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  "Not on my watch, sunshine," the guard replied, just as they did in the movies. Is that something they train bank guards to say, or just something this one has been itching to utter if the opportunity ever arose? There was no time to worry about it, though, because the young man was removing his gun from the holster at his waist. He raised the weapon, aiming it squarely at his chest. "Now be a good lad. Put the knife down and place your hands on your head. Slowly."

  There were more screams behind him as the rest of the bank's patrons realized what was happening and a strident alarm began to sound, triggered by one of the tellers, probably. People began dropping to the floor. The noise was deafening and distracting and he'd lost sight of the other guard, but he couldn't risk taking his eyes off the younger one who was doing all the talking in order to find out how close the other guard was.

  The 'not on my watch' comment had alarmed him. The young man no doubt watched far too much television, a trap he'd fallen into himself since arriving in this realm. He was reluctant to give him an opportunity to act out any other fantasies he might be harboring, but still, this had to be a convincing robbery.

  "I want all the cash here!" he shouted, mostly to be heard over the alarm. In the distance, he could hear sirens, as the Gardaí sped to the aid of the two security guards, who had no doubt come to work this morning assuming this day would be as uneventful as any other. "Have someone load the money into two bags and nobody will be hurt!"

  "Only one getting hurt today is you, matey. Drop the knife."

  He knew the smart thing to do was comply with the order, but he wasn't convinced he'd done enough. There had been no violence. Nothing but a shouted demand and a lot of noise.

  He glanced around. The other guard was close behind, certainly close enough to shoot and not miss if he chose. The mother with the toddler was squatting on the floor, behind a stand of brochures offering excellent mortgage rates and interest-free transfers on credit card balances, holding her child close. There were others peeking around the bank's stately marble columns, taking pictures of him with their cell phones.

  The man who had spoken so harshly to the mother about her noisy child was paying no attention to the whole affair, talking on his cell phone as if nothing was awry.

  That offended him. How dare you play down the severity of my crime by ignoring it?

  The man's arrogance decided him. There was no escape, but there had been no blood, either. He needed to hurt someone, and this fool standing in the middle of an armed robbery talking on his cell phone as if the events around him were unimportant, seemed as good a candidate as any.

  The robber hurled the knife before anyone could stop him. There were more screams and a deafening noise as he was slammed in the chest and knocked to the ground.

  Damn, he thought as he fell. That wasn't supposed to happen.

  As he collapsed to the floor and the world exploded in chaos around him, he reached up to feel his life force leaking from his chest ... but his hand came away dry.

  Amazed, he realized there was no blood seeping from an open wound. The bullet hadn't missed; it had hit the iron triskalion pendant he had stowed in his jacket pocket, the magical talisman he had brought with him to contact home.

  He could feel that it was bent and twisted out of shape. Likely the mundane lead from this world had leeched the last remaining magic from the pendant - and with it, any chance he had of connecting with his own realm. He could barely breathe and his chest would be black and blue within a day, he knew, but as the guards and the newly arrived Gardaí swarmed over him, shouting so excitedly he could barely make out their words, he smiled.

  The talisman had done its job. It had protected him. He'd been shot trying to rob a bank. He'd wounded an innocent bystander, but he certainly hadn't hit anything vital if the man's outraged howling was any gauge of his condition. And he'd survived in one piece.

  Soon, he would be where he was meant to be.

  Soon he could resume his role as protector of the Undivided.

  All he had to do then was wait for rescue to come for them and he could go home.

  Chapter 2

  Trása stepped through the rift into a thunderstorm. The forecourt of the hommaru - the inner palace of the vast Edo fortress - glistened in the darkness, the rain pelting down as thunder rent the air. A few of the lesser Youkai who lived in and around the palace clustered near her for protection as imperial attendants hurried forward, holding a wide, oiled-silk canopy aloft by the gilded poles at each corner to keep the rain off their honored guest.

  As the rift's lightning faded, mundane lightning from the storm bathed the forecourt in bright light, followed a few seconds later by another crash of thunder. Several of the pixies who had followed her through the rift giggled at the noise. Toyoda Mulrayn, the ginger-bearded Leipreachán who fancied himself a ninja, let out an involuntary squawk of fright. It made his little black shinobi shozoko, which hid all his flesh except for his hands and a small slit around the eyes, and his tabi boots with their slit between his ungainly big toe and the second toe - making it easier for climbing ropes and scaling walls, apparently - all the more ridiculous.

  The welcoming committee was small. Understandable, Trása supposed, given the inclement weather. Under another oiled canopy on the edge of the rifuto stones stood Wakiko, the blonde and very Nordic mother of the Empresses, whose betrayal of the Matrarchaí had saved the girls from the Lady Delphine and her plans to eliminate all the Faerie from this reality more than three years ago.

  Wakiko - her real name was Ingrid - hadn't changed much in the years since Delphine had died by Ren's hand. She was still dressing like a geisha and still wore that perpetually worried expression that Trása figured would not go away anytime soon, given her twin daughters, the Empresses, had just turned thirteen.

  "Welcome to Edo Palace, Trása," Wakiko said with a very Japanese bow, and a weary smile that spoke volumes about the strain of the upcoming birthday celebrations.

  Another clap of thunder rent the air before Trása could return the greeting but there was no lightning accompanying the sound, which struck her as odd. She stepped forward, trusting Toyoda and the pixies to stay close. They'd been very brave to follow her here into what had, until a few years ago, been ruled the Konketsu, who'd spent years trying to eliminate their kind. It wasn't often the lesser Youkai left Tír Na nÓg and they were still wary of the Konketsu. It was three years since Delphine was killed and the Matrarchaí banished from this realm, but it was still proving difficult to convince them the days of pogroms and purges were done and that the Empresses had ordered the Konketsu to protect the Faerie rather than exterminate them.

  "I'm honored to be invited," Trása said, glancing around. "Not every day the empresses turn thirteen."

  Wakiko must have guessed who she was looking for. "He's here," she said, in English, a language only five people in this reality understood, "along with the other two. They ..." she stopped for a moment as the ground shook with another clap of nearby thunder. With a sigh she added, "That would be them."

  "What are they doing?"

  "Being boys," Wakiko said. Then she turned her attention to Toyoda and the pixies, bowed to them with the same gravity and respect she had shown Trása, and spoke in the odd mixture of Japanese and Gaelic that was the language of much of this realm. "You and your cousins are most welcome to Edo, Sā Mulrayn."

  The little Leipreachán seemed to grow a couple of inches taller, so chuffed was he to be greeted with such formality. "Thank ye, Ojōsama," he said, with a bow not nearly so elegant or deep as Wakiko's.

  Trása smiled in amusement. He was so thrilled to be greeted like an equal he seemed to have overlooked the fact that, despite his ninja disguise, Wakiko knew exactly who it was under the hood of his shinobi shozoko.

  The ground shook again with another shudder of thunder. Wakiko shook her head, spared the drenched imperial attendants holding the canopies over them a sympathetic glance, and beckoned Trása forward. "Let's talk as
we walk."

  Trása stepped under Wakiko's canopy and the two of them began walking toward the palace proper, trusting the attendants to keep up and keep them dry. The Leipreachán and the pixies were clustered together under the other canopy bringing up the rear, giggling at the quaint notion of avoiding the rain. They were elemental creatures, and the desire to avoid the elements was a uniquely mammalian concept they found quite strange.

  "Exactly what are they doing?" Trása asked, falling back into the English that afforded them such effective privacy.

  "Ren claims he's trying to master ori mahou so he can risk accessing Delphine's memories again someday," Wakiko explained. "Personally, I think he's just looking for an excuse to blow things up."

  That sounds a very male thing to do, Trása thought. More importantly, a very Rónán thing to do.

  "Pete and Logan are here already?"

  Wakiko nodded. "They arrived a few days ago."

  "Are they encouraging Rónán to access Delphine's memories?" She remembered how adamant they'd been after finally visiting their home realm that Rónán never go near their foster-mother's memories again, although she didn't know why they were so determined to stop Ren mining such a rich vein of intelligence. It was something they all needed to get over, because Darragh was still trapped and only Delphine's memories held the key to finding him and bringing him home.

  "I doubt it. I believe they're trying to convince Renkavana that with a mastery of ori mahou he might be able to discover the true purpose of the Matrarchaí without the need to delve into such murky waters," she said.

  Trása stopped. She stared at Wakiko, catching the imperial attendants unawares. They took several steps forward and then hurried back to cover her, which not only exposed the mother of the Empresses to the rain but made them collide with the canopy bearers following behind with Toyoda and the pixies.

  She ignored the almost comical fuss going on around her as the attendants endeavored to sort themselves out, her gaze fixed on Wakiko. "That's ridiculous. Delphine's memories are the only way back to the realm where Renkavana's brother is trapped. Why is he not doing everything he can to unlock them safely?" It just didn't make sense.

  Admittedly, she hadn't seen Rónán since he'd announced he was coming here to Edo with Pete and Logan Doherty to master the secret of the folding magic they used in this realm. But when she had seen him last he was determined to find his brother, Darragh, and bring him home.

  What hadn't made sense to Trása then, and still didn't now, was why he was making a fuss about mastering ori mahou to open a rift. She knew he'd shared the Comhroinn with Delphine as she died and that he had Delphine's knowledge in his head if only he was willing to access it. His refusal to do so was the reason Trása hadn't seen him for over two years. That Logan and Pete Doherty were so determined to keep him from ever accessing those memories was the reason she was angry with them, too.

  Trása wanted Rónán to do everything possible to find Darragh and get him out of the magic-less realm where he was stranded. Since coming back from Pete and Logan's dead world, he had refused to even try.

  When she realized that, far from searching Delphine's memories, he was deliberately locking them away, she was furious. She couldn't believe he would be so selfish. Darragh was out there somewhere and only Rónán knew where ... and he was going to do nothing, egged on by two interlopers who should just mind their own business. I should have let Delphine murder you, she'd told them, when she found out it was Pete and Logan who had made Rónán lock away Delphine's knowledge.

  They parted on such angry terms, she wasn't sure what reaction she was going to get when she saw the Doherty brothers again.

  Another thunderous concussion shook the ground. Trása wondered briefly if it might be safer to just turn around and go back to Tír Na nÓg.

  "Renkavana will be glad to see you, Trása," Wakiko said, as if she could tell what she was thinking.

  "I'm not so sure about that."

  Wakiko slipped her arm through Trása's and they resumed walking. "He'll be glad, Trása. He's in pain and you're one of the few people in this entire reality who understands the reason. He needs your friendship, Trása. And your love."

  She shook her head, wondering how Wakiko could be so pragmatic, and yet so irrationally romantic and sentimental at the same time. "That's not the impression I got the last time we spoke, Wakiko."

  "Don't let him push you away," she urged, as the ground shook with another explosion. Then Wakiko smiled at her. "And if you could persuade him and his friends not to destroy my palace while he battles his internal demons, I would be very grateful."

  Chapter 3

  It took Pete Doherty less than a minute to fold the shape he needed from the square of washi paper, beating both his brother Logan, and Ren Kavanaugh, despite the amount of shōchū he'd consumed. He infused the tiny paper grenade with magic and tossed it into the moat. The ground shook as the water exploded in a staggering plume that rose a good thirty feet into the air, drenching the guards on the walls overlooking the moat that surrounded the inner hommaru of Edo Palace.

  Laughing, he scooped up the flask of shōchū he was sharing with his equally inebriated companions and raised it in salute. "I rule!"

  "You pissed off the guards on the wall," Logan pointed out, laughing, as he completed his own grenade and tossed it into the moat. It landed much closer, and when it exploded this time it doused them with water, rather than the guards, which sent the three of them into more gales of drunken laughter.

  Even Ren was laughing, something Pete was sure the alcohol was responsible for. Between the rain and the water grenades they were launching the paper Ren was working with was sodden and it began to crumble under his fumble-fingered attempt to fold it into the required shape. After a few more unsuccessful attempts he scrunched the paper into a ball and tossed it onto the ground.

  "Fuck that," Ren said, turning unsteadily to face the water, the rain running in rivulets down his face. "I'll give you a splash." He threw his arm out as if he was tossing an invisible grenade and the water exploded, driving a pillar of water fifty feet into the air. It crashed down around them and over the wall guards and the small crowd watching their antics from the other side of the moat on Daikan-cho Street, soaking everyone within reach to the skin.

  Pete and Logan stared at Ren in stunned surprise. Ren wasn't supposed to be able to do that without ori mahou. Had Pete been less inebriated, the implications of that single drunken act might have resonated more clearly with him, might even have set off warning bells in his head, but they were wasted and having a high old time blowing up the moat, so he didn't think to question it.

  The silence lasted on for a few seconds and then they all burst out laughing again.

  "How did you do that?" Logan asked.

  "Ninja magic," Ren said, grinning.

  Pete wasn't sure Ren was joking. He'd heard rumours since he been here in this strange reality where everything was mixed up and weird - up to and including his own identity - about the art of kuji-in, the ninja hand magic. Toyoda had tried to explain it to him once. Something about the thumb being the source of power and the fingers representing the elements of earth, water, fire and wind. Not unlike the Loch Ness monster, plenty of people claimed to know about it, although nobody could say they'd ever seen it in action.

  "You mean that hand waving and finger pointing crap?"

  Ren nodded.

  Logan doubled over in hysterics. "He gave it the finger!"

  That sent them into another spasm of drunken, side-splitting laughter. Pete staggered so close to the edge of the drawbridge, he almost fell in the moat. He circled his arms wildly to recover his balance and spun around. It was then he noticed the northern, tall studded gate to the hommaru enceinte - the innermost continuous line of Edo Palace's, seemingly endless, fortifications - had opened behind them and a lone figure was walking out onto the drawbridge.

  "Trása!" Logan cried when he spied their visitor and realized w
ho it was. He held up the flask he was holding. "You tried this shōchū shit? It's like rice-flavored whiskey mixed with jet fuel."

  Trása stopped when she reached the edge of the drawbridge. Like the rest of them, she was soaked to the skin; the thin shift she wore clung to her in all the places likely to get a man into trouble. Pete wasn't sure if she was wet because she'd been caught in Ren's explosion, or if she'd walked here through the thunderstorm. Either way, she didn't look pleased to see any of them. The lightning and the rain made her expression hard to read, but she sure wasn't acting like she'd come here to join in the fun.

  "Hi, Logan," Trása said in a toneless voice that said more about her disapproval of their entertainment than if she'd stormed out here yelling and screaming at them. Her footsteps barely made a sound as she walked onto the puddled drawbridge known locally as Kitahanebashi-mo.

  "Pete." She treated him to a single word and cursory nod by way of greeting.

  Ren remained facing the water, making no attempt to even acknowledge Trása's presence.

  "Sure I can't interest you in some shōchū?" Logan persisted, his inebriation making him oblivious to Trása's mood. "It's made from barley and sweet potatoes and rice and chestnuts and a good dollop of crude oil, I suspect. Tastes like a blacksmith's armpit, but it's good for a laugh."

  "I'm sure it is," Trása agreed without so much as cracking a smile. "Some other time, perhaps. Right now, Wakiko would greatly appreciate it if you would stop terrifying the locals by trying to destroy the inner moat."

  "We were just having a bit of fun, Trása," Pete felt compelled to point out. "We started out skipping stones. It kind of escalated from there."

  "Haven't you got something better to do with your time?"

  "Apparently not," Logan said. He took another swig, but the bottle was empty. He turned it upside down and shook it, but there wasn't a drop left. With a frown, he tossed the bottle into the moat and fixed his unsteady gaze on Trása. "You see, it turns out we're going to live forever. Well. Maybe not forever, but much longer than we ever thought. Comes from being Faerie, you see." He staggered forward and put his hands on Trása's shoulders. "So time, my little Faerie Queen, time is the one thing we have plenty of to waste."