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Why?

To sell.Power is money, or it used to be.I don’t know what he’s doing with it now, but he eventually scraped together enough to make a talisman capable of holding his and Mother’s souls when—you know, it’s a long story.

She just stared at me.

And then screamed when we were jerked around the side of the mountain to where a violently purple fissure lay, boiling with magical energy and spitting out tongues of flame yards high.“In the Hole, in the Hole, in the Hole—”

Can you hear me?Mircea asked urgently, and for a second, I thought he was talking to me.

Until Hansen answered.“Y-yes?”

“Good.Then say what I tell you.”

And I guessed the little ghost agreed because he floated up in Father’s face and began boiling with power.To the point that the chanting abruptly died down, and Dad’s narrowed baby blues focused on him.“Oh, look,” he said sarcastically.“We have a volunteer to help fuel the spell.”

“You have no such thing.”And it was bizarre, but although it was Hansen’s amorphous non-face and stumpy body, it was Mircea’s intonation.To the point that I could almost see the contemptuous curl of his lip.

“What happened to you?”Daisy gasped, taking in the state of our guide.

“Exactly what you think,” Hansen said.“And the same or worse will happen to all of you should our mission fail.”

“What mission?”Dad demanded sourly.

“They’re dressed like the gods’ servants!”a voice from the cloud said.“In those stupid tunics they all wear.Don’t believe them!”

“We’re dressed like people who want to sneak into the city under their noses,” Hansen retorted in his own voice before Mircea got him back under control.“Have you not heard of the great spirit, Billy Joe?For it is he who has sent us, and we are on a mission of vast scope and import.”

“Import?What’s that?”Daisy whispered to Buddy.“Didn’t anybody tell him?Trade has kinda died down.”

“It means importance!”Buddy huffed.“Were you raised in a barn?”

“No, but I slept in one a time or two.”

“Shut it,” Dad said and scowled at Hansen.“So, I take it you brought them here?”

“Indeed.To rendezvous with the army my master is assembling to take on the gods.”

At that, the cloud burst out laughing, and even Dad’s lips twitched.

“Oh.Is he?”

“Yes, a course of action that you are currently interfering with, and thus aiding their cause.Our host is legion—”

“Your ‘host’ is a bunch of lunatics if they’re the ones who went screaming through here not long ago,” Buddy said.“Great lot of lummoxes, running into people and knocking things over—”

“What things?”Hansen snapped, and that sounded more like his own voice again.“You’re ghosts.You don’t have anything!”

“More than you, remnant,” Buddy said, offended.

“Ooh, we have a camp!Can I show them around the camp before you feed ‘em to the Hole?”Daisy asked Dad.

“What is this ‘Hole’?”Æsubrand demanded, staring at it.

“Oh, that’s where we keep all the energy we’ve saved up for the spell—” she began before Dad clapped a hand over her mouth and stuffed her under his arm.

“We care not for your plans,” Hansen intoned, back to Mircea’s voice.“We have our own.Allow us to pass through to the city to complete them, and you may continue with yours.If you oppose the gods and what they have done to this world, we fight on the same side and may part as friends.”

“They’re not lying about everything,” Buddy said.“There’s a fearful racket going on in the city at the moment.We heard it when we were close to the barrier.”