Willow. I glanced around until I spotted her hiding behind a kiosk that sold hats. But that Unseelie I’d just hit saw her too. We raced for her, but he had wings, so I was losing. I fired my magic at him, neon-blue flames coiling around his body, yet that barely slowed him down. He was closing in on Willow and I was still ten feet away. She hadn’t noticed him, her back was to us as she worked her magic. I screamed. She didn’t even turn. There was too much screaming at this point to discern one from another. Wait. She’s deaf now. SHIT! The Unseelie landed a few feet behind her and pulled a gnarly curved sword off his back.

And then I felt Willow’s presence to my right. I gasped and raced for that familiar aura around the back of a hot pretzel stand and found the real Willow hiding beside a garbage can. Her brown eyes widened when I slid to a stop in front of her, but then we both turned to watch the Unseelie spear the fake-Willow through the back.

I grabbed real-Willow’s arm and made the slicing motion across my throat. ‘DEAD!’ I mouthed.

She nodded and flicked her wrist, making the illusion of herself scream and drop to the ground in a puddle of her own blood. My stomach turned. It looked so real I almost believed it. If I hadn’t been holding on to the real Willow, I would have. The Unseelie nodded in approval of his own work, then shot into the sky. Every part of me wanted to race after him and avenge her, to fight this fight, but the real Willow couldn’t hear a damned thing. I had no idea how her other senses were handling this, but in this fight, someone had to have her back.

I shoved her back against the pretzel stand, then crouched in front of her. Looking over my shoulder to meet her eyes, I held my hands up and mouthed, ‘Keep going. I got you.’ Her eyes filled with tears as she nodded, but this girl was a trained warrior because she was flicking those hands left and right. Blue magic sparkled between her fingers and that was the only way I knew she was doing her thing. It was incredible. I heard the screams of fleeing tourists, heard people’s names being shouted left and right, yet I barely saw them.