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the intriguing human to his brother’s image on the small screen. “Impossible. You are mistaken, brother. Fire could never destroy those who can shape it to their will.”
    Kees set his jaw. “It can if Dark magic fans the flames. The human authorities were eager to label the fire accidental, the fault of antiquated wiring in a historic building, but you and I know that such accidents do not befall the Wardens. We know the nocturnis must have been behind it. But that is not the end of the story.
    “When I awoke in this time, I tried to seek out my own Warden,” Kees continued, “the descendant of the family that served at my side for more than a thousand years. Ella and I found that he, too, had been murdered.”
    A chill of foreboding and the heat of rage clashed in Spar’s chest. “You believe the nocturnis are hunting the members of the Guild.”
    “We know they are.” Ella’s voice sounded grim and touched with pain. “We managed to track down one remaining Warden in the northwestern United States, and he confirmed our suspicions. For at least the past five years, the Guild has been aware of an increase in the activity of minor fiends all over the world. It was clear that the Order was behind it all.”
    Fil interrupted with a frown. “The Order?”
    “The Order of Eternal Darkness,” Ella said. “It’s the formal name for the group we refer to as the nocturnis. The Guild discovered that the Order had been making a vast push to expand, not just inducting members into its established sects, but founding new ones as well. Dozens of them. Maybe more. They monitored the situation, of course, but they waited too long to act, because that’s when the Wardens began dying.”
    Spar uttered an oath in a language that had been dead more than a thousand years. It didn’t help.
    “Go on,” he bit out. Hearing the story stabbed at him like a poisoned blade, but he needed to hear it. He needed to know the extent of the threat he faced, because this, he reasoned, must be the summons that had awoken him.
    “The first few to die looked like accidents.” Kees picked up the thread and continued. “Even though the casualties always seemed to be Wardens without immediate successors in place, the need to replace them never seemed quite urgent enough to worry anyone. Until Gregory Lascaux.”
    The bite of fury underlying his brother’s tone provided the key to Spar’s memory. Names could change over the centuries, but in this case he didn’t think coincidence played a part.
    “The Lascaux family once belonged to you,” he said, watching Kees’s expression in the phone. The mixture of anger and grief confirmed his suspicions.
    “They did. Gregory was my personal Warden, though we met few times during his tenure. I thought things were too peaceful to need my attention. Instead I woke to find that the nocturnis had developed a new strategy to defeat us, one that involved dismantling our support network in order to weaken us.”
    Spar growled, long and low. It took concentration to keep his rage in check, especially when each new revelation landed like fuel on a blazing fire. “A cowardly plan that suits the craven nature of the corrupt ones. But they must realize even if destroying the Guild weakens us, we will still wake if the Seven stir. Not if every Warden on the earth were to die could a Guardian sleep through that.”
    “Maybe that’s what made them decide to try to blow you up tonight while you were asleep.”
    Fil’s words rang out like a bell in the silence. They cut through the thick blanket of anger and speculation and jabbed at Spar like an icy shard of truth.
    He and Kees both turned to fix their gazes on her face, and he heard Ella curse softly in the background.
    “Damn it, I was really hoping we were wrong about that,” the woman said. “Fil, are you sure? Was there a bomb? Is that what happened tonight? Did someone deliberately try to blow up Spar? You have to tell us everything.”
    “Oh,