“Survival,” Lance spat, glancing at me briefly. Then his focus flitted from thunderbird to thunderbird, though he still spoke to me. “You said they’d honor their word, so I’ll let her go if they promise to let me go.”

I started to tell him it didn’t work like that. That they’d feel no obligation to stand by a promise made to someone who’d already proved himself dishonorable. They’d broken their promise to Malone for that very reason. But then I realized that explaining that would only make things worse. Make Lance more desperate. Instead I turned to Brynn. Or, to the bird I thought was Brynn. It was hard to tell when no one had a human face.

“Brynn, promise him,” I said, but the bird only snapped her sharp beak, frighteningly close to my arm. I’m guessing that’s a no. “Just promise him you’ll let him go, and he’ll put your daughter down.” Then you can kill him at your leisure. I didn’t think even Kaci would object to that now, after watching him threaten to kill a toddler.

“No,” a voice said from several feet to my right, and I whirled to find Brynn’s face peeking out at me from an otherwise avian body, her stance aggressive and angry. Damn. Wrong bird. I shrugged in apology to the woman I’d mistakenly addressed, then turned to Brynn, trying to communicate the importance of what I was saying with intense eye contact. But if she got my message, I saw no sign. “We will not give our word to a man with so little honor. That would disgrace us all. What good are our lives if our word holds no value?”

Damn it! Was she serious? She would let her child die rather than besmirch her reputation?

Lance turned toward the door so that I saw him in profile, and his fingers twitched around the child’s throat. Wren squawked and reached for her mother, but Lance’s arm was locked around her middle. “Let me through, or I’ll kill her,” he said to the birds now blocking his path. “I have nothing to lose if I’m going to die, anyway, right?” His eyes blazed with panic, and if I didn’t know better, I’d have sworn he had scratch-fever. He’d truly lost it.

The three birds directly in front of him glanced around at their Flight mates for a consensus, and though I couldn’t read the subtle body language and silent looks, their decision was clear. The two male birds went left, and the female went right. The path to the front door was now clear, and about ten feet long.

“You should know that as a species, we’re very fast.” Lance shuffled forward slowly, his gaze tripping from one avian face to the next. When talons tapped on the floor behind him, he glanced over his shoulder without loosening his grip on the chicklet. “You can jump me, and probably kill me, but not before I break her neck.”

Several of the thunderbirds glanced at me, presumably to substantiate or refute his claim, and I could only nod. Cat reflexes are phenomenal, and Lance’s were likely a little better than most, considering that he’d killed an adult thunderbird on his own, with only a scratch to show for it.