“Mircea!” I screamed, my throat raw, but I didn’t hear anything back. Or maybe, as before, my ears were too full of dragon screeches to hear anything.

“Where is he?” Pritkin asked, his mental voice now loud in my head.

I looked everywhere, feeling my heart pounding against my ribcage, threatening to beat out of my chest. But I couldn’t see him. Billowing black smoke and leaping blue and red flames blocked my view, while the twisting of the great beast was slinging me about so hard that even vampire strength was being tested. I couldn’t see him.

“Cassie!” Pritkin’s voice had turned urgent.

“I don’t know; I don’t know!”

The tears streaming out of my eyes were from a different source now. I’d only recently lost a dear friend to this war, the wound still bright and sharp and burning. I couldn’t lose Mircea, too. I couldn’t.

And then the great beast gyrated, so abruptly that my body slung out behind me, and I lost part of my grip. Leaving me dangling by one hand as it spun in mid-air and started back for the castle, I didn’t know why. Until I saw them: a whole phalanx of fey spread out along the ramparts, and nocking arrows.

I stared at them, at the fairy tale castle behind them, at the colorful pennants snapping in the breeze, and my brain went blank. Humans are great adaptors, but not this fast. All I could think of for a second was: “how pretty.”

But I snapped out of it, because I’ve never believed in going quietly into that good night. I tried to remember the fireball spell, which hadn’t worked so well on dragon flesh but might do better against fey. But my brain was occupied by rushing white noise, my hand was slipping on the slick, horn-like material of the claw, and my stomach was threatening revolt despite the fact that I hadn’t eaten anything today.

Nothing remotely resembling a spell made it out of my mouth.

Which was why it was surprising to see the line of fey go up like birthday candles, nonetheless.

“Silent spell casting,” Pritkin yelled in my ear, before I could ask. I received a brief, one second flash of him running through the now virtually deserted halls of the castle, with something tucked under his arm. “Anything you can see, I can burn!”

Good to know, I thought, and lost my grip.

It seemed less of a deliberate thing than a reflex as the great beast realigned its legs, preparing to land. Or to crash, which was more likely to be the case here. But that was less of a concern to me than to the burning, panicked fey, because this time, I was falling.

Until, suddenly, I wasn’t.