I called Teddy Jo first.

“Yes?”

“Hello, winged devil. Are the Pegasuses rideable?”

“Kate?” He sounded startled.

“Yes.”

“Good evening to you, too.”

“Good evening, Teddy Jo. How’s life, how’s the family? Are the Pegasuses rideable?”

“First, pegasi. It’s not the original Pegasus. To answer your question, yes, they are rideable. For the right person.”

Right person, okay. I picked up a legal pad. This was going to cost me.

“You there?”

“Sure.” Hey there, I’m Kate, I came to do my twelve labors. Where do I sign up? I was really beginning to doubt the whole oracle thing. “How do I become the right person?”

A long silence.

“Teddy Jo? Are you okay?”

“Some things you just don’t do,” he said. There was an odd finality about his voice that told me he wasn’t talking about flying horses.

“Are you in trouble?” I asked.

Silence.

“Level with me. Are you in trouble?”

“Yes,” he said.

“How bad?”

“Bad.”

“How do you get out of trouble?”

Silence.

“It’s been a long day, but I don’t mind driving to your place if you would rather talk in person.” Translation: my patience is short and I will drive over to wherever you are and shake you until you tell me.

“I’m supposed to arrange a meeting between you and someone else. I was sitting here thinking about it when you called.”

“Is it the kind of meeting I don’t walk away from?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do they have on you?”

“They have something of mine. Something that I have to have to remain me.” I could hear it in his voice. Whatever they took had him scared, and Teddy Jo didn’t scare easily.

“So what you’re telling me is, I’ve been invited to an interesting meeting and you weren’t going to tell me. Not cool, Theodore. Not cool.”

“Kate . . .”

I needed to get to Mishmar as soon as I could. But judging by Teddy Jo’s voice, he needed help and he needed it now. He was doing a good job of hiding the desperation, but it was there. I had a feeling all of this was somehow connected.

“We’ve been friends, what, four years now? Five? I expected better of you. Where are we going and when?”

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow at your house.” His voice regained some of its normal grumpiness. “Nine o’clock. Wear boots and bring your sword.”

“I always bring my sword.”

Julie brought in a stack of mail and put a white envelope in front of me.

“Good. I’ll be bringing a harness.”

“A harness for what?”

“For whom. For you. It’s easier to carry you that way.”

I sighed. “Are we flying?”

“I’m flying. If you’re lucky, I won’t drop you.”

“If you drop me, I’ll be very put out.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

I hung up and opened the envelope. Inside on a crisp piece of paper embossed with roses, an outrageously curvy cursive said:

With great pleasure

We invite you to the union of

Kate Daniels

and

Curran Lennart

“What is this?”

“It’s a wedding invitation,” Julie said.

“I didn’t order any.”

Julie grinned at me. “Roman.”

Ugh. That’s right. I waved the envelope at her. “It has flowers on it.”

“Did you want gore, swords, and severed heads?” she asked.

Smartass.

Speaking of severed heads . . . I picked up the phone and dialed Sienna’s number. She picked up immediately.

“What’s the significance of the head?”

“I have no idea.”

“But you knew it was important.”

“The head is an anchor. When you look into the future, some things are out of focus, but some vital events are more clear. Think of it as coming to a crossroads. If you’ve met the conditions, you take the right fork; if you fail, you take the wrong one.”

“Okay.” That made sense.

“The head was one such point. I saw you turning the head over to some sort of law enforcement. My guess is that Roland’s people saw it, too. They knew it was an anchor, and so Roland probably took steps to make sure it didn’t happen. Did you have to fight?”

“Yes.”

“And you won?”

“Yes.”

“Then congratulations.”

Congratulations were premature. There were questions about it that bugged me. For one, if my father wanted the head so much, why did he only send one sahanu to get it?

“So these anchors, they’re like checkpoints I have to clear?”

“Yes, in a sense.”

“What’s the next one?”

“I don’t know. I’ll call you when I do.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s not too late to turn back,” Sienna said. “This is a dangerous path for you. I don’t like where it ends.”

“Are we still on track?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Then we’ll keep going. Thank you for your help.”

I hung up.

“So the head wasn’t even important?” Julie asked.

“Apparently not.”

My phone rang. I picked it up.

“You have something that belongs to me.”

Control. Zen. Screaming in ancient languages would not be zen. “You don’t say. You enslaved that poor girl. You’re despicable, Father.”

“You’re a disobedient foolish child. I gave her security and serenity of purpose.”

“So you admit you sent her into my territory?”

“I admit to nothing.”

“Come on, Father. This is unbecoming. I don’t understand why you only sent one. Really, you think so little of me?”

“I sent one because I felt one was sufficient. She wasn’t meant to kill you, Blossom.”

Ah. She was only meant to disrupt my attempts to keep him from killing everyone else I cared about.