By “kingdom,” I assumed she meant the green land.

“How are you under our thumb?” I asked, stepping backward. She was moving me closer to the wall, and I was fine with letting her believe she was controlling my retreat.

“Bloodletters rule Chicago,” she said, a corner of her mouth lifting.

“Humans rule Chicago. Mayor, city council, population.”

“They’re manipulated by vampires. Controlled by bloodletters.”

“That’s absolutely incorrect.” If it had been true, I’d be giving Yuen directions, not the other way around.

My back hit the wall, and her smile grew wider.

“A brave little vampire to walk in here, but not brave enough to fight?”

The anger that flooded me pushed the monster forward. Maybe I should give it a chance, I thought. Give it an opportunity to fight and play.

So I let the monster step into me, and I slid back inside and watched it happen.

I pivoted, pushed a foot against the wall, flipped backward over the fairy. She turned, her breath a shocked exhalation, and watched me land to face her again.

“Some skills,” I said, smiling fiercely. The monster moved forward with a right hook the fairy didn’t manage to avoid, then an uppercut to the jaw that snapped the fairy’s head back. She roared in pain, and it took her a moment to find her balance again.

The monster wasn’t interested in waiting, and advanced. A kick to move the fairy backward, to give the fairy her turn against the wall. And then the real work began.

Punches to the gut, the jaw. A kick to the ribs, then another. The fairy tried to get a foot between mine, to twist me up and bring me down, but I managed to stay on my feet. A jab that knocked her head back.

The fairy’s head bobbled, and she fell to her knees. But that didn’t stop the monster. Not even when the fairy’s eyes rolled back. One kick to the ribs, then two, then another.

“Elisa.”

Chicago didn’t belong to fairies or vampires. It belonged to the Egregore, and the fairies didn’t have a right to destroy it.

“Elisa. Stop!”

Theo’s hand gripped tightly around my arm, and he yanked me away. I stumbled, also not quite solid on my feet, and had to bend over, hands on my knees, to keep bile from rising.

“I’m all right,” I said, and held up a hand to keep him back. “Give me a minute.”

Go back, I willed it, demanded, but the monster fought me, waves of anger and aggression spearing forward. I closed my eyes, had to concentrate fiercely to keep my stomach from heaving and my mind in place. To take back control and keep it in my hands.

This was a price of the power. The monster didn’t like being pushed back down again, into the place where it had to question its own existence.

When the nausea passed, I stood up again, glanced back.

The fairy was on the ground, unconscious. Her right eye swollen and dark, her lip bleeding, but her chest rising and falling.

I hadn’t killed her. While I understood death, and understood now that it was inevitable in war, I found that to be a relief.

My hands stung with pain. I looked down, found the knuckles battered and bleeding. But I was a vampire, and the wounds would heal quickly enough.

“Are you okay?” Theo asked. The look on his face said he genuinely wasn’t sure.

“I’m fine.” I looked back, found the fairy he’d also knocked unconscious.

That made me feel so much better, it nearly brought tears to my eyes.

“We need to get Claudia out of here,” Theo said, and I nodded.

“I’ll get the door,” I said, and took his hand when he offered one, pulled me to my feet.

Theo went to Claudia. I went to the small lobby and found the front door barred from the inside. I pulled up the long piece of steel, tossed it aside, turned deadbolts in the rotting wood, and pushed the door open.

The wash of fresh air, of air that was mostly free of magic, felt glorious.

“Cadogan House is closer than the Ombuds’ office,” I said as Theo carried Claudia through. “And we’ve got a doctor.”

“Then that’s where we’ll go. You’d better make the call.”

“Car first,” I said, and glanced back. “Just in case they wake up sooner than we’d like.”

* * *

• • •

The green land hadn’t diminished. But it hadn’t grown, either.

The United Center was still a field of grass, although now with CPD cruisers running crime-scene tape and barricades around Chicago’s newest park. I gave credit to Yuen for moving quickly.

As we drove by, I regretted for an instant that I hadn’t had a chance to walk through it, to see what the fairies’ land really looked like from the inside. Even as I knew that anything touched by fairy hands was dangerous—tricky and seductive and usually a trap for the unwary.

“Would you like to tell me about your . . . skills?”

The question jerked me from my reverie. Theo said the word with uncertainty, as if he wasn’t entirely committed to the idea it was a blessing, and not a curse.

“No,” I said.

I could feel his gaze on me for a moment. “Okay,” he finally said. “It’s useful, for what it’s worth. And I don’t think anyone would fault you that.”

Maybe. Maybe not. But this wasn’t the time to debate it. “I’m going to call the House,” I said, and pulled out my screen.

“Elisa,” my father answered.

“I need a favor.”

There was a heavy pause, and I could only guess at the questions he was asking himself.

“What do you need?”

Rain or shine, he was reliable. “Theo and I are en route. If you could have the garage open and meet us there, that would be best.”

“What are you doing?”

“You’re not going to like it,” I said. “So it’s best if we deal with it when we get there. Bring Delia, if she’s available.” Delia was the House doctor.

“Elisa—”

“I need you to trust me on this. I won’t do anything to harm Cadogan. But we need help.”

There was a pause.

“We’ll be waiting,” he said, and hung up.

I glanced back at Claudia, still unconscious on the backseat, realized there might not be enough macaroni drawings in the world to make up for this one.

* * *

• • •

The gate lifted when we drove up to it, the door into the basement garage sliding open. Theo drove down into the House, then into a space near the door where my father, my mother, and Kelley waited for us. She opened the door for Theo, and he lifted Claudia into his arms.

“Jesus,” my father said, brow furrowed as Theo carried her to the door that Kelley rushed to pull open.

She was still limp, hair cascading nearly to the floor. And she looked worse in the fluorescent lights, dark shadows beneath her eyes, a bruise across her jaw, and a paleness to her skin that rivaled vampires’.

“Second parlor,” my father said, and I pointed Theo toward the stairs. We followed him up, then into the pretty sitting room, where vampires scooted out of the way to give him the couch. Theo placed her down, then stepped back into the foyer, where we watched her warily.

“Yuen’s not here yet?” he asked.

“He’s on his way,” my father said. “Stuck in traffic.”

“Delia’s on her way, too,” Kelley said. “She was at the hospital.”

In the meantime, my mother stepped forward, checked Claudia’s temperature, her pulse. “Alive, but unconscious. I really don’t know how much we can do for her outside the castle. Her power, her magic, is tied to place.”

“She was at the church?” my father asked.

“She was,” Theo said, arms crossed as he looked down at Claudia. “Guarded by two fairies. She was bound, unconscious.”

“And the fairies?” my father asked, the tension clear in his voice.

“Alive,” Theo said. “But displeased.”

My father nodded.

“Ruadan did this,” I explained. “He wanted to get her out of the way in order to bring their kingdom back.”

“Their kingdom?” my mother asked.

“The green land,” Theo said.