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I don’t think so.

“If he wants a war,” I say, looking around at our friends, all of whom look like they’ve been to hell and back, “then we’ll bloody well give him a war.”

“With eleven of us?” Liam asks incredulously.

“Yeah, with eleven of us,” I tell him.

“We’ve beat bad odds before,” Mekhi says.

“There are bad odds, and then there are everyone’s-going-to-die odds.” Rafael speaks up for the first time.

“Maybe that’s true. But dear old Dad miscalculated this time,” I say.

“And how’s that exactly?” Macy asks.

“He didn’t kill us on that island,” Jaxon finishes for me as he, too, looks everyone in the eye individually. “And now we’re coming for him.”

“So, what?” Eden asks. “We’re just going to bring this fight to him?”

“We’re going to bring it to his motherfucking door,” Jaxon says. “And then we’re going to burn his shit to the ground.”

“You need her.”

I turn at the tremulous voice to find the guy who used to be the Unkillable Beast staring at us with anxious eyes. “She can save us. You need her.”

“Who?” Macy asks, walking toward him slowly so as not to scare him.

“She can save us,” he repeats.

“Who?” Macy asks again.

He points to Grace, or more specifically, Grace’s hand. “Her. Her. Her.” And then he turns to stone. And, not going to lie, didn’t see that coming. Just great.

As everyone mills around, trying to figure out who “her” is and if there’s another gargoyle around, I can’t help thinking that I need to talk to Grace. Because if this is going the way I think it is—which is straight to hell—it’s probably time I tell her what I saw that night in the laundry room all those weeks ago.

I think it’s time I tell her about her emerald-green string.


END OF BOOK THREE