Xavier nodded. “That it did. Bria and I sniped at the giants from the balcony. Most of them never knew what hit them, and without Clementine around to keep them in line, the rest just panicked. A few bolted out of the entrance, but the others raised their guns and returned fire. But since we had the high ground, we took them out pretty easily. We’d gotten all of them but one, and he waded into the crowd and grabbed a woman to use as a human shield. But Finn grabbed a gun from one of the other giants we’d already killed and took him out.”

An arm circled my shoulders, and I turned to find Finn grinning at me.

“In other words, all’s well that ends well,” he said.

I slipped my arm around his waist, rested my head on his shoulder, and just enjoyed the moment. My friends were all safe and sound, and I’d survived another night, another battle, another enemy intent on killing me.

As we stood there, it slowly dawned on me that I was once again the center of attention. Now that the initial shock of being rescued had worn off, everyone was looking around, seeing who’d survived and who hadn’t. The fact that I was still among the living caused more than a few folks to do a double take, their eyes darting from me to Jillian’s body and back again. Not to mention my ruined dress and how horrible I looked. The murmurs and speculation quickly spread, until it seemed like the only sound in the rotunda was the whisper of my name: Gin . . . Gin . . . Gin . . .

“I hate to say this, but not everyone seems happy that you’re still alive,” Finn said, picking up on the glares coming my way.

“You can’t please everyone,” I drawled. “And you know how much I hate to disappoint our dear friends in the underworld.”

He snorted.

One of Finn’s clients came up to talk to him about what had happened, and Xavier and Roslyn drifted a few feet away, having their own private conversation.

I stayed where I was and kept scanning the room. It took me two minutes to find the person I was searching for: Owen. He stood near the back of the rotunda not too far away from where my family’s runes were. Owen was talking to a dwarf with an unruly head of salt-and-pepper hair. The reddish plaid of the dwarf’s suit jacket matched the rusty color of his eyes. Cooper Stills, the Air elemental blacksmith who was Owen’s mentor and Jo-Jo’s date for the evening.