It finally occurred to me to get out of the flashy red car that was beginning to attract a dangerous amount of attention, so I sped back to BB&B where I planned to swap it for something nondescript, and figure how to escape the city.

As I turned down the side street leading to the store, I slammed the brakes so hard I nearly gave myself whiplash.

Barrons Books and Baubles was dark!

Completely. It was surrounded by night on all sides.

Every exterior light on the bookstore was out.

I stared blankly. I’d left them all on. I eased off the brake and inched closer. In the gleam of headlights, glass glittered on the cobbled street. The lights weren’t off. Someone had broken them all out, or—considering how high they were mounted—shot them out. Or . . . someone had sent those flying Fae, maybe even Hunters, to do the job. Were they perched up there right now, on the cornices, looming over me? There were so many Fae in the city that my sidhe-sensor felt bombarded, overwhelmed by presences too numerous to count or differentiate. I peered up, but the roof of the store was lost in darkness.

Although the interior lights were on, they were set at the subdued, after-hours level, and what spilled onto the pavement through the beveled glass door and windows was not enough to deter my enemy. One more city block had fallen to the Shades: mine.

Barrons Books and Baubles was part of the Dark Zone.

Would the Shades’ more substantial brethren enter BB&B tonight, smash it up, break out the interior lights, and render it unsalvageable? Could they? I knew Barrons hadn’t warded it against everything, just the bigger risks.

My eyes narrowed. This was unacceptable. The Fae would not take my sanctuary! I would not be turned out into the streets. They would get their nasty, shady petunias out of my territory and they would do it now. I spun in a screech of tires, and drove in the other direction. Four blocks from the Dark Zone’s new perimeter, the mob pushed me back. I floored it in reverse, narrowly missing parked cars, stopping beneath a pool of bright streetlamps. I could hear angry shouts, breaking glass, and the thunder of the approaching mob. I would not be swallowed up by it. But I had to act fast.

I stepped out of the car, plunged my hand beneath my jacket, and fisted it around my spear. I wasn’t losing it this time.

A cold, windborne mist pricked my face and hands. The storm had begun. But it wasn’t just storm I sensed in the air. Something was wrong, terribly wrong, besides angry mobs and hordes of Unseelie, and Shades overtaking my home. The wind was strange, blowing from multiple directions, reeking of sulfur. The fringes of the chaotic, destructive crowd surged around the corner, two blocks from where I stood.