He aimed for up under the ribs to the heart, a move he’d no doubt been taught by rote by the mage House’s swordmaster. But the close confines of the coach and my sire’s astonishingly fast reflexes—an arm flung up—deflected the blow. The tip slid into the meat of my sire’s right shoulder.

Pain pierced like steel sliding into my own flesh.

I screamed. A howl rose, shuddering around me and through me: Every creature bound to the Master of the Wild Hunt by blood felt the cut of that blade.

My sire grabbed the blade with his left hand. A clear ichor oozed from his shoulder. The translucent liquid dribbled down the length of the blade. The fingers of my left hand flamed with agony. I was barely holding on with my right, hanging over the abyss.

My sire did not let go of the sword. He raised his right hand to squeeze Vai’s sword arm. Eyes flared with fury, he spoke in a terrifying whisper. “What is done to me, I do to her. That was her cry of agony.”

Vai froze, struck between horror and disbelief. With a single tug, my sire pulled the sword out of his shoulder and shoved the blade against Vai’s throat.

I choked out a wordless cry. The screams and whimpers of the pack echoed me, their pain and my pain churning like so many merging currents until I was almost obliterated. Vai’s hand spasmed on the hilt of the sword as he fought uselessly against the paralysis washing through him.

“It would have gone better for you if you’d stayed amusing. I’d have sheltered you then, at least until next Hallows’ Night. Now you’ve made me angry. I’m throwing you into the pit. No mortal can survive there.”

I struggled to open the latch, but my limbs had no strength. I was as frozen as I had been in my dream. Frost crackled out from the ichor that seeped from my sire’s wounded shoulder, like winter devouring the dying memory of summer. Its lacework beauty ate through the human form my sire had taken. Ice engulfed the interior of the coach, consuming every morsel of space that was not the coach itself. Ice entombed Vai, so cloudy and dense I could see only the line of steel that marked his sword.

Last of all, ice crystals bristled down the length of the latch. With a whimper of fear the outside latch gremlin shut its eyes, leaving me alone in the dark.

9