I screamed, and the trees shook from my howl.

I flailed, trying to rip the metal out of me.

No. No, I would not die today. I tore myself from my new form and fled, into the mud, into the sludge, where my old form slumped, discarded.

The world slammed into me in an explosion of pain. Silver burned in my heart.

“I got you,” Raphael was holding me. “I’ve got you.”

I was dying.

Suddenly Doolittle was there with the scalpel.

Where had he even come from? Was I hallucinating before death?

“It’s okay,” Raphael crooned in my ear.

Doolittle sliced my chest open. “Expel this silver if you want to live!”

“Do it, Andrea!” Raphael snarled.

I pushed against the burning points of pain. Doolittle dug in my open chest with forceps. I screamed.

“Expel!”

I couldn’t breathe. My chest was on fire, and the unbearable, terrible pain burned inside me like an inferno.

The first shard slid out of me. Doolittle plucked it out with forceps.

The world dimmed, as if someone was blowing out its candles one by one. Doolittle raised his hand. I caught a glimpse of a syringe. Doolittle plunged it down. The needle bit me in the heart.

The darkness tore in a blinding flash of light and adrenaline.

“Silver!” Raphael screamed at me. “Get it out!”

I strained. Another shard slid free.

“Do it, Andrea!” Raphael growled.

“Expel,” Doolittle commanded.

It hurt and I was so tired.

Another shard left me.

“Last one,” Doolittle barked.

The world went black.

It was so cold and quiet. Can I please stay here…

I opened my eyes to agony and Doolittle massaging my heart with his fingers.

I screamed, but my voice was just a hoarse croak.

The last point of agony slid out of me. Raphael laid me flat. Doolittle knelt over me. His hands were bloody. He was holding some sort of surgical instrument. A woman handed him gauze. A cooling sensation spread through my insides. I was going numb.

Behind him I saw Anapa stagger to his feet.

Eyes lit up in the swamp. I saw them with shocking clarity, hundreds of eyes.

A flood of furry bodies poured from the underbrush. Jackals. Dozens upon dozens of them, and in the lead were the huge, muscled shapes of shapeshifters in their warrior form. Clan Jackal had arrived.

They circled Anapa.

“We will take the child now,” a gray shapeshifter in a warrior shape said.

“Give us the child.”

Anapa smiled a lopsided grin that bared his teeth and thrust his arms up. Magic flowed from him in a slow wave.

The Jackals pushed against it.

The enormous alpha in front howled. Hundreds of voices answered in a chorus of howls, barks, and yips.

Anapa pushed.

Clan Jackal gained a foot. Another foot.

Anapa clenched his teeth. There were too many of them and he was too weakened.

“Give us the child,” snarling voices demanded.

“Return the child.”

“Return!”