It glittered in my thoughts like a living spell, and as I struggled to keep it from invoking, the sound of the drums quickened until it was as if I had been there at the beginning, watching ancient elves craft in the hollows of a primeval forest, calling upon their Goddess to give it the strength to last forever. And now it was seeking to bind itself to me.

Power slipped around my mental grasp like sunbeams, and abruptly I realized the curse was connecting me to Landon. Until the elven curse fixed upon me for good, we were bound together. There, in the background of his thoughts, was the curse to break the lines. I can take control of this, I thought, but not when I was fighting to get this damned binding curse off me.

“Let go,” Landon whispered, and I felt his breath on my cheek as he knelt over me while I curled into a ball and fought it. “Submit. End the pain,” he taunted.

But to submit would bind me to the ever-after. How long, I wondered, how long had Al fought? Newt? My breath came in a ragged gasp as the winding wisps of the binding curse seemed to find my soul. “No,” I groaned, even as it wove deeper.

The stinging slap of his hand meeting my cheek pulled my eyes open. Landon hung over me, sweat beading on him. “Let go!” he demanded. “Be a demon. Die with them.”

My eyes searched until they found Jenks and Ivy, held at bay by my torture.

“No,” I forced out between clenched teeth, then screamed when he leaned on my shot leg. Agony arched through me. “Get off!” I shouted, flooding him with a jolt of power.

Landon fell back with a cry of outrage, but the second of inattention cost me, and I gasped again, scrambling to catch the binding curse before it settled in any deeper. It didn’t have me yet, but the feel of it was familiar, and with a shock, I realized that it drew its strength from the Goddess’s will. Can I use this?

“Son of a whore!” Jenks shouted, and Landon laughed as Ivy began to struggle as well, held down by Landon’s last man, bloodied but still intact.

Jenks was free, darting madly and scoring on the incensed man. “Jenks, no,” I tried to shout, my voice failing. Ivy was down. We were losing, losing badly, and my heart leapt into my throat when, with an ugly snarl, Landon got a lucky strike in and Jenks was flung into the wall.