I tossed the bucket aside and reached down again. This time, my hand closed around a paintbrush with a thick handle. I snapped the brush down at an angle on the edge of the table, causing the wood to crack on a diagonal and giving me a sharp point to work with instead of just a blunt block of wood.

The giant reached for me again, and I buried the daggerlike tip of the paintbrush in his throat. The wood wasn’t nearly as sharp as one of my knives, but I kept sawing it in deeper and deeper, and the giant quickly started backing away from me instead of surging forward.

I didn’t let him.

I held on to the end of the paintbrush and followed him, still twisting the wooden point into his body. When his legs finally started to buckle, I ripped the wood out of his throat and drove the point through his right eye, causing him to topple to one side.

He was dead before he hit the floor, but I was already moving, moving, moving toward the third and final man.

“You bitch!” he growled.

The last man had a gun too, which he immediately turned in my direction. But the giant had forgotten that Owen was also still in the vault—and holding a burning welder’s torch. Owen reached up, grabbed the giant’s shoulder, and shoved the concentrated flame into the back of the giant’s head. His hair went up in a whoosh of smoke, and the acrid smell of charred flesh flooded the vault. The giant forgot all about shooting me. Instead, he screamed and batted at Owen, trying to push him away. I grabbed my knives from the floor, and a blade to the giant’s heart ended his struggles and misery.

I stood there, a knife in either hand, breathing hard and trying to suck down as much oxygen as I could and push away the dull, pulsing pain of the fight. Owen slowly lowered the torch and turned it off.

We stared at each other, blood everywhere, three dead giants at our feet, the air hot, thick, and caustic with the stench of melted metal, burnt hair, and singed skin. Not exactly a romantic reunion, but I’d take what I could get, especially since we’d both survived the fight.

“Gin?” Owen whispered, his face white and tight with shock. “Is that really you?”

I grinned. “Isn’t all the blood a dead giveaway?”

“But I thought . . . in the rotunda . . . the body . . .” His voice trailed off, as if the words choked him.

I shook my head.

He looked at my ruined dress, and understanding flashed in his violet eyes. I kept staring at him, wondering what he was thinking, what he was feeling now that he knew I was still alive.

Without a word, Owen stepped forward, dragged me into his arms, bloody knives and all, and crushed his mouth to mine.

Chapter 16

16