Must Love Hellhounds

the conjuring ball from Amelia’s hand, and said, “To the beacon.”
    Pop!
    The sounds and colors again, the dizzying whirling feeling, and then they all arrived on the platform in the hall of the magicians and mechs.
    There was quite a crowd in there; and it took Batanya a long second to realize she didn’t need to kill them. Clovache actually took a swipe with her short sword, which made her commander leap back smartly.
    “Hold!” Flechette bellowed. “Hold, you fool!”
    After a moment of reorientation, Batanya understood she didn’t need to stand in front of Crick any longer, and she stepped aside. Crick was doubled over, gasping in pain. Amelia stared around her, so stunned it would be hard to pick one emotion from another as they crossed her face. After a moment’s evaluation, Narcissus trotted down the few stairs to the handsomest person he could see, a young mech woman. Though he was grimy and wearing his prison tunic, she looked at him as if she’d seen the face of a god, which Batanya supposed was not too very far from the truth. Narcissus held out his hand, and the mech had a hard job to decide whether to shake it or kneel to kiss it. She settled for holding it and basking in the smile Narcissus bestowed. “Do you like dogs?” he asked her.
    Batanya and Clovache helped Crick down to the floor. Crick said, “For a bit, there, we didn’t know if you would get us out in time.” He made an effort to sound casual. That was exactly what Batanya had been thinking, but she hadn’t wanted say it out loud (especially in front of her junior).
    “This asshole almost prevented us from extracting you,” Flechette said, and for the first time Batanya noticed that Flechette was gripping Trovis by the arm. “He tried to persuade the magicians and mechs that you’d sent a false signal, that the minions of Hell would home in on the beacon if they acted on it.”
    “I didn’t believe him,” said the young mech woman, with a shy smile. “I called Flechette to overrule him.”
    “Can I execute Trovis?” Clovache asked. “He has tried to have us done in more times than I can count, and all because Batanya wouldn’t lie with him and broke his arm making him back off.”
    “Ah,” said Flechette. “Perhaps we shouldn’t kill him . . . but he must be punished.”
    Clovache still had the conjuring ball. Though Trovis made an effort to dodge and to twist out of Flechette’s grip, Clovache ran her arm around Trovis’s neck, looked down at the ball, said, “Go back!” Pop! She and Flechette and Trovis were staring at a vast green sea, scraggly palm trees, a wrecked airplane, and a dead man.
    “Drop Trovis’s arm,” she told Flechette, who did, at least partly from surprise at getting an order from a junior. Clovache took a step back from the gaping Trovis herself, gripped Flechette’s shoulder, concentrated on the ball, said, “Back to the hall,” and Pop! They were back in the magicians’ hall.
    Minus Trovis.
    “Brilliant,” said Batanya.
    When she’d collected herself, Flechette said, “This is just. No one will dispute it.”
    Trials had never really caught on at the Britlingen Collective.
    “Who—and what—have you brought with you?” asked the tall, veiled magician who had ushered them in on the day they’d departed. Every magician and mech in the room, even Narcissus’s new admirer, was electrified with excitement at Clovache’s demonstration.
    “This is Amelia Earhart,” Batanya said, taking care to pronounce the name correctly. “She is a . . . She can operate a flying machine, and she left home, which was America, on Earth, in July of 1937.”
    “A time traveler,” exclaimed the magician. His eyes, above the veil, were almost glowing with interest. “And that is surely Lucifer’s conjuring ball.”
    “It’s the island. That one tiny island,” Batanya said. “That’s the key. Amelia landed on it by accident, and then as she explored the island, she found herself in Hell. The island is a portal of some kind. Once Amelia had come through, she could pass back, with the help of the conjuring ball. She took Clovache and the rest of us through. Then our homing spell finally worked, and we returned through the portal to land here. So the conjuring ball can take you through the portal, if you’re with someone who’s passed through it once.” Batanya couldn’t decide if her theory was complete nonsense or not. The magicians and mechs could study their magical hearts