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Chandre saw the Bridge looking incongruous in high-heeled shoes and a form-fitting, black, backless dress that scarcely covered her rear end. She stood a few feet from the Sword, who, for the first time since they’d left that club in Deira, wasn’t actually touching her.

That Children of the Bridge seer, Dalejem, stood on his other side, not far from Anale, Tenzi and two others Chandre knew only in passing.

Jax and Chinja stood closest to the Rook. Surli and Stanley stood on the other side of the Bridge and the Sword, presumably to cover them from behind. Others positioned themselves further back, where Chandre couldn’t see them very well, but she knew how many had come out here, so she could more or less extrapolate.

Chandre didn’t know how many of her people were still armed.

To err on the side of caution, she had to assume none.

Therefore, when she swung the rifle back towards the black-clad seers walking through the crates, she held her breath as she aimed the rifle at the one she presumed to be their leader. Instead of an infiltrator’s military uniform, he wore civilian clothes, a black robe of the local style with an equally black sash and headband.

Chandre couldn’t see his face, but she suspected she knew who he was.

She recognized the long-legged gait and the shape of his frame, which was tall even for a seer. It also bordered on skeletal, even in the flowing robe.

She remembered him from South America, well enough for her jaw to clench.

Following his body with the infrared scope, she lost him here and there among the crates, but always managed to pick him up again. Placing her feet carefully as she tested her balance, she shifted her position slightly, trying to improve her vantage without making any noise.

Once she’d improved it as much as she thought she could?safely, at least?she waited for Menlim to emerge. She hoped to catch him not long after he exited that final opening, meaning the one leading into the open area where the cages lived.

She counted through seconds, waiting.

She waited past where it felt like she should have had to wait.

Then she heard his voice.

Chandre knew it was his instantly.

She recognized it, even as it filled the empty stretch of warehouse following the maze of crates. She could nearly see his words with her eyes. Not just words. Weaponized light, like keys turning in locks she couldn’t see. They hung in the air like metal, his light twisting out towards the seers standing between those human-sized cages.

Twisting out towards the Sword.

“Isre l’ange si nedri az’lenm. Isre ti’a ali di’ suletuum…”His voice boomed, echoing in the dark.“Isre l’ange si nedri az’lenm… isre ti’a ali di’ suletuum. Sala. Sala ‘ti. Sala ‘ti, mongare sa’… Alyson. Alyson…”

Chandre pulled her eye off the scope, looking for him with her naked vision.

Seeing nothing, she put her eye back to the round opening and swung the infrared along that same line, looking for him again that way.

Menlim still did not appear.

He must have stopped before he cleared the crates enough to be in her line of sight.

Even as she thought it, she saw soldiers appear at the fringes of that same line. She noted their positions but didn’t move her rifle.

She didn’t want to blow her cover for one of them.

She wanted him. The head of the snake. Menlim.

Once she got him, she would shoot at the rest.

Jerking her eye off the scope briefly a second time, she scanned the nearby crates, trying to decide if she could safely move positions to get a better angle without being seen. The jump down wasn’t close, though. Now that black-clad soldiers filled the wider opening in the warehouse, it was too risky. If a firefight broke out on the ground, she could move without being noticed?but of course by then it may be too late.

“Isre l’ange si nedri az’lenm…”The seer raised his deep voice louder. It reverberated through Chandre’saleimi, despite her stillness.“Isre ti’a ali di’ suletuum… sala. Sala ‘ti. Sala ‘ti, mongare sa’… Alyson. Alyson!”

Silence fell over the warehouse.

Chandre wasn’t in the Barrier, so couldn’t feel any of what was going on from that higher perspective, but something about that silence felt charged.