“Use it!” he yelled to me, before turning to avoid the downward thrust of a dagger.

If the fairy understood what the scarlet shade of my eyes meant, he didn’t mention it. And he didn’t wait for me. He advanced, horn-handled blade held aloft and ready to strike.

“I guess we’re skipping the preliminaries,” I said, and met his blade with mine. He was strong, and the force rattled my bones nearly as effectively as the magic.

I lunged forward at the fairy, blade raised, and sliced a line of red across his shoulder as he pivoted away. He screamed with pain and stabbed out again, the tip of his blade catching the edge of my hip and sending searing heat through my abdomen.

Together we pushed forward and swung our katana, tearing skin and muscle across the fairy’s calf and sending him to the ground.

Part of me was afraid. Part of me was thrilled.

Another fairy came toward us, and we spun the katana and sent the man sprawling to the ground.

“LSD is back!” said the voice reporting through my comm. “United Center is stuttering.”

“No!”

The scream was sharp and shrill. I glanced over, saw a fairy with his blade at the neck of an officer he’d grabbed from behind. The fairy slit the officer’s throat and let him drop to the ground. Then he looked up and met my gaze. He was the fairy who’d killed Tomas, who’d held the knife on me.

He turned to run and saw a woman at the edge of the park, a human who hadn’t relocated or who’d come back to see what was becoming of her city, camera aimed at the unfolding drama.

“Stop!” I screamed.

He grabbed her, started running, dragging her along. So I ran, too.

“Elisa!” I heard Connor’s voice behind me as I darted toward the edge of the park.

The ground rumbled beneath me. A hill of grass bubbled up, disappeared, then bubbled up again as the masters fought for superiority.

The woman screamed, and I ran harder, but the fairy was fast.

The hill just got larger, the grass spreading as Aqua shrank and disappeared beneath a carpet of stone and sky. And then the stones rose, a dozen of them. Four feet wide and growing taller with each second, atop the mound where humans had once lived.

The fairy spun, tried to avoid them, came face-to-face with a new stone. He turned around, his back to it, his thin fingers around the wrist of the screaming woman.

“Let her go.”

The fairy looked back at me, eyes all but spitting with rage. “Bloodletter,” he muttered.

“Let her go,” I said as we swung the katana. “Or learn what a bloodletter is.”

His eyes narrowed. He shoved her behind him but kept a grip on her wrist, the blade—still scented with human blood—in his free hand.

“I see what you are,” he said, and sliced forward. But he was literally fighting with one hand behind his back, and it was an easy dodge.

I grabbed his wrist, twisted until he dropped the knife, and loosened his hold on the woman. She skittered back.

He kicked, caught the back of my knee, and sent me sprawling. I grabbed a tuft of grass to keep from falling down the hill, and when he lunged again, I lifted my katana. He spun across it, ripping a wound across his abdomen, then fell to the ground and rolled down the hill.

And then he was still.

Chest heaving, I looked back at the human, could feel the monster looking, watching, through my eyes. “Are you all right?”

The human screamed. “Don’t touch me! You’re as crazy as he is!” She scrambled to her feet and ran down the hill.

I sat there for a moment, dew seeping through the knees of my jeans.

Connor strode toward me. “Lis! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I took the hand he offered and climbed to my feet. “The human saw what I am.”

He glanced at her disappearing form, then back at me. His expression was flat. “You put your life on the line because the fairy would have killed her. And instead of thanking you, she insulted you. She’s the monster. Not you.”

I didn’t have time to argue. And I had only a moment to look down, to realize where we stood, when the world began to shift again.

The soft hill grew harder, and we rose so quickly my ears popped, like a phoenix hurtling toward the stars on feathers of steel and glass.

We came to a bouncing stop on a thin strip of concrete between waving balconies on the Aqua building.

There was a scream, and then Connor disappeared over the edge.

* * *

• • •

  The world went silent except for the roar of blood in my ears. The world went still except for the hot pulse of fear that twisted my gut.

“Connor!” I screamed, dropping to my knees. I caught the edge of fingers gripping the six-inch-wide lip of concrete.

His face was a study in focus and concentration, his gaze on his fingers as his body dangled four hundred feet above the street below.

He grunted, and I went down on my stomach, wedged one foot into the railing on the edge of the next apartment’s balcony and prayed the railing would hold. “Don’t you dare fall, because I am not breaking that news to the Pack.”

His forehead was beaded with sweat, muscles corded with effort. “And you’d have to live without my charm and devastatingly good looks.”

I blew out a breath between pursed lips. “The world would probably stop turning.

“On three,” I said. “We’re going to pull like there’s no tomorrow. One . . . two . . . three!”

I pulled and he heaved, turning as he lunged over the edge and landed on top of me.

His body above mine, we both hovered on the two-foot wide strip of concrete, with moonlight and darkness below us.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” I said.

“Shut up, brat.”

And then his hand was at my neck and his mouth was on mine, his lips insistent, his body hard and hot above mine. Heat and magic rose so quickly, surrounded me so completely, that I gasped against his mouth . . . and then tunneled my fingers through his hair and pulled him closer.

His groan was masculine, satisfied, possessive. “Lis,” he said quietly, before ravaging my mouth again.

When my body was warm and my lips were swollen, Connor pulled back, and the chill that replaced his mouth was equally startling, even though his lips hovered just above mine.

And in his eyes was surprise . . . and certainty.

I didn’t dare move, uncertain whether he’d let me go—or whether I wanted him to.

“Um, hello?”

We both looked over at the woman who stood on the balcony, eyes wide as she stared down at us. “Do you . . . Maybe you need help getting down?”

* * *

• • •

The woman’s name was Jolie Brennan, and she’d decided not to evacuate. She’d been mightily surprised to learn her condo had become a rolling hill, and we’d been grateful when we were able to slip inside the condo and take the elevator back to the ground.

Or Connor had been. I’d been a little disappointed that I wouldn’t get to jump.

When we finally made our way back outside, some of the fairies were being restrained and dragged into buses that lined the edge of the park. The CPD and supernaturals were being treated for their injuries.

Petra and Theo sat on the grass, and they climbed to their feet as we limped toward them.

“You okay?” Theo asked.

“We’re good,” I said.

I looked around at the park. Trees had been toppled, boulders were plentiful as thorns, and there was a long line of cracked and scorched earth above what I assumed was the route of the ley lines. Claudia stood near it, her expression defiant but sadness lining her eyes. She’d been betrayed by her people, or at least some of them. She’d be escorted back to the castle, where I guess she’d see what there was to rebuild of her community.

“Ruadan?” I asked, since I didn’t see him.

“Claudia imprisoned him in the green land,” Petra said. “He’ll live there, alone, for the rest of his natural life.”

“Cut off from her and the rest of them,” Connor said. “No one to fight for him, or stroke his ego. He won’t like that one little bit.”

No, he wouldn’t. It was a fitting punishment that he’d probably see as a victory, at least for a little while.

Gabriel walked over, looked at his son, at me. “You both look solid.”