We had to get out of here. Even the safe houses held death, and the hospitals would only make her passing smell of antiseptic. Why had I worked so hard to save their miserable existences? I wondered as I found my bag and looped it over my head. But it hadn’t been just the undead in the balance when I’d freed the mystics last July, it had been the entire source of magic.

Jenks dropped down as I gathered my resolve. “They’re everywhere, Rache,” he whispered, his fear easy to read on his narrow, pinched features, and Ivy nodded. Surrounded by onlookers, we had a small space to breathe, but we couldn’t stay here.

Slowly I began to think. Trent. He had a surgery suite, one that wasn’t staffed by people who could be bought. I wasn’t sure where he was, but I could text him. Ivy was sitting. Maybe she could move. “Ivy,” I said, blanching at the blackness in her eyes when she looked at me from around a stray strand of hair. “Can you move?”

Her boots scraped as she shifted them under her. “If I can’t, I’m dead.”

A few in the crowd protested, but they backed up when Jenks rose, his fast, darting shape and the sharp sword in his grip making him a threat. My stomach turned when every hold I tried to help Ivy with only brought more pain. Teeth clenched, I tucked my shoulder under her arm and rose, staggering until we found our balance. Ivy’s eyes closed. We hung for a moment, waiting to see if she was going to pass out. In the nearby distance, a siren rose—but it brought death, not life.

“Okay, nice and easy,” I said, and Jenks kept everyone back as we started for the curb. Ivy’s head was down, and she moved in sudden, painful limps. Step, pause. Step, pause. Her weight on me was solid, and her scent was tinged with sour acid. Tears threatened, and I ignored them. I couldn’t live with Ivy if she was dead. I couldn’t be her scion, but I knew I’d do it, even as it would destroy me. I’d try to keep Ivy sane, knowing it was a bitter fallacy. I couldn’t kill her a second time as she would want me to. I was a bad friend.

“I’m sorry,” Ivy said as we reached the curb and she took her hand from her middle long enough to use the lamppost to help her step up.

“This isn’t your fault,” I barked so I wouldn’t cry. “We’ll get you to Trent’s, and you’ll be fine.” His compound was almost deserted since the serious inquiries into his illegal bio labs had begun, but he probably had a surgeon on call.

Seeing her standing to catch her breath, I dug in my bag for my phone. “Can you hold this?” I said, giving her my splat gun, and she held it loosely. My fingers shook as I scrolled for Trent. He was the last person I’d called, and knowing he might not take a call but would always check a text, I wrote 911 and Eden Park and hit send.