Ragnall faltered, but only for a moment, then he plunged his bare hand—blistering skin and all—into the tin and brought a handful of the gelatinous muck to his mouth.

I ran toward him but Noomi rushed me, hitting me with a bardiche. The first time, the stick connected painfully with my shoulder, with the blade of the axe just nicking my skin, but the second time, I caught it before the blow hit. I yanked it from her and broke it over my thighs, but Noomi charged at me again.

I punched her—hard enough that my knuckles split—and she collapsed back on the ground. Sumi knocked Tuva back, and Dagny set her bow only to be thwarted by Indu.

Finn shouted behind me, and I looked back to see him arriving with the small army. The thrimavolk charged at them head on. The younger children screamed and scattered, as did some of the Älvolk, but the rest of them clamored toward the cauldron to get their hands on the boiling blood pudding.

I dodged another stick attack and lunged at the cauldron. The hot iron burnt my skin, but I easily tipped it over, covering the earth with boiling blood and spilling the tins of pudding.

The flames exploded in a black smoke, and I jumped back out of the way and fell in the dirt. I saw a man reach for a tin that fell in the fire, howling as the flames ate his flesh.

“I should’ve killed you when I had the chance,” Indu growled, and I looked up at him just as he pressed the tip of his sword against my throat.

And then Pan was there. He grabbed Indu by the throat and threw him back against the temple wall. With his other hand, he took Indu’s arm and bent it back until he dropped the sword.

“Don’t ever touch her again,” Pan spat at him.

Indu looked at me over Pan’s shoulder. “I brought you into this world, and I will take you out.”

I got up and sneered at him. “You’re not my father, you worthless worm.”

His eyes widened, and then Knut came crashing through the wall as he tackled a pair of thrimavolk warriors.

I grabbed Pan, pulling him out of the way so he wouldn’t be buried under wood and fighting trolls, the way Indu was.

The ruins were in chaos. Sumi and Dagny were lost in the fray, and I had no idea where anybody else was. It was a blur of bodies running—the bright colors of the thrimavolk and Älvolk, the subdued greens, browns, and pale blues of the

Trylle, Omte, and Skojare.