All the blood rushed from her head, and she fell to her knees. He’d survived the neck snapping, but surely even magic couldn’t save a body from a fall like that. Her chest welled with an aching sadness, before pure terror overcame her. There’s no way out. She was stuck in a fae’s subterranean lair with an army of soldiers who wanted to rape and murder her. Even death wasn’t an escape.

There was no air. I can’t breathe.

Please let this be a terrible nightmare—there was no fight, no fae, no incubus. Kester didn’t fall to his death. In a few moments she’d wake up in her East London flat, ready to drink tea on the couch while Katie regaled her with details of all the guys she’d kissed the night before.

Ursula closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. The floor of the hall was still a thousand feet below her, the abyss oddly inviting in her desperation.

She turned back to the balcony. Apart from the crumpled body of the guard she’d slaughtered, it was empty. Blood stained the wood, and the sweet, metallic smell was overwhelming. She scanned the floor for her wyrm-skin purse, but she couldn’t see it anywhere. It must have gotten knocked off the ledge in the fight. Her heart hammered against her ribs. My white stone. She had nothing now.

She glanced down again at her bloodied hands. She’d killed someone tonight, with a great degree of skill. What the hell kind of monster had F.U. been? A trained killer? An assassin? And what had happened to Kester?

A hollow opened in the pit of her stomach. Kester’s fall would have landed him right in a crowd of fae who wanted him dead. And what did that mean for his soul? He hadn’t paid off his debt yet, even after four hundred years. Tears stung her eyes, but she clenched her jaw, marshaling her resolve. This was not the time to cry.

Distantly she could hear the beat of the music. Thump. Thump. She couldn’t tell where her pounding heart ended and the music began.

The fae king wanted her dead, and at any moment he and his guards could return to finish the job. Even if she was some sort of master swordsman, she couldn’t fend them off forever. But with the dais gone, there was no way out. Thump. Thump.

The sigil. If only she could find something flammable.

Her eyes darted to the bar in the back, and she rushed across the blood-slicked floor, stepping over the guard’s corpse. Bottles lined the back shelves, and with a shaking hand she snatched a bottle of a dark-looking spirit. She popped the cork and gave the bottle a sniff, then grimaced. It had to be at least a hundred proof.