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Yancey nodded back. “You’d be Mister Thiel, I reckon. Him Pinkerton wanted killed on grounds of disloyalty, back when.”

“I would.”

“Uh huh. And seeing you’ve apparently since been elevated to his old job, I’m not too surprised.”

Thiel flushed slightly. “That . . . was never my intent, ma’am. Was the President himself who put this charge upon me in the Hex City debacle’s wake, making it all but impossible to refuse.”

“Oh, yes. Still, it’s not as though either of you got anything out of not doing so, ’sides from control over the most powerful new branch of government since taxes were first levied.”

Now it was Geyer’s turn to colour. “Missus Kloves! I beg you, if only for our old acquaintance’s sake — ”

“I don’t recall that acquaintanceship having ever netted me much overall, Mister Geyer, beyond the rare thrill of being placed in harm’s way again and yet again. So no, neither of you are Allan Pinkerton, that’s true — but by God, I’d only hope you didn’t aspire to be. What is it brings you here, exactly?”

“As you say, we work for the government, ma’am. Which, in turn, makes our motivation sadly difficult to explain to non-governmental — ”

“Hadn’t noticed Ed garnering any battlefield commissions lately,” Yancey pointed out, “which puts him and me on pretty much common ground, as mere civilians . . . so from that angle, whatever you can’t tell me you can’t tell either of us, and vice versa.”

“Yancey,” Morrow interjected, warningly, but she just rolled her eyes, and rightly so. For what was he likely to do about it, anyhow?

I’m wrapped right ’round this tough little woman’s finger, close as any wedding band, he thought, without regret; closer, even. Tied tight as I ever was to Chess, too, though far more comfortably . . . and for most’ve the same reasons.

All of the above, yes. And damnable pleased, in the end, to still be alive enough to be so.

“Well, gentlemen, since you don’t actually seem inclined to threaten my . . . partner and me, I believe I’ll leave you to it — though this isn’t as large a ranch as some, I’m sure there’s honest work yet needs to be done. Shovelling manure, perhaps.”

As she sauntered away, Thiel raised his eyebrows, and whistled. “That’s some lady you’ve yoked yourself to there, Morrow. I’d want to stay on her good side, if I was you.”

“Still should, if you’re smart. Now — since I believe you two probably have a piece to say, you might want to go ahead and say it.”

Geyer nodded. Asking, without further preamble: “Have you seen Chess Pargeter?”

“Since Hex City removed itself from mortal ken? Or since he brought us here?”

“So, all this was his work,” Thiel said.

“Who else?” Morrow wondered, logically. “I’m a simple non-magickal, and Yancey’s skills don’t run to fashioning her wants out of thin air. What is a bit creepish, though, is how fast you found us.”

“Surely you didn’t think you’d stay undetected.”

“Hoped so, but frankly? No. What drew your eyes?”

“The fact this place didn’t exist, and then it did — that alone argued hexation. But that it appeared paperwork and all made me believe perhaps Missus Kloves was also involved in the planning stages, if not in their execution.”

Morrow leaned back against the well’s adobe brick lip, feeling his old hurts begin to pain. “Chess accounts himself her friend as much as he’s mine, so . . . might be. Tell you straight out, I ain’t privy to all they get up to.”

Chimes alerted them to Yancey as she came back ’round the other side of the house, brushing up against the wind-caller hung above its porch. She didn’t wave while she passed by, just shut the door on them, decisively.

“Do you know where he went?” Thiel demanded, undistracted.

“Nope.”

“Would you tell us, if you did?”

“Am I constrained to answer?”

“Not sure how we’d constrain you, exactly, without force — which, by the by, we’re unlikely to use, you being a hero of the barely averted Second Schism, and all.”

“Then no.”