We wanted Mallory—and her magical know-how—on the ground with us, so Jeff volunteered to stay at Cadogan, futz with the foldouts. Mallory had pretranslated the pages, so he was tasked with rearranging them like puzzle pieces until the magic clicked into place. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it was the best option we had.

With the snow’s melting, the city was humid, but the streets were dry, the night clear. It was a perfect night for a sports car with six hundred horses under the hood. People were wary enough of the dragon that the streets were relatively clear (for Chicago), and we made it downtown in a reasonable amount of time (for Chicago). Still, we avoided main roads and opted for backstreets, and didn’t see a single officer or soldier.

We found them downtown, creating a barrier around Michigan Avenue north of the river, so we parked a few blocks away, met my grandfather in front of the Carbide & Carbon Building, with its dark granite and gold touches that gleamed beneath the streetlights.

“Keep your weapons sheathed,” he said, “and let me do the talking.”

We crossed the bridge to the barricade at Ohio Street, where he communed with the two soldiers stationed behind camouflaged vehicles.

Beyond them, Michigan Avenue had been cleared of vehicles—except for the tank parked in the middle of the avenue a few blocks down, its barrel pointed at the monster that was, sure enough, balanced on a crenelated turret atop the white stone Water Tower. The dragon had found its castle.

He showed his badge, and there was quiet discussion before he gestured to us. Then more discussion, and my grandfather walked back.

“We in?” Catcher asked.

“We are not,” he said, frustration in his eyes. “No supernaturals allowed in the vicinity, for fear that Sorcha will use them as she used the sorcerers last night.”

“Sorcha didn’t use Simpson,” Mallory said. “She bested her.”

“I believe that’s a detail they aren’t currently interested in. Their job is to bring down the dragon, and they’re going to do it the way they know how.”

“They haven’t fired yet,” Ethan said.

“They’re negotiating with Sorcha. They don’t want to start destroying property, and the rounds in that tank will bring down buildings.”

Catcher shook his head. “It won’t work. It’s too much weapon for downtown Chicago. If they’re hoping she has a conscience, or will be moved by that weapon, they’re doomed for disappointment.”

“They have to try,” my grandfather said. “That’s the paradigm—”

His next words were drowned out by the loudest noise I’d ever heard, a boom that echoed all the way down Michigan Avenue and had my heart hammering inside my chest like it was trying to beat its way out.

Smoke poured down the street, along with the sound of falling rocks and glass. Everyone near the barricade went still, staring into the smoke for confirmation that the tank had hit its target.

My ears rang for the five seconds it took for another concussion to rip through the air. By that time, the world was hazy, and we couldn’t see past the end of the block.

There was a thud, the screech of metal, and the whine of something moving toward us.

“Out of the way!” Ethan said, pulling my grandfather and me back as the tank barreled past us, landed upright in the plaza in front of the Tribune building, smoke pouring from the turret.

The dragon had thrown a tank half a mile down Michigan Avenue.

The soldiers at the barricade ran forward to help the soldiers still in the tank, worked to pry open the turret hatch.

“Did the tank miss?” Catcher quietly asked. “Or did that hundred-twenty-millimeter round have no effect?”

When very human screams began to echo through the streets, we decided it wouldn’t matter. Ethan unsheathed his sword, streetlights catching the polished steel.

“There’s a good chance the sword can’t do what a tank can’t do,” my grandfather said as we prepared to help whoever was screaming.

Ethan’s expression was grim. “It’s not for the dragon. It’s for the rider.” He looked at Catcher. “How much magic do you have?”

“I’ve got plenty of energy,” Catcher said. “The question is what to do with it.”

Ethan glanced at Mallory.

“Less energy than he does,” she said. “Last night wore on me. And the same question about what to do with it.”

Ethan nodded. “Go for Sorcha. She can be hit—we saw it last night.”

“And she’s probably even more pissed off.”

“Then maybe she’ll make a mistake,” Ethan said. “Because we could certainly use one.”

My grandfather nodded, looked at me. “Be careful,” he said, then went to talk to the soldiers.

• • •

I’d seen plenty in my year and change as a vampire, death and joy and destruction and rebuilding. But I’d never run through a war zone. I’d never seen Michigan Avenue—the Magnificent Mile—smoking and strewn with gravel and glass, empty of people beneath streetlights.

This is how the world will end, I thought. With destruction and chaos, and except for the screaming of humans we couldn’t yet see through the smoke, a silence that seemed almost impermeable. The Guard had moved in the other direction, chasing the dragon across the city, looking for a better shot; the emergency vehicles hadn’t gotten here yet. There were undoubtedly humans in these buildings—they were full of condos, apartments, hotels. But they’d taken the shelter-in-place order seriously. That, I guessed, was the effect of Towerline.

We were nearly on top of the Water Tower before we could see it—and the thin tower had been toppled like toy blocks. The dragon was gone, but the screams grew louder.

How was it fair to bring a child into this? Into a world that could be so easily broken down, torn apart? Into a world that had been torn apart?

Figures emerged from the haze. Two men and two women working to free a girl from beneath a pile of twisted steel and brick. Either the dragon or the tank had taken out a chunk of the building on the next block up, leaving a ragged hole where the corner of the building had been.

They caught sight of us, gestured us over with waving flashlights. “There’s a kid trapped over here! Can you help?”

“It’s my Taylor,” said an obviously frantic woman, tear tracks in the grime on her face and a squirming white dog in her arms. “We were going to the bomb shelter, like they told us, but Tootsie got loose, and Taylor went after her, and that’s when the bomb went off. She’s in there, somewhere.”

It hadn’t been a bomb. It had been a gun fired by humans to kill a monster they didn’t understand. But that didn’t matter. The girl mattered, so we ran toward the pile, joined the others in moving rocks and shards of glass and steel.

“Let us try,” Ethan said, gesturing to me. “We’ve got the strength.” We handed Catcher our sheathed katanas. “Keep watch,” he told Catcher. “Sorcha’s shown herself to draw us out. She’ll come back, and she’ll be looking for us.”

“Eyes peeled,” Catcher confirmed, turning his back to us and scanning the street.

We climbed onto the pile, rocks shifting beneath us, and began hefting stones away. The stones had been blown apart, the edges as sharp as glass, and shards scraped into tender flesh with each rock we moved. I’d done this before—had dug through rock in darkness to search for Ethan, not sure he’d still been alive.

Now he was my husband, my partner, fighting the good fight on the other side of the rubble pile.

I heard a chirp of sound, turned toward it, climbing across the mound to the spot on the other side.

“Help.” The word was weakly spoken, but it was still a word. Taylor was alive.

“She’s here,” I said, and pulled rocks faster, tossing them behind me onto asphalt already littered with the detritus of battle.

“Taylor!” her mother screamed, going to her knees in the rubble, the dog now in Mallory’s arms. She stretched out an arm, grazed the girl’s hands. “Baby? Can you hear me?”

“I’m stuck!” Taylor said. “I’m okay but I’m stuck. There’s a bar down here. Some kind of big bar on my leg. I can’t get it off.”