But Jada said nothing and moved away for a time, and I lost her then, as she vanished into the battle to spread the word to her women, and no doubt verify for herself these beasts I’d brought were indeed allies and indeed capable of the impossible.

I devolved into a killing machine, understanding the purity Jada and Barrons found in the act.

Here, in war, life was simple. There were good guys and bad guys. Your mission was also simple: kill the bad ones. No facade of civility required. No complex social rules. There are few moments when life is so uncomplicated and straightforward. It’s disconcertingly appealing.

Eventually I found myself near the front entrance and Jada was there, with several of the Nine in beast form, snarling around her, helping block the door to the abbey.

Ryodan and Lor were there as well, both in human skins, vanishing, reappearing, sticking close.

I snorted. Ryodan thought of everything. Some of the Nine would show their faces, and others would be “off on some mission-thingie.” Great minds think alike.

Around us, the Fae were beginning to fall back. It was one thing to march in to free a prince, but few of them were willing to sacrifice their immortality to do it. Humans could be motivated to fight to the death, protecting the future for their children, defending the old and weak. We’re capable of patriotism, sacrificing for the long-term survival of our progeny and well-being of our world.

But not the Fae. They had no future generations, cared little for others of their kind, and had a serious aversion to parting with their arrogant, self-indulgent lives.

I warily dialed my sidhe-seer senses to a distant, muted station, in no mood to be assaulted by the cacophony of so many jarring melodies.

As I suspected, there was strong discord spreading through our enemy. Some in the outer ranks were loping away, others, near the center, were fighting their way free to do the same.

This was not a focused army. They were stragglers from here and there, unled, un-united. They might have come pursuing a common goal but with no more fully formed plan of attack than frontal assault. And that assault was getting them killed. Permanently.

I sighed, knowing even if the Fae pulled out right now, darkness would soon come crashing down and some would try again. They would launch better attacks, stealthier, more focused and brutal. The news was out: the legendary Prince Cruce was trapped beneath our abbey.

A sudden explosion behind me nearly took me off my feet, and a spray of glass rained down on my back.

“Fire!” someone screamed. “The abbey’s on fire!”

My head whipped around just as another explosion rocked the abbey.

33

“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.