“Sionnach?” Carissa called. “Are you here? I got your message.”

He didn’t answer, and Maili grinned cruelly. Two of her lackeys came to stand on either side of the mortal girl. Carissa didn’t see them either. She was a pawn to Maili, nothing more than an object to force his hand. The boy was killed to set the stage, to clarify the threat to Carissa that Maili wanted Sionnach to understand.

Sionnach didn’t move away from the boy; he couldn’t without revealing him. His tail flicked wildly as he ordered, “You’ve made your point. Leave her alone.”

“For tonight,” Maili agreed. “But I haven’t made my point, not yet.”

He felt the wound that followed her words almost before he realized what was happening. Maili swung her arm up and slashed across Sionnach’s chest with her carved bone knife.

“They are a distraction, Sionnach. You were so busy watching her and hiding him that you didn’t see the real danger, the danger to a faery.” Maili unwrapped a rusty iron quad-pronged thing, and before he could reply, she jabbed it into his stomach. “Faeries have no business worrying about mortals.”

Maili didn’t pull the weapon out of his stomach. She just let go. Sionnach stared at it, trying to determine the best next step. The pain was excruciating enough that he felt separate from himself, as if he weren’t exactly anchored within his body.

Maili swallowed audibly before she said, “Power, strength, that’s what gives you voice. You are weakening because of her, because of Rika’s influence.”

There was no help for it. Sionnach fell, but he didn’t crumple or cry out. He hadn’t become Alpha in this territory without learning to hide his pain. In a sort of slow-motion tilt, he let himself fall back against the wall, and then he slid down so he was reclining in the dirty street. “That was really foolish.”

“Smart, actually. It’s iron, Sionnach. Rusty bits of poison just broke off inside your body. The others will see you like this, an example of what happens when I’m not obeyed.” Maili sounded weak, shivery with either the pain of her own contact with the iron or the fear of what she had just done. She glanced at her hand. In that brief contact, it was already bruised and had raised welts from gripping the vile metal. “You’ve forgotten what you are, and I need you out of my way.”