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answered.
    “Because it makes me a . . . king ,” Taksidian said.
    Xander looked to see the man smiling.
    “A real king,” Taksidian said. “Not in name.” He said name as though it were a dirty word, and scanned Xander as though he were equally dirty.
    “You’re no king,” Xander said.
    “A king takes what he wants,” Taksidian said. “Like I’m taking your house, as easily as . . .” He reached out, and Xander flinched. Taksidian grabbed the tassel hanging from Xander’s belt loop and ripped it off.
    Xander’s chest tightened. It was one of the items he’d taken from the antechamber. The present— his present, the time in which he belonged—wanted the items back. It pulled at them, leading whoever had them—or followed them—to the portal home Without the tassel, they might not be able to find their way back.
    As if we could anyway , he thought. The shackles around his wrists felt as heavy as bowling balls.
    Taksidian dangled the tassel in front of Xander’s face. He said, “As easily as I took this.” He pushed it into his coat pocket. “So you see, I am a king, even of the house you think is yours.” He lifted his face to the sun, closing his eyes and brushing the hair off his face. “It’s a grand life, Xander: ser-vants, limousines, breakfast in Paris, dinner in Tokyo.”
    “If you’re so rich and powerful,” Xander said, “what are you doing hanging around Pinedale? Your life doesn’t seem all that glam to me.”
    Taksidian shook his head. “I go there only when I need to use the house—to make sure my business is not only good, but great.”
    “More war, more business, more money,” Xander said, dis-gusted. He’d seen enough movies to know how it went: The rich always wanted more money, the powerful more power. There was no such thing as enough .
    “And of course, despite the people I control,” Taksidian said, “it’s a task only I can do. Good thing I enjoy it. Except when people like your family get in my way, start meddling in my work. I can’t allow that. Where I come from, we served our king, who had everything. Nothing for us, only for him. Then I stumbled through a portal . . . into the house. I saw right away that in the twentieth century, I could have every-thing the ancient world of my birth denied me. Everything. Before, I killed for the king. Now, I kill for myself .”
    Xander felt dizzy. He said, “It’s . . . not right .”
    Taksidian laughed again, but this time it was loud and booming. Such laughter in this horrible place must have been rare: faces turned to gawk.
    “Sweet, innocent Xander,” Taksidian said. “Too bad you won’t live long enough to learn how naïve you are.” He looked beyond Xander and smiled. “You . . . or your brother.”
    Xander spun, and his heart sank as he saw David come stumbling into the square. He held his head at an odd angle, and his face showed that he was in pain. The soldier behind him had one hand on David’s neck and the other on his wrist, raising it high into the air.

CHAPTER

five

    Keal stood in a dark cave and cursed himself for being so stu-pid. He never should have gone through the portal after David and Xander. As foolish it had been for the boys to follow Phemus, it was doubly foolish for him to plunge in without knowing what awaited him on the other side.
    But no, he knew that wasn’t true. He cared for those boys, and nothing could have stopped him from trying to help them.
    Still . . . this wasn’t good.
    He stood close to the wall of the cave. He waved a tight bundle of burning straw, which he had managed to light with a flint from the antechamber. It illuminated a painting on the wall: a crude image of warriors fighting a bear-like beast. Unlike the cave paintings he’d seen in books, this one was bright. It looked new.
    Great . He looked at the spear he’d found in the cave, nothing more than an antler tine tied to a stick, and brought his eyes back to the painting. He was sure now, he was in