“Bad turn of phrase. They were your lackeys, though they may have thought themselves partners. In Tristan’s case, he probably didn’t even realize who he was working with. I bet you impersonated some fae confederate. A lackey of his own.”

Her lips rose in a faint smile. “Tristan was a fool. As arrogant a fae as any. At least Walter had some sense of his true place. Not surprising, given how firmly Ida kept him in it.”

A board creaked deep in the building, and I turned, but the sluagh said, “No, that’s not Walter. Did you fail to notice the past tense to my phrasing? He served his purpose.” The sluagh stepped toward me. “You’ve made your point about Gabriel. He rescued Ricky at that balcony, when he could have let him fall. I thought he might have grown a spine since then. Realized exactly how annoying it was, always having Ricky buzzing about.”

“I’m not standing over here to rub your face in your mistake. I’m admitting that my aunt was right. Well, my great-great-aunt. I’ve seen her here in the asylum. Or I thought I did. Was that her? Or you, playing mind games? Doesn’t matter. Either way, she was right.”

I stepped closer to the edge of the broken balcony. “There’s only one way out of this. That’s all there’s ever been. One way out. One way to stop being a pawn. To take control of my life. Or my death, as the case may be.”

I jumped. I didn’t hesitate, and that wasn’t conviction so much as gut-wrenching terror. I jumped before I could fully process what I was doing.

I dropped, and it was like falling off the bridge, where the moment I hit free fall, I stopped thinking, Oh my God, I’m plummeting to my doom. There was a split second of something like clarity. Yep, I’m falling. Should probably be concerned. Deathly concerned, ha-ha. But I wasn’t.

The sluagh let out a shriek, like a human scream, the sort that should have been coming from my throat. A scream of fear. Then a snarl of rage that set the very air vibrating. A swarm of melltithiwyd slammed into me, shrieking themselves, as if enraged by being called to do something other than rend me limb from limb.

They pecked, and they clawed, but they lifted me, too, still attacking, unable to keep from venting their frustration as they deposited me in the belfry.

“Huh,” I said. “That didn’t end the way I expected.”

Which was, of course, a lie. Yet if one is going to threaten self-annihilation for a cause, one has to actually seem willing to do it.

I got to my feet, swatting off the last few melltithiwyd, who couldn’t resist one final peck. Then I strode to the balcony.

“If at first you don’t succeed—”