“There’s something here,” he said. He couldn’t keep the fear from his voice, and it translated through the phone line, because her prickliness dissipated instantly.

“What have you found?”

“It’s more like what has found us,” he said.

“There was something alive under the reservoir after all? One of them?”

Bone had spent his time working for Jordan doing his best to hide the Kin from her. This turnaround was not easy, and the enthusiasm and excitement in her voice somehow made it more difficult. He felt his betrayal of the Kin biting deep, but he didn’t know what else to do. This was now far bigger than him.

“The gassing didn’t kill everything. There are three creatures, not human, and as far as I can make out they’re still infected. But they’re not the only ones we have to worry about.”

“There are more?”

“Yes.”

“How many more? And where from?”

He frowned. He wasn’t sure how to answer. The girl was Kin, that was evident, but what about the man and woman?

What about me?

“Uncertain. But one of them is... huge. Dangerous, powerful. And it came through some sort of opening, or portal.”

He heard doubt in Jordan’s silence.

“I’m telling you what I saw. Doesn’t mean I believe it any more than you.”

“So what do you suggest?” she asked.

“You have to send help before it escapes the valley,” he said. “I’ll do what I can to prevent that, but I’m not sure what I can do.”

“What do you need?” The switch was amazing. He was now the man on the ground, and Jordan was efficient and professional enough to understand that. She was still his superior, but she had placed him in charge.

“The army.”

“Be a bit more specific, Bone.”

“The army. Send all of it.”

He disconnected and stared down into the valley, at the distant remains of Longford. “And come quick,” he muttered. “Though I’m not sure that will be enough.”

22

22

He has always known it would come to this.

Mallian moves the burning corpse with his foot. Some of Lilou’s white-hot fat sticks to his toes and scorches his skin, but he welcomes the pain because he deserves it. He has killed his closest friend. He did not wield the fire, but he breathed its creation and sent it on its way.

He touches his neck where Lilou’s knife would have opened his skin, had the fairy not turned the keen metal blade into a feather. He feels his pumping blood, a rapid pulse because he is still fired up from his escape, his emergence back into the world, and the confrontation with Lilou.

“You should have listened to me, Lilou,” he says. Her corpse spits in response. The remains of her right hand clasp at the soil, as if trying to hold onto the world for a little while longer.