Time slowed down, for me and him. That’s the only explanation I can come up with. Because I watched everything unfold with crystal, perfect clarity, even though so many things were happening at once that there’s no way a normal human mind could have observed them all.

Beyond the reach of my aura of projected love, the Shield’s soldiers had raised their guns. They saw how he and I were locked in a trance together; they thought—correctly—that I was enchanting him; they were ready to kill me to save their leader. Ash’s eyes were on me, wide with terror. Convinced she was about to watch me die.

All hell had broken loose in the crowd, and people had run screaming from the spray of gunfire they believed to be imminent.

But the men with guns had stopped. Frozen. Their fingers hovered in midair, millimeters from the triggers.

The ground trembled. Trembled again. In that moment a roar split the air. Like an elephant’s trumpet and a tiger’s snarl, tapering off into a wolf’s howl. A shriek not of anger but of power, of confidence. An animal who was not afraid of anything on Earth.

People screamed. Pointed. The Shield stood motionless, his head turned in the direction of the roar. All his anger and rage and violence held back for a few slim seconds by the love that bound me to him.

The Earth shook. Like distant thunderclaps, one after another—boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! It shook the teeth in my gums. There was a sound of ripping.

Time sped back up.

A white blur tore through the old movie screen with one clawed foot. Something massive. Something with eyes like storms and teeth like nightmares. Something most citizens of Darkside spent their whole lives praying to get a glimpse of. It stomped through the rip and roared again.

Queen Carmen’s white Tyrannosaurus rex.

I thought, It worked, Ash. You did it. You reached her.

Soldiers and peasants and prosperous merchants all fell to their knees and pressed their foreheads to the ground. Like thousands of dominoes falling in quick succession. The tyrannosaur stood fifty feet from me, and I realized—she wasn’t albino at all. She did have pigment: a marbling of purple along her spine, fractal spirals tapering down her sides. Queen Carmen looked unstoppable in the saddle.

Inches from where my hands were pressed against the ground, a foot as wide as a tree trunk smashed into the floor. The tyrannosaur came to a stop, tail whipping around for balance. All the men and women with guns ran away screaming.

Only the Shield and Ash and Connor and Niv and I remained, frozen in place, and only for an instant more. Fear and awe overwhelmed me, at the presence of this magnificent monster. Fear and awe crowded out every other emotion, including love. Released from my crippling bond, the Shield turned to flee.