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She did. She was still feeling faint from spending so many hours at the holding center without food or rest. Merely the thought of standing fatigued her. Darien stood behind her like a bouncer while Roark drifted toward the free chair at the opposite end of the long table. The others claimed their ownseats, a few opting to stand, only eight chairs at the table. Though Arthur and Eugene chose to stay in the living room, their attention was on Roark, Eugene’s video game discarded beside him on the couch.

“Have a seat, if you’d like,” Darien told Roark. “Make yourself comfortable.”

“I’ll stand,” he replied.

“Suit yourself. You mind if I smoke?” Darien was already reaching for his lighter and packet of cigarettes on the table.

“It’s your house.” His response was another surprise. Roark hated smoking, but you’d never guess with the casual tone he was using and his expression that was so…at ease. As if he were interacting with people he regularly spent time with.

Darien lit up, the lid on his metal lighter clinking shut. “That shit with the cops stressed me out,” he said, the words slightly muffled by the cigarette in his mouth. He tossed the lighter onto the table and took another drag before adding, leaning his arms on the back of Loren’s chair, “I didn’t expect to see you so soon. They pull all the military out, or just you?”

“Just me.”

The way Darien paused suggested that Roark’s answer was not what he had expected. Why pull just Roark?

He explained, “When the imperator found out that I challenged his authority and had the forcefield taken down after you called, he put me on a leave of absence.”

“For how long?”

“They haven’t said. But I won’t be returning to Yveswich.”

Tanner said, “So does that mean you’re no longer being briefed on what’s happening there?”

“Correct. I’ve had a few people report to me without his knowledge, but the imperator doesn’t want me involved at the site anymore. And that includes Taega. She was supposed to join me in Yveswich for several more days, but when I wasdischarged, she was forced to take a leave of absence as well. Have you been watching the news?”

“I’ve had it on all day,” Arthur chimed in. He was sipping tea in his favorite spot in the living room. “They’re certainly being selective about what they tell the public, aren’t they?”

Roark nodded. “They’re doing everything they can to cover it up,” he said, addressing everyone now. “The imperator wants as few people as possible knowing the truth, and he is willing to go to great lengths to keep the people of Yveswich quiet. People like us, as well.”

“Speaking of people being kept quiet,” Lace interjected. “You were talking to us about the Veil when we were in Yveswich. How? We thought you had a silencing spell put on you when you left the Phoenix Head Society.”

“I did. It’s been lifted—how, I don’t know.”

“As of when?” Kylar asked.

“The day the portal opened,” Roark replied. “When the replica exploded, I was fast asleep at home. I startled awake to the sensation that half of my weight had been stripped away. Like something heavy had been lifted off my chest.” He stared down at the engraved table, his eyes fogging over with deep thought. It was almost to himself that he added quietly, “It was the lightest I’ve felt in years.”

Could this be the reason he was acting so…different? Had the spell had that bad of an effect on him? He almost seemed like a totally different man.

Darien said, “You think the explosion somehow cut the spell, or what?” He stepped around Loren’s chair to put his smoke out in the ashtray. She could hardly smell it, even as a haze of it hung in the air around her. He was using his magic again.

She tried not to frown.

“That, I don’t know,” Roark admitted.

“Wouldn’t you have to go through one of the Nameless for a spell that complicated, though?” Sabrine asked.

“Usually, yes,” Roark replied. “One that lasts that long and covers an entire group of people such as the Phoenix Head Society would require a greater trade.” Not like the silencing spell that the imperator had put on her, then. The potion he’d made her drink. This was something far stronger. Something that could not be purchased at a spell-shop.

“What if it was the Basilisk?” Jack asked. He was looking at Darien.

Darien now stood with crossed arms beside Loren’s chair instead of behind it, so she saw when he tilted his head in thought.

Roark glanced between Jack and Darien. “I’m not following.”

Tanner explained, “Before the replica exploded, we were in the maintenance tunnels below Caliginous on Silverway. We accidentally walked into the Crossroads where the Basilisk lived. Darien was forced to kill it. And I guess Jack thinks that’s what broke the spell?” He, as well as several other people, looked Jack’s way.

Jack shrugged. “It’s just a guess.”