The Crosspath felt threatening as I exited Life and headed for home, the emptiness of it somehow hiding assassins in shadows. Silly really, and an overreaction to hysteria, but Mafdel's deadliness took away any chance I had to laugh off the truth. If someone wanted my physical form dead, was I a goner?

Chaos lurched within, her rage fed by sorrow wrapped in good humor as she pushed mist against the empathic barrier that surrounded me. A kind of shielding, perhaps? Feeling a ...