“Your attempt to play on my sense of competition failed, so you will now appeal to a stronger motivation: my sense of self-preservation. You’re holding a gun on me. You’ll threaten to pull that trigger unless I reach over and . . . strangle him? Yes, I suppose that would work best, though I’d need to remove the bandages first, so my fingerprints will be on his neck, leaving no doubt that I killed him.”

A short laugh. “If you really expect me to believe you’ll give in that easily, you think me a fool, boy. You would kill him to save yourself, but the prospect of life in jail is going to give you pause. No, you’re stalling, waiting for . . .”

Tristan swung on me, poised at the top of the ladder. He pointed the gun. “You both think you’re clever, but you’re still human. There are limits and—”

Gabriel sprang—his leg obviously not as bad as he’d pretended. He snatched the gun from Tristan’s hand. “No, I don’t believe there are limits. Not to fae arrogance, that is.”

Tristan laughed. “Do you think that will hurt me? Go ahead. Shoot. See what happens.”

“Nothing,” Gabriel said. “My goal was simply to stop you from pointing it at her.”

I lunged and buried my blade between Tristan’s shoulders. We both went down, me on him.

“That won’t kill you, either,” I said. “But it will slow you down. Particularly with this.” I rammed a nail into the hole. He snarled and bucked.

“Iron,” I said. “Again, it won’t kill you. But there is a grain of truth in the lore.” I leaned over to his ear. “I had a little chat with someone about spriggans today. He wouldn’t tell me how to kill fae—probably afraid I’d use it on him—but he did tell me how to incapacitate one. Cold-forged iron. Or regular iron inserted under the skin. Seems to work quite well.”

“You two do love to talk, don’t you?” Tristan snarled under me.

“It’s genetic. So let’s keep talking. Yes, the Tylwyth Teg would suspect the Cwn Annwn killed James and framed Gabriel, but that’s complicated. Having Gabriel kill Ricky is a much better guarantee of chaos. So why start with James?”

“I’m sure I had a reason,” Tristan said. “Or perhaps someone else did. Someone with a slightly different agenda. Someone whose allegiance I could use.”

“Pamela.”

I didn’t think before I said her name. It just came out, and as soon as I heard it, I expected him to laugh. Which he did. But it was not the laugh I wanted to hear.

“Pamela?” He feigned shock. “Your sweet, wrongly accused, deeply devoted mother? Whatever would make you say that?”