I took the container of salt I’d tucked under my arm and pried open the spout. I poured a pinch onto my hand and dribbled it on my wrist. The nasty bugger chewing there made a popping sound, turned gray, and fell to the ground, a dead husk. It did not disappear in a flash of light. Hah.

I took a spare handful and scattered it on the fae bugs attacking Sherwood, and it sounded like popcorn cooking.

I took the container and ran a gauntlet of biting fae bugs, one arm crooked above my eyes. The fae that Zee fought scored a hit. It wasn’t a hard hit, but Zee responded by increasing the speed and fury of his attacks. I poured salt in my hand as I jumped on top of an upended pew and scattered the handful of salt on the last of our enemies.

The salt landed with a crack of noise, and wherever it hit turned gray. He turned on me. Gray powder fell on the ground, and the sparkly bugs all returned and landed on him, reabsorbed into his odd body.

He raised his hands before I threw another handful, and in a voice like smoke he said, “I surrender.”

Zee snarled but sheathed his sword at my look. Sherwood negotiated his way through the mess of the sanctuary with a little more trouble than a man with two good legs might have, but there was nothing wrong with the speed with which he killed the woman with the crushing injury. He managed to do it before she shot the crossbow I hadn’t noticed when I’d first seen her.

He cleaned the ax on his pant leg, then continued to pick his way to Zee and me. He looked at our prisoner.

“What are we going to do with that?” he asked.

11

We let him go. It was pretty obvious to anyone who thought about it for two seconds that we weren’t going to be able to keep him prisoner unless Zee wanted to babysit him. Ropes and duct tape don’t work on someone who can dissolve into nasty insectoid thingies whenever he wants to. I especially didn’t want to be around him in a car—I almost died once when my college roommate was driving a bunch of us to the movies and a hornet flew in through an open window.

Once Zee was sure that all of Mr. I-Am-Really-a-Hive-of-Female-Fae-Bugs was gone, and there were no more fae of any size or shape hanging around downstairs, we went upstairs. All the way, Zee muttered about stupid sprite lords who were weak and stupid—but not bothered as much by cold iron as most other fae.

“Cockroaches of the fae,” he pronounced. “Can’t hurt much, but they won’t die.”