She wasn’t about to let anyone else be driven to madness by mind magic, and if the Loj had gotten ahold of Rishiya, too, then they didn’t have time to spare. Tavia had seen what this sort of thing did to people. She had seen the first iterations of the Loj—the experiments, Ashwood had called them—disguised as a magic sickness, infecting countless people in the slums of Creije.

She had started this battle because she couldn’t bear to see that happen to another family like it had to hers.

“You want me to draw you a map of the supply chain?” Nolan asked. “Why don’t you just ask your underboss about it?”

Tavia paled. “What do you know about Wesley?”

“From what I hear, Wesley Thornton Walcott is standing by the Kingpin’s side, as loyal as always.”

Tavia snarled at him and the knife felt suddenly so light in her hands. “Wesley wouldn’t betray us,” she said.

He wouldn’t betray me, she thought.

Nolan’s sneer was unbearably arrogant. “When the time comes, Dante Ashwood and your precious underboss are going to take this realm and kill anyone who gets in their way.”

Tavia punched him.

She hadn’t even wanted to, but the action was instinctive and before she knew what she was doing she’d raised her fist high in the air and brought it down straight onto Nolan’s nose.

His head ricocheted back and hit the forest floor, blood spurting from his hateful face. Tavia’s hands shook and she felt the anger lessen inside her, just a little, but not nearly enough.

The buskers laughed and one of them stepped forward and kicked Nolan in the ribs. Then another. One of them bent down to punch him. A fourth stomped on his knee and it was only when Nolan screamed out that Tavia held up her hand.

“Stop,” she said.

Though she wasn’t sure she wanted them to.

The buskers stepped back.

“You have one chance to save your life,” she told Nolan. “And you’re really starting to push it.”

Nolan shoved himself up from the dirt and clutched at his ribs. He looked newly sobered. “Just kill me and be done with it,” he said. “That’s what you lot are planning on, no matter what I do.”

“Actually, it’s not,” Tavia said. “You were right before, back in the city, when you said I wouldn’t kill you.”

The buskers beside her shifted at this revelation.

“But there are things I can do to you that would be far worse than death,” she said.

The buskers’ smirks returned and Tavia flung her arms out to gesture to them.