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wouldn’t tie them to the ground or dunk them in the French Broad River. But she would take their cell phones away. Caden had grown fond of his phone, and Rosa had made sure his new one was legally acquired, unlike his first one, which Brynne had taken in stealth from the local market known as a “mall.”
    The house was three stories high and surrounded by her metal-and-found-object sculptures. Among the emerging green grasses were twisted and sharp-petaled copperflowers. One of her newer projects, a pewter-and-steel waterfall, leaned two stories tall against the house. When the metal caught the morning sunlight, it mimicked cascading water.
    Caden and Brynne dismounted near the twinkling metal, and Caden ordered Sir Horace to return to the horse rescue. Then he and Brynne snuck back to their respective rooms—hers on the second floor, his in the repurposed attic. Unimpressively, Brynne crept in the back door, which she’d left unlocked. Caden, however, took the more appropriate reentry. He scaled up the escape rope he’d used to get out.
    The attic’s planked floor was covered in mismatched rugs, but it still creaked when Caden climbed through the window and stepped onto it. The walls were slanted and a length of black tape divided the room. One side—the neat side—was Caden’s. His bed was made, his pink-and-orange quilt pulled taut. His clothes were folded. The other side—the cluttered, book-and-clothes-strewn side—belonged to his foster brother, Tito.
    Tito was about Caden’s build and height, although Tito claimed he was taller. His hair was long and midnight black, his dark eyes striking, and his face sharp featured. When he frowned, the left side of his mouth was always higher than the right.
    Tito was awake and sitting up in bed. His hair was pulled back. Around his neck, he wore a necklace of braidedwire with an obsidian stone—a gift from their foster sister and Brynne’s current roommate, the half elf enchantress, Jane Chan.
    Tito had stacked books on his bed to make a table, and his booklet of hard-to-spell words was open atop it. He studied for some odd Ashevillian spelling contest to be held midweek. He didn’t look up. “You snuck out,” Tito said.
    â€œI let you sleep.”
    â€œYou gotta sleep, too, and if Rosa catches you, you’ll get grounded again.”
    Tito was a local, but he knew of Caden and Brynne’s plight. He had proven himself a worthy and loyal ally. Matter of point, Caden had deemed Tito worthy of training in the ways of the Elite Paladin. If Tito would dust his books and fold his clothes, Caden wouldn’t even mind sharing the room with him. “Brynne and I sought a way home,” Caden said. “We won’t give up.”
    Tito looked up at that. “Did you find one?”
    As Caden was standing in their bedroom and not in Razzon, he felt the answer was obvious. “No,” he said. “But we found evidence that a new villain arrived in the city.” And he’d found the dagger, but he couldn’t show that to Tito. Truth be told, he wished Brynne hadn’t seen it. It felt too private for anyone else to see but him.
    â€œHuh,” Tito said, and sounded nowhere near as concerned as he should have been.
    Caden reached across the taped line, grabbed a clean-looking shoe, and tossed it at him. “No doubt it’s someone dangerous. Put on your sparring clothes, Sir Tito. There is a new villain in our midst, and neither you nor Jane has mastered sword form five or seven.”
    â€œMaybe that’s because we’ve been practicing with a mop.”
    â€œPractice is practice.”
    Caden sought out his after-training, after-shower clothes. Rosa had bought him several short-sleeved shirts and, for school, he picked the midnight blue one with the picture of a magnificent smoke-colored horse. He found comfort in the colors of Razzon and the image of the horse.
    It