal wounds in those who couldn't think their injuries away. Still, she suspected this ability would not remain intact if anything damaged her brain. This shot had been perilously close to testing her hypothesis.

The driver needed no warning--and made the rookie mistake of screeching to the muddy edge of the road and fleeing, his sneakers slapping the asphalt as he bolted toward cover. Shane did not hear subsequent shots, which told her that the shooter knew their target, and that this driver was not it. Many killers would have been too content to obliterate everyone tangentially involved, though she couldn't feel great about being shot.

She curled tighter. Blood slicked her side, dark and sticky. Not life-threatening, but aching.

That shirt is ruined.

It was a stupid thing to think, but the thought came all the same. A black V-neck she actually liked. The amethyst hoodie had been with her since college. Roselyn could probably get the blood out--Shane gave her ample practice--but bullet holes were another matter, too conspicuous, and not worth sewing. She did not remember gunshots to her limbs bleeding this much, and felt the scalding bullet fragments still embedded. She granted herself an extravagant few seconds of concentration to extrude them from her muscles and bones, pushed out like splinters. It felt like vomiting backwards.

Steven collapsed in the backseat. Shane thought he had taken a bullet, but that wouldn't have posed a threat to him; it would have passed through him.

No more shots came. This wasn't a spray-and-pray situation, nor was it a drive-by.

Steven was crouched awkwardly, the sword making it impossible to lie flat. A wise man would have stayed hidden until they could hatch a plan, which couldn't be involved, given the time constraints.

He rolled out of the car, yanked the sword down his arm, and charged. No battle cry. Just snarl and forward momentum.

He moved like a man assuming he was already dead--except for the blade keeping him animated. His chest was a canvas for bullets: thud, thud, thud--three impacts Shane could count, maybe more. The sword absorbed the damage, but it couldn't absorb the noise or the consequences. The suburban street echoed with gunfire, ricocheting off brick and vinyl siding. Porch lights flicked on down the block.

Shane grit her teeth, watching him rush into open fire, cursing that this was the plan now. It was not Shane's plan, and thus not a good plan, but it was what was happening, and Shane did not see the point in waiting in the car until it was over. Her bleeding had stopped, and a few stiff breaths told her that her body likely didn't contain metal that should not be there. Shane pressed a hand to her shoulder and cursed, then followed.

Steven screamed something in Cantonese and swung the sword in a wide, two-handed arc at two men in business suits. Neither were masked, which was almost worse. They had no fear of Steven living long enough to tell anyone about them.

She hung back, circling around behind the abandoned car. Her shoulder ached, though it was only the fading memory of pain. Steven was absorbing bullets--she could hear the gasp of them through the air--without reaction.

Shane feared for a second that these attackers were myrmidons -- amoral agents of order meant to eradicate supernatural drama queens -- but this wasn't how they worked. They let humans do their dirty work. If they used guns, it would only have been a last resort to set up a chain of events to implicate someone else.

No, these were assassins, and human. Given how publicly they did, not the best assassins money could buy, but confident. Their presence meant Steven had been tracked.

Her stomach turned--not from the blood loss, but from the guilt. Whoever was after Steven had waited until they left Roselyn's, where her wards might've held. Had Steven and she stayed in Roselyn's apartment, Shane was split on whether they would be munching popcorn while watching a murder documentary or would be the only standing witnesses to a triple murder.

If these were men, they were not protected by the veil that stopped people from noticing the paranormal. Any one of the drivers passing -- of which they did without pause on this country road -- could be calling for the police, who would arrive too soon. Shane did not have enough of a read on the assassins to decide if they would flee the authorities or begin a shootout. She couldn't allow the latter, nor could she pass up the chance these men presented her for more information.

Steven shouted at the men, but Shane could not comprehend anything but the texture because Steven shouted in Cantonese, a language whose music, but not meaning, Shane had absorbed.

The assassins ceased shooting, understanding that even point-blank range wasn't going to tip the scales in getting the sword. So, they were not the stupidest assassins, who might have kept shooting until they ran out of ammunition.

Shane stood twenty feet from the scene, trying to find her angle. If she could grab one of the assassins, he would provide her a wealth of information despite the language barrier, and, if she felt it necessary, she could have told that one to shoot the other.

If she spooked them, would they try for a headshot?

The first assassin approached Steven calmly, as though at a business meeting and not murder, as though not facing a man built like a brick house with a blade the length of his arm. The assassin wore a slate-gray suit without a wrinkle on it, his gun hanging loosely at his side; not raised, just present, though the acrid scent of gunpowder ghosted on the breeze.

He said something in Cantonese, voice velvet over steel. He waved over his shoulder at his compatriot, thicker of frame with a sweep over lacquered hair in the front of his head, who lowered his gun without hesitation. The assassin did not need to scream to make his point. Shane didn't catch these words, but she knew the rhythm: the "We are just having a civil conversation where we both get what we want: You give us the sword, and you get to live." She doubted that this ever worked, but people did seem to like using it.

Steven growled back in Cantonese, slicing the air with his sword in punctuation. The assassin remained unbothered, one hand drifting into his coat, perhaps to scratch, possibly to reach for something less obvious than a gun.

The assassin said something else. Not a command. Perhaps an offer.

Steven's posture loosened, and he took a step forward. The assassin's vulpine smile spread.

Steven lowered the blade like an offering, the blade gleaming in the low light. The assassin leaned in--smug, expectant, curious--at this peace offering.

With a roar, Steven snapped the hilt up through the assassin's neck, slicing with practiced fury. The blade bit into flesh--or should have. The assassin's head stayed firmly atop his shoulders. No blood. No scream. Just a furrowed brow, touching his neck like someone swatting a fly. He felt his temple appraisingly, confused, and finally incensed.

Shane counted three bullets going through Steven from Pompadour, but there might have been more. Steven didn't bother flinching.

In this shattered confusion, Shane stepped from the safety of the car, hands raised, blood wet on her fingers.

"English?" she called, voice steady but loud enough that they could not ignore.

The first assassin looked at Steven, who was still stymied that the sword had somehow missed its mark.

"Yes," said the man, finally seeing her. He smiled with surprising kindness, though it was patently fake, like his oddly perfect teeth. His face was lean, just well fed enough to remain on the right line from being gaunt, maybe thirty years old--and not a hard thirty. He did not raise his gun an inch, cooly assessing her as not a threat. "You are with him?"

"Assisting him for the moment," said Shane. "You want the sword."

"Yes," said Perfect Teeth calmly, which was impressive in a man who had just been beheaded. She could almost admire the gall of it. He stood within arm's reach of a cursed swordsman and gave her his attention. "What is it you want?"

"For him not to have the sword."

He nodded, smiling again, but it was not a pleased one. "Would you like us to have it?"

Shane dared a step forward, eyes on Pompadour, whose hand remained on the gun, though not the trigger.

"I would like him not holding the sword," Shane said. "But I would rather it not kill him." Shane took another step. "Or you, in fact."

That earned a dry chuckle. "It will kill me?"

Shane lowered a hand. "Before you shot up our ride share, it would not have. Steven just beheaded you."

Perfect Teeth's hand played over his neck as if to say My head is intact.

She wanted to signal Steven to do something unfortunate, something she did not want him to do if it could be avoided. It could not be if Shane's improvised plan were to have the desired effect.

Steven had already embedded and retracted the sword from Pompadour, and then strolled back to where he had been standing despite the bullets flying through his back.

Shane rubbed her eyes. "Him too. He will bleed out."

The Perfect Teeth lost his veneer of amusement. "What did you just do?" he demanded, his moustache quivering in horror.

Shane would not be intimidated, though the Drakkar Noir emanating from his skin made her want to gag.

"You've shot him how many times now? And he's not hurt."

Perfect Teeth measured this. "Because this man has the sword," he concluded. His perfect smirk dimmed, calculating. "What a clever thing, a sword whose wounds are delayed."

"If you take it," Shane said, "he would turn into slop."

"Miss..." Steven began to warn before she revealed too much.

"However," she added, "you both just got killed, and you are very much not dead. Yet. So, I am hazarding a guess that you don't die until he lets that sword go." She gestured to Steven. "By all means, though, test it out. Steven, hand them the sword. They want to see."

The assassins conferred in hurried Cantonese, but Shane got the gist. This was not a theory they cared to test. Perfect Teeth looked Steven over with new eyes--not as a threat, but a trap. He then noticed Shane's bloodstain. "He stabbed you?"

The truth would do her no good. These men accepted the cursed sword as a possibility. Still, she could not trust that they were so invested in the paranormal world that they would know what a steward was and why it was a terrible idea to kill one. These were triggermen, foot soldiers. They were not capos. They did not know what they were tasked to retrieve.

"Yes," she said, "which is why I am helping him break the curse. I'm not keen to die today." It was not worth mentioning that a shoulder wound would not kill most people.

"Why did he stab you?" asked Perfect Teeth, not hiding his suspicion.

"Accident," Steven said. "She came up behind me. Surprised me."

"What good is her help?" asked Perfect Teeth, turning to Steven. "She is only a little girl."

"Got you to stop, didn't she?" said Steven. "Don't underestimate her."

Perfect Teeth walked around Shane, hmming. She hated the sound of it, the appraisal.

"Then we will make her useful. We will take her," said Perfect Teeth in a voice that did not invite disagreement. "When you can hand us the sword without killing us, you may have her back."

"I need to help him break the curse," Shane protested.

"And you will prove to be more motivation for him to do this," Perfect Teeth said, "because our interest in keeping her safe will only last maybe a week. After this, I believe we have other uses for her, and you may have it on your conscience that you left her to them."

Shane's stomach dropped, having again to rejigger the plan on the fly, having to yet again deal with men who thought threatening her would get them anything but misfortune.

When the man was behind her, hopefully trying to estimate her value on the open market, Shane mouthed at Steven, "Play along."

His eyebrow quirked, which was all the confirmation she would get.

"Sorry," she whispered.

When Perfect Teeth stood before her again, lording his power over her, she widened her eyes with contrived fear.

"Please don't do this," she pleaded, knowing this would not move the man. "It won't work. He doesn't care that much about me."

"I don't think that's true," said the assassin. "I think this man will come for you."

The window where Shane's strategy might work was small and closing fast. Shane darted around the assassin to throw her arms around Steven.

She had promised not to touch him, yes, but he would have to forgive this.

"Don't let him take me," she cried into his shoulder, saying into his mind, Let him take me. I will not let him do anything to me. Go to Roselyn and tell her what happened. She will have Huginn track me. I am going to get as much information from him as I can, and then I will escape. If you understand, say, "I'll kill you if you hurt her."

The connection could not be one way only. No matter her promise--or the intent behind it--Shane could not stop the flow of information into her. However, she was startled at its nature and direction.

"I'll kill you if you hurt her," he growled as the assassin peeled Shane from him.

"You give us the sword, you get the girl back," the assassin said. "No one needs to get hurt."

"Except you," added Shane, not caring to stop herself, "because your head will topple to the ground if you piss him off enough to drop the sword."