“I don’t know what you’re planning or what you think I can help you with, but I’m not going to do it.” He spat out the words. “You can kill me if you want, but I’m not going to help you. Not after what you’ve done.”

His gaze dropped to Jillian’s body, and his mouth twisted with anger, regret, and sorrow. I wondered if it was for me—or her.

Clementine smiled. “Sure you will. Because if you don’t, I’ll have my boys shoot people until you change your mind. And just to speed things along, they’ll start with that pretty little sister of yours.”

She jerked her head, and Dixon waded into the crowd, grabbed Eva’s arm, and hauled her upright. Phillip, Roslyn, and Finn surged to their feet as well, but Phillip was the quickest. He yanked Eva out of the giant’s grasp and put himself in front of her before stepping forward and slamming his fist into Dixon’s face. I heard the sharp, satisfying snap of the blow all the way up on the balcony. Dixon staggered back, blood pouring out of his broken nose and leaving garish streaks on his orange skin.

“You bastard!” Dixon screamed, blood spewing out of his mouth too. “I’ll kill you for that!”

Phillip growled and lunged forward, his fingers curved into claws like he wanted to rip out the giant’s throat with his bare hands. That made two of us. But another giant came in on Phillip’s blind side and pistol-whipped him across the face before he could get his hands on Dixon. But Phillip was strong, thanks to his mysterious giant and dwarven parentage, and the blow only rocked him back instead of knocking him into next week. He shook it off and started forward again—

Click.

The distinctive sound made Phillip draw up short of tackling the giant who’d hit him. He whirled around and realized the same thing I did, that Clementine now had her gun leveled at Owen’s head.

“Stop,” she commanded. “Or I might just decide that I don’t need Mr. Grayson after all.”

A hard knot of fear clogged my throat, choking me, but I immediately reached for my Ice magic, ready to blast Clementine with it. The giant was about fifty feet away from me, with Owen standing in front of her, but I wasn’t about to let her shoot him. I’d find some way to stop her with my magic or my knives or something, anything—anything—to save Owen.

But I didn’t have to. Phillip cursed, but he slowly lowered his hands to his sides and stepped away from the giant.

“Good boy,” Clementine said, and dropped her gun from Owen’s face.