Across the backyard, the gate to the street was flung open, crashing into the wall with a sodden thump. Ceri was standing in the opening, the unpainted wood framing her small stature. Her hair was unbound, and the fair strands almost floated as she strode forward, anger and determination in every tiny-footed step. The woman was seven months pregnant. What in God’s name was she doing here?

“Celero dilatare!” she shouted gleefully, and a black ball of force formed in her hands. Pink lips pulled back in a grimace, she threw it.

“Fire in the hold!” I yelled. Inking, pixies darted up, Ivy lunged to the shelter of the shed, and with a twist of her hand in a ley-line gesture, Ceri exploded her curse right within the greatest gathering of butterfly wings. Crap on toast! I jerked behind the table with Pierce as a black-rimmed wash tinted with blue highlights colored the garden. It pulsed over Pierce’s protective bubble … and was gone. When I looked, Ceri was standing beside the stump while the fairies struggled to regroup, scattered by what I was guessing was just a huge displacement of air. Ceri was calm and satisfied in her white dress trimmed in gold and purple. A bulge showed at her middle as she proudly showed off the life growing within her to Jenks’s daughters, who took time out to feel the soft swelling through her linen dress before going down to slaughter the dazed fairies.

Lee, I thought, giving the man a silent thank-you as I rose to my feet. He must have told her what was going on and she’d left Trent’s compound. She was beautiful in her anger, but I wasn’t sure if it had been a curse or just a strong spell.

“Let me out, Pierce!” Jenks insisted. “Or I’m going to use your nuts for a beanbag chair!”

The bubble vanished, and Jenks darted away shedding hot sparkles.

Ivy’s howl of pain iced through me. Pierce grabbed my arm, and I shoved him off and followed Jenks. The fairies were still trying to regroup. We had taken back a space, slowly widening as Jenks’s kids pressed their advantage and drove them to the graveyard.

Ivy was down on one knee, holding her bicep as she leaned against the shed. I ran to her, hearing Pierce follow as he swore in words that a ten-year-old might use. We both skidded to a stop before her, Ceri right behind us. A green-tinted circle rose up and we were safe again.

“I’m fine. I’m fine!” she almost snarled, her hand coming off her bicep to show a small scratch, the edges red rimmed already and starting to go purple.