“Like I didn’t matter when you stuck me here as bait?” she asked. “I’m not you. And you do matter.” Claire felt the pressure of Hannah’s stare, suddenly, from the corner, as if Hannah was trying to tell her something. Something silent, yet important.

All of a sudden Claire realized what it was. This hadn’t been quite so stupid an idea after all.

If they could pull it off.

She took a step back, toward the hall. Magnus pushed Myrnin ahead of him, following her. “Drop the weapon,” he said again. “Submit. It will be quick.”

“Like last time?” Claire said. “Didn’t really enjoy that. And I’m not doing it again.” She felt giddily like she was channeling Shane now, or maybe Eve. God, she wished they were here. Wished she had people she could trust at her back. “No second dates for you.” She took another step back. Another.

Magnus followed, and showed Hannah his back.

And Hannah pulled out a plastic bag full of white powder, opened it, and flung the contents straight at him.

Magnus dived away at the last second, but part of the powder hit him. He let go of Myrnin and shrieked as the stuff settled on his shoulder and turned gray, leaching away his vital moisture. It was the same scream his spawn had given, but deeper, longer, and louder. Claire yelled herself and tried not to drop the shotgun; the urge to stop up her ears was almost overwhelming. Myrnin lunged away, toward Claire, grabbed the shotgun from her hands as he spun gracefully around her.

“Surprise,” he said, and gave Magnus a savage grin. “You’re not as invisible when you’re hurt.”

The silver pellets hit Magnus squarely in the chest and tore through him, splintering wood and fabric and wall, breaking the window.

But it didn’t work. The shotgun didn’t work.

The powder didn’t take him down. Neither did the silver pellets.

Magnus was still coming.

“God help us all. Go,” Myrnin said softly and shoved Claire into the hall. “Run!”

She ran.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

OLIVER

I felt Amelie’s hand tighten on mine, and looked up to see her watching me. Her eyes were no longer her own—still gray, but a muddy, watery gray, not the shining steel that they had always been.

She was drowning just as surely as the draug’s other victims, but this was somehow even worse than what I had expected. She was trapped within the prison of her own body, drowning in her own extracted and infected fluids. Nothing I could do for her would save her.

“You need more blood,” I said, and bared my wrist, but she shook her head.

“It only feeds the other side now. Oliver, I can’t. I can’t hold.”

“You must,” I said.

“Kill me or go. You have whatever’s left of my city to protect. My people.” For a moment, the queen was there, gazing at me, her vassal. “You will save them, Oliver. You must. No matter the cost. Do you understand?”