“You’re not giving me a choice. If I follow your logic, then any of the people who leave the boundaries of my city are fair game. Since you’re parked right outside the city border, Atlanta is under siege and a siege is an act of war. You’re in breach, Father.”

Roland laughed quietly.

“This is solved very simply. Give back what you’ve taken. You started this. I’m merely reacting.”

“You’re not ready to oppose me. Don’t open this door. You don’t have the ruthlessness to fight me.”

I’d had enough. “Father, when was the last time you killed someone? I don’t mean with magic, I mean with your hands, close enough that you could look into their eyes? I killed a woman a week ago to keep her from sacrificing her children to some forgotten god. I have killed so many, I don’t remember all their faces. They blend. The door is already wide open and you were the one who opened it. Are you ready for me to walk through it?”

A shadow crossed his face. I felt the magic rise within him like a brilliant new star being born from the empty darkness.

“My proud daughter, my sensitive, kind child, compassionate toward her enemy, you have saved one man from his fate. But what will you do about them?”

Magic rolled from him. The empty field to the left of us shimmered. Crosses appeared, like a mirage in the desert manifesting in the wavering hot air. Men and women, young and old, hanging from the wood. Oh dear God . . . There had to be thirty crosses in that field. The bodies sagged, completely still. Nobody moved.

The odor reached me, the awful polluting stench of human flesh rotting. They were dead. All of them.

Ice rolled down my back. The horror of it was too much.

Roland looked at the lone survivor on the cross. The face of the Iron Dog contorted. His cross was facing the others.

“You made him watch.” They died in agony, one by one, and the Iron Dog saw it all.

“You have no idea of the things I’m capable of. You cannot stand against me. When I ordered him to kill these people, it was a kindness. He disobeyed and would not give them swift death, so I showed him what his defiance cost.”

The ice reached the small of my back and exploded into an inferno. Roland was watching me now to make sure I got the message. Oh no, Father. Don’t worry. I’ve got it.

“But for his disobedience, this wouldn’t have come to pass.”

My magic screamed and bucked inside me, trying to break free, leaking into my voice. “No.”

Roland’s eyes narrowed.