“I’ll love you till the end…”

Things got crazy then.

Half the sidhe-seers rushed toward the stone fortress, the other half remained on the battlefield, looking impossibly conflicted. I was startled to see that even Jada looked torn. She never showed emotion, yet there was sudden uncertainty, a hint of worry and vulnerability in her eyes.

“Where is the fire? What part of the abbey?” she demanded.

“I can’t tell from here,” I told her. I was too close to the abbey to get a clear view of it.

“It looks like Rowena’s old wing,” a sidhe-seer about twenty feet from us shouted.

I had no problem with that. I wanted everything the old bitch had ever touched burned, and it conferred the added bonus of getting it out of the way of the expanding black hole.

“And the south wing with the seventeenth library!” another sidhe-seer called.

“Get on it. We need what’s in there,” Jada ordered. “Let Rowena’s wing burn,” she added savagely.

“The east wing looks like it’s burning the hottest,” another shouted. “The Dragon Lady’s library. Must have started there. Leave it? There’s nothing in there, right?”

Jada blanched and went completely motionless.

“What is it?” I said. “Do we need to put it out? Jada. Jada!” I shouted, but she’d vanished, freeze-framing into the still-exploding abbey.

Ryodan vanished, too.

Then Jada was back, with Ryodan dragging her. His mouth was bleeding and he had the start of a serious black eye.

“Get off me, you bastard!” She was snarling, kicking, punching, but he had twice her mass and muscle.

“Let the others put it out. Your sword is needed in battle.”

Jada yanked her sword off her back and flung it away from her. “Take the fucking thing and let me go!”

I gaped. I couldn’t fathom anything for which Jada might be willing to throw away her sword. One of the nearby sidhe-seers shot her a look. Jada nodded and the woman picked it up and returned to the battle.

Around us, the fight surged with renewed vigor, as sidhe-seers vacated the lawn to save the abbey.

But this was the only battle that mattered to me. If Jada wanted to fight the fire instead of the Fae, that was her call. I suspected there was something more to it than that. I just didn’t know what. But the intensity of her reaction was spooking me. “Let go of her, Ryodan,” I demanded.

They vanished again, both moving too fast for me to see, but I could hear the grunts and curses, the shouting. Jada was superior to humans in virtually every way. But Ryodan was one of the Nine. I knew who’d win this battle. And it pissed me off. Barrons lets me choose my battles. Jada deserved the same.

They were there again.

“You can die, Jada,” Ryodan snarled. “You’re not invincible.”

“Some things are worth dying for!” she shouted, her voice breaking.

“The bloody abbey? Are you fucking crazy?”

“Shazam! Let me go! I have to save Shazam! He won’t leave. I told him not to leave. And he trusts me. He believes in me. He’ll sit there forever and he’ll die and it’ll be all my fault!”

Ryodan let go of her instantly.

Jada was gone.

So was Ryodan.

I stood blankly a moment. Shazam? Who the hell was Shazam?

Then I turned and raced into the abbey after them.

I couldn’t get anywhere near them. I was forced to concede defeat a third of the way down the burning corridor to my destination. The fire wasn’t natural, it glowed with a deep blue-black hue. Wood was being eaten to ash, stone was crusted with cobalt flame, and when I dragged the tip of my spear over a nearby burning wall, the outer surface of the stone crumbled to dust.

Fae-fire, no doubt.

I wondered how it had gotten into the abbey. Had someone slipped inside in the heat of battle? Gone around the back way and broken in? Had the attack on the abbey been far cleverer than I’d thought?

Sidhe-seers were rushing everywhere, carrying buckets and fire extinguishers, but neither had any effect on the flames. Blankets seemed at first to smother it, then the blaze sprang back up, hotter and more voracious than before.

“Icefire,” one of the new sidhe-seers muttered grimly as she pushed past me. “It can only be made by an Unseelie prince.”

How did they know this stuff? Jada’s sidhe-seers were ten times more knowledgeable and well trained than ours. Thanks to Rowena, who’d only permitted a select few into select few libraries, the bitch. Obviously, in other countries, they were actually allowed to read the ancient texts and legends. I narrowed my eyes. “You think Cruce…?” I trailed off.

“Must’ve. Unless new princes have already replaced those slain. It can only be put out by an Unseelie prince,” she tossed over her shoulder. “You wouldn’t happen to know where we might find one of those, would you? One that’s not the current repository for the Sinsar Dubh? Oh, wait, you are, too,” she spat.

I ignored it. As a matter of fact, I did know where to find an Unseelie prince. In the dungeon of Chester’s.

And one of the Nine owed me a favor.

And there were sifters out there in battle, and the Nine could take one alive.

I turned and raced back out into the night.

When I returned from Chester’s with a pissed-off Lor and a seething Christian, the battle was over.

Not won—far from won. Just over.

The sidhe-seers had rapidly realized nothing they did affected the fire and returned to the front where they could at least prevent the burning abbey from being invaded. The Fae had retreated but I knew they’d be back. The abbey was ablaze in three wings, with the enchanted, blue-black fire shooting into the sky, and I had no doubt the Fae believed our fortress would be ash by dawn.

“Icefire,” I told Christian. “Only an Unseelie prince can put it out.”

He smiled bitterly, unfurling his wings. “Aye, lass, I’ve seen it before,” he said, his eyes strange and remote, and I knew he was remembering something from his time in the Silvers, or perhaps his time on the cliff with the Hag. Perhaps he’d explored his forbidden powers in a way I was afraid to. Tried to create something to warm himself, trapped in the Unseelie prison, who could say. All I knew was, he was here and knew what it was, and maybe parts of the abbey could be salvaged.

He sifted out abruptly.

Movement near the entrance caught my attention.

I turned to look and gasped.

Ryodan stood in the doorway, stumbling then catching himself on the jamb, so badly burned I couldn’t comprehend how he was even staying upright.

He was a mass of red, weeping blistered skin, blackened flesh, with charred bits of fabric falling off him as he stood.

Jada was motionless, tossed over a badly burned shoulder.

My heart nearly stopped.

“Is she okay? Tell me, is she okay?” I cried.

“Goddamn,” he croaked, swaying in the doorway. He coughed long and deep, an agonizingly wet sound, as if parts of his lungs were coming up. “Relative.” He coughed thickly again.

“What about Shazam? Did you get Shazam?” I said urgently. I couldn’t bear the thought of Jada suffering one more loss. Again I wondered who Shazam was, where he or she had come from, why Jada had never mentioned this person.

“Relative,” he croaked again, and I stared at him, realizing the invincible Ryodan was having a hard time functioning and something had stunned him so completely he was as close to utterly blank as I’d ever felt myself. The look in his eyes was wild. Hunted. Haunted.

Then Lor was gently taking Jada from his arms, cradling her against his chest, and I was relieved to see, except for her singed clothing and charred hair, she seemed virtually unburned. I moved in for a closer look at her face. It was wet, tear-stained. She looked so young, so fragile, her eyes closed, like a child. Without her eternal cool mask, I could see Dani in her features much more clearly. She appeared unconscious, limp, but barely touched by fire, and as Ryodan staggered and I saw the rest of his brutally burned body, I realized he must have used himself as her shield, no doubt whirling around her like a small protective tornado, burning himself, front, back, and sides, so she would remain unscathed while she searched for her friend.

“Where is Shazam?” I said again, swallowing a sudden lump in my throat. It was only the two of them. No one else had made it out.

Ryodan’s eyes were slits, his lids blistered, eyes glittering, seeping bloody liquid, and I held my breath, waiting for his answer. I wondered if he needed to change to heal. I wondered if he was dying and I should get him out of here fast, before he disappeared in front of everyone.

He sighed, another awful gurgling sound, and lifted a melted mess of a hand that was clutching a charred object from which white stuffing exploded.

“Ah, Christ, Mac,” he whispered, and blood gushed from his mouth.

He collapsed to his knees and I raced to his side to catch him, but he roared with agony when I touched him. I yanked my hands quickly away and took charred flesh with them.

As he fell to the ground and rolled over on his side, he convulsed with pain. “She went back in there for this, Mac.” He thrust it at me.

“I don’t understand,” I said wildly. “That doesn’t make any sense. What the fuck is that?” I knew what it was. I wanted him to tell me I was wrong.

“What the fuck do you think? A goddamned stuffed animal.”