“Ascent, just in a different way,” Vince said.

“How’s that?” Dastion asked.

“Whatever happens now, this fight will go public,” Vince said. “Too much footage to keep secret. There’ll be leaks, and if they capture the Kin like Bone said they were aiming at... experimentation. Vivisection. Humans will know about the Kin, and we all know no good can come of that. We’re just not built that way.” He looked at Angela as he said this and her good eye was open. She shed a tear, because she knew he was right. However much he and Angela had tried to protect the Kin and keep their existence hidden—Bone too, if anything he said was to be believed—wider human nature would not be so benevolent.

“We can’t take on an army,” Vince said, but he’d already seen Bone glancing at Sammi several times. We can’t ask that of her, he thought, and he was about to say it when everything about Sammi changed.

She grew stiff and still, like a statue. Even her breathing stopped. Her glittering eyes were pale and static.

“What is it?” Vince asked. He began to panic, fearing that Mallian—or perhaps even Grace—had somehow taken control of her, and her next action might be something terrible.

Then she seemed to slump. She drew in a deep, gasping breath, then looked around them, wide-eyed and terrified.

“Sammi?”

“We have to run,” Sammi said.

“We can’t run. Angela’s badly hurt, Dastion can barely walk, and I’m not sure—”

“Vince!” She came forward and grabbed his shirt, ignoring his broken arm and his groan of pain. He recognised the staggering strength in the young girl, and the undeniable alienness. She was more fairy than human now. She was terrifying. “We have to run.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s coming back.”

* * *

She realises that she cannot have the girl. She’s become too strong too quickly, and she understands that the Fold is not a place for a young fairy. She could try to take her by force, but there would be no love in that, and no future. And eventually the girl would become stronger than her.

If she is destined to spend eternity on her own in the Fold, she will need food.

And she will need to leave her mark so that no one tries to follow.

32

32

Dastion carried Angela, hobbling on his bad leg, grim faced but determined. His beard was heavy with blood. Bone went ahead with Dastion’s heavy pike held across his chest. Vince kept close to Dastion, and Sammi was sometimes behind him, sometimes lost in the trees, a shadow avoiding the rising sun. Dawn coloured the horizon and it was beautiful, and the colour of spilled blood.