The plan was skeletal in its simplicity. At the center of the rose garden was a small fountain, a little over a foot deep. It was as far from large trees as one could hope for in the city; there was no evidence that Bryde could receive information from roses. Carmen Farooq-Lane was going to climb into the fountain, lie down in the nearly frozen water, and breathe sips of air through a straw that reached to the surface. She would wait there in the inhuman temperature until the Moderators texted her that the Zeds had arrived in the garden. And then she would leap from the water with Hennessy’s sword like an avenging angel, killing Bryde with a single moonlit stroke.

Her phone was only rated for an hour of underwater use, but the cold would kill her before that anyway.

“Is this how you saw it?” she asked Liliana again.

“It will be all right, Carmen.”

It will be all right.

It did not feel all right as she lay in the bottom of the fountain. She tried to keep her hand from shaking as she held the breathing tube steady in her frigid lips. She focused on a black feather that floated on the surface of the water above her.

She was waiting to kill. Waiting to kill. Waiting to kill. She had to think of him as not human. As not living. As simply a tree to hew down.

The trees were on his side, though, which meant the trees had feelings, too. Nothing was simple anymore.

She was that feather. She was that feather.

Her phone buzzed against her.

The Zeds were here.

Four seconds passed before she could animate her cold body. She plunged from the water, sword already alive with light and swinging.

The blade missed Bryde by several inches.

Ronan Lynch’s raven screamed into the air.

Bryde’s eyes met hers.

This was wrong. This was already wrong. It had to be immediate, or it wouldn’t work. She couldn’t fight them. Anything beyond the single stroke got messy, and anything messy meant she couldn’t guarantee her promise.

Ronan had his sunfire sword out in a second, but Bryde snatched it from him.

“Get out of here!” snapped Bryde. “You know what to do!”

Farooq-Lane didn’t have time to see if Ronan obeyed, because Bryde fell upon her with vexed to nightmare.

They fought.

They fought.

The rose garden was alight with the weapons’ eerie glow.