Chapter Eight

"F ire in the hole!"

The cry forced some of the negrets swarming the metal gate at the entrance of the castillo to look upward. Savian leaned out through a murder hole cut into the stone curtain that surrounded the inner keep buildings.

"Take that, you murderous little bastards," he added, lighting the piece of cloth that was wedged into the top of a glass beer bottle.

"Niiice," Maura drawled, trying to peer over his shoulder.

"You'd say the same thing if they tried to eat your face, too," he snapped.

"Hrmph."

"I can't see," Brom complained. I stood on tiptoe to peer over the edge of the curtain wall, watching as the explosive shattered on the rocks behind the main group of negrets, immediately turning into a wave of fire. A few screams and metallic clangs followed.

"You don't need to see. It's enough I let you make bombs, which is probably something that will keep me from ever being on any Mother of the Year list, but this is an emergency."

"You said the negrets don't burn up. You said they don't have guts coming out or anything like that. Why can't I watch them turn into metal?"

"Because you're only nine years old, and even I have some limits." I gave him a gimlet eye, which effectively shut up his complaints. At least for the moment.

"Yippie ki-yay, mothersuckers," Savian yelled down to the negrets, a third of which were now directly under the murder hole, trying to climb the stone wall. He lit another Molotov cocktail and tossed it out the opening.

"Savian!" I gasped at the same time Maura whomped him on the arm.

"I said suckers, not…er…I made it PG," he told me with a cock of his head toward Brom.

"It's a very fine line, nonetheless."

"Some people," Maura muttered.

"I could do without comments from the peanut gallery," he told her before turning to me. "Sorry, Ysolde. Will be more careful. How's my aim?"

"You're out about ten feet too far," Maura answered as I tried to look. "No, to the left. Lordisa, man, your other left."

"It's not easy doing this handcuffed," he snarled, giving her a glare.

"Then take them off!" she retorted.

"I will when Baltic says we're done with you." The words emerged as if he were grinding them through his teeth.

"I swear, if you two make me pull this fortress over, you'll be sorry," I said, giving them both a mom-look that should have scared ten years off their lives.

"Sorry," Savian said immediately.

"He started it by handcuffing me to him," Maura said, but subsided when I leveled another look at her.

"You're still a little outside the main group, Savian. If you can drop one right at the foot of the gate, I bet it would get at least half of them."

"I can't lean out that far," he said, on his knees before the murder hole, his body twisted to the side as he stuck his head out of it. "The hole isn't big enough. I have to do this at an angle as is, and even then, only one shoulder will fit through it. I think I can stretch a little bit farther, but—Christ!"

"What's wrong?" I asked as he pulled himself back onto the walkway that ran the length of the curtain wall.

"The negrets. They're making a pyramid right beneath the murder hole."

I clutched the stones and stuck my head out to see for myself. About six feet below me, the topmost negret grimaced as another one climbed to stand on his shoulders. "Sins of the saints!"

The negret leaped at me, its claws narrowly missing my face as Savian jerked me backward.

"Be more careful," he scolded, turning to yell down to the inner bailey. "Baltic! We're about to have visitors!"

"Where?" Baltic bellowed back, pausing in the middle of shoving a jeep up against the gate.

"Murder hole." Savian turned back to me. "Ysolde, you and Brom had better get off the wall. I'll stay here with Her Royal Highness and light up the little devils as they come in."

"I am not a princess! Stop calling me that!" Maura said, whomping him again.

"They can't get in the murder hole," I told him. "It's too small."

As I spoke, two little hands reached through the murder hole and gripped the sides before a brown head popped into view. The negret stared at me for a second, then bared its sharp teeth and lunged, getting its entire torso through the hole.

Savian swore and pulled me backward, pushing Brom and Maura back with his other hand. The negret cursed in what I assumed was its own language, apparently stuck, twisting and turning and struggling to get through the hole. Just as I was about to point out to Savian that even beings as small as the negrets couldn't get through the murder hole, it managed to pull itself through, falling in a heap on the stone walkway.

"Go!" I yelled at Brom, shoving him toward the stairs before pausing to pick up one of the crates loaded with bottles. It had taken the four of us—Brom, Savian, Maura, and me—to manufacture the three dozen Molotov cocktails, and I didn't want to leave them where the negrets could get them.

Savian, in the meantime, took advantage of the negret's moment of inattention to pick it up and attempt to stuff it back through the murder hole. He was hampered not only by the negret's objecting to such treatment, but also by another negret's attempting to claw its way through the hole to us. I snatched up one of the bottles, lit the rag hanging limply out of it, and said loudly, "Drop him, Savian."

"Get away while you can," he answered, grunting in pain as the negret twisted on itself and bit his hand.

"Drop him!" I yelled just as Maura shifted into dragon form.

Savian glanced over his shoulder at us, and dropped the negret, sprinting toward me, one arm around my waist as he took the bottle and heaved it at the two negrets. They both shrieked as Maura's fire and the bomb exploded around them.

"Go to Baltic," Savian ordered, grabbing Maura when she returned to human form.

I shrugged off his arm and raced back to grab one of the two crates. "I'm not going to leave you two here with them by yourselves!"

"I'm responsible for your safety, and I say you get down!" he bellowed.

"In your dreams," I started to say, but was suddenly lifted off the ground from behind, and set down onto the stairs. I glared up at Baltic when his voice rumbled over my head. "Do as the thief-taker says, Ysolde."

"We agreed that the bombs were my job."

"Do not even think to argue with me," he said, then spun around as the now-metal negret that had been in the process of crawling through the murder hole hit the ground, another of its brethren in the process of wriggling into the keep. Baltic planted his feet in a battle stance, spun his sword in his hand, and ordered Savian to stand out of the way.

"We'll go to the other side," I told Savian and Maura as Pavel rushed past me on the stairs, his sword in hand, his eyes—like Baltic's—alight with pleasure. "There's a murder hole on the south side of the gate, too."

"All right, but if I say stay back, you stay back."

"Are you sure you're not a dragon?" Maura said, puffing a little as we ran down the stairs, our arms laden with the crates. "You're sure arrogant enough for one."

"Ha!" Savian said.

"I agree with her. And for the record, one bossy male in my life is enough," I said, scanning the yard for intruders. It was empty of everyone. "If you keep it up, I'm just going to hit you on the head with one of these bottles, and then you won't want to work for me, and everything will go to hell in a handbasket. So lighten up. I'm older than you; I know what I'm doing."

"May says you were resurrected two months ago."

"Lovey, stay with Nico and Holland," I called out to Brom as he emerged from the second outbuilding (evidently used as a storage shed) with a plastic container of gasoline, and a couple of men's shirts.

"We're going to make more fire bombs," he said, his expression one of excited satisfaction. Nico emerged behind him, his arms filled with cases of beer.

"Keep him inside the tower," I told Nico as they passed. "The negrets are coming in through the murder holes."

"They won't get past Holland and me," he promised. I watched them go into the tower before running across the bailey to the opposite set of stairs that led to the curtain walk.

As a rule, I dislike harming any living being, but negrets were a dangerous cross between a demon and a savage animal, and although they had a human appearance and wore clothing, one look at Savian's still-bleeding wounds reminded me that their culture revolved around killing whatever living things crossed their path.

But that thought brought up an interesting question.

"How do you think—oh, there, on the left, that group is starting to build a pyramid—how do you think the negrets knew to come here?" I asked, handing Savian another bottle as I watched a small pile of metal negrets slide down the wall to the rocky ground.

"Someone called them up, no doubt. Probably that redheaded she-devil."

"Thala?" Maura asked, looking thoughtful.

Horror crawled up my skin. "She's not here, is she? I thought she was in Nepal."

"I don't know where she is."

"Whew." I wondered if she'd made her escape and slipped back to Spain without our knowing it, but a moment's consideration had me shaking my head. "She can't be here. If she was, she would have come stomping out and made all sorts of dramatic declarations and such. Not to mention probably tried to kill me."

"I just wish she were here; there're a few matters I'd like to settle with her," Savian answered with a dark note in his voice.

"She hasn't been here for a few weeks," Maura said, prepping another bottle. "I heard a rumor she was going north toward Russia, but I am not at all privy to her plans."

"Really…That's interesting." I filed away that fact for future consideration. "I wonder if Gareth called her. That rat, he probably did. I bet he told her we were here, and she did something to arrange for the negrets to attack."

"Necromancer," Savian said, grunting as he heaved another bomb out of the murder hole.

Maura looked vaguely startled. "What about them?"

"Necromancers can call negrets. Amongst other things, they are eaters of the dead; thus, they answer the call of anyone in the Akashic League."

"Oh. True," Maura said. "Makes sense, then."

"Ruth," I hissed to myself, wishing for a moment that I really had roasted her when I had the opportunity. "She's a necromancer, too. Not as powerful as Thala, but I bet we have her to thank for this."

"Probably called them up before she ran off with your ex," Savian agreed, snarling under his breath as a fresh wave of negrets collected beneath us.

"Ruth is a necromancer, too?" Maura asked, disbelief written on her face. "Why did she never mention that?"

"No clue, but I get the feeling she doesn't use her skills very often. Not that I remember much about our time together." I stopped myself from adding any more. I had a few choice things I'd like to say to Ruth, and kept myself occupied with them until we ran out of ammunition.

"What now?" I asked as Savian dropped the last bomb.

"Let's hope Brom has more made."

We followed Savian down the stairs into the inner bailey, but there I let Maura and him head for the tower. I went in the other direction, calling after them, "I'm going to check on Baltic; then I'll help you with the fire bombs."

"Sounds goo—holy shit!"

I spun around at his exclamation. Flames licked out of one of the windows at the bottom of the tower, scorching the stone black.

"Brom!" I screamed, and ran for the tower door. I didn't make it into the tower—just as I approached it, I saw a familiar green tail lashing the air before disappearing around the side of the tower, and I raced after it.

Nico was covered with negrets, his dragon form more red than green as the little monsters tried to shred the flesh from his bones.

Holland lay unconscious or dead—I didn't know which—and was being dragged through the bloody dirt by six negrets, their faces covered in blood as they took periodic bites from his body.

"Unlock me so I can fight them!" Maura demanded as she shifted into dragon form.

"Can't! Lost the key somewhere," Savian answered before grabbing Maura's arm with one hand, and rushing past me with a fierce battle cry that attracted the attention of the nearest negrets. Dragon fire was everywhere, turning some of the negrets to metal, but there were just too many of them for Maura and Nico to toast.

Behind Nico, Brom was pressed against the wall, his face smeared with blood and his eyes huge. Nico was using his own body to shield him, but, judging by the number of negrets that poured out of the chapel and swarmed over Nico, I knew that even in his dragon form, he wouldn't last but for a few more seconds.

"Nooo!" I screamed when one negret climbed over the top of another, and reached down to grab Brom by his hair.

I yanked hard on Baltic's fire, intending to blast the negrets with it, but got only a thin trickle of fire. Baltic, I knew, was using it himself to stem the flow of negrets into the keep, leaving me without access to his fire. There was nothing for it—I had to summon my own fire, weak though it was.

"Sullivan!" Brom's cry reached my ears as I dug deep within myself, desperately trying to rouse my fire.

Savian went down, covered in negrets. Maura screamed as some of them, slashing and biting her, climbed onto her body, keeping just out of reach of her fire.

Holland was literally being torn limb from limb before our eyes.

Nico's fire occurred in shorter and shorter blasts, his body staggering as the massive swarm of negrets was taking its toll on him.

I spun around, desperately needing Baltic, but he and Pavel were too far away to help.

"Sullivaaan," Brom wailed, the negrets viciously yanking him from behind Nico.

Fury, fear, anger, hate…it all spun around inside me, my soul screaming with agony and impotent rage and desperation, building to such a crescendo, I thought it would explode out of my skin.

"Brom!" I screamed, leaping forward to attack the negrets that dared touch my child. I literally saw red when my dragon fire finally answered my summons, bathing the area in a scarlet tidal wave of flame that swept across half the bailey, from the towers to the other side, where the chapel and outbuildings stood. Negrets screamed in a chorus that lightened my heart almost as much as the sight of the little metal bodies hitting the ground. "Brommy! Are you all right? Did they hurt you? Stand still and let me see if you're injured. Oh, lovey, I'm so sorry I wasn't here to protect you. Is that your blood or Nico's? By the rood, if any of them harmed you—"

"Sullivan?" Brom struggled in my arms as I tried to simultaneously kiss, hug, and check him for injuries. "You're…uh…white."

"White? What on earth are you talking about? Oh my god, they hit your head, didn't they? My poor, poor darling—" I stopped stroking the hair back off his face, staring in surprise at the white-scaled fingers tangled in his brown hair. I lifted the hand, startled even more to see black claws tipping each finger.

"Good lord," a weak voice said behind me. "Ysolde?"

I looked over my shoulder to where Nico was getting to his feet, his dragon body battered and bloody. Beyond him, Savian groaned and moved one arm. Unfortunately, it was Holland's arm that one of the negrets had ripped off and had been using to beat Savian, but the fact that Savian was alive gave me hope for Holland. Maura, now in human form, was covered in blood as she staggered to her feet, looking dazed.

I spun around and stared at the chapel, but Holland lay halfway in the door, with no negrets coming from within. Either we'd reached the end of that particular attack force, or they were wisely hiding from my wrath. "We have to close up the bolt-hole again. But first…Brom, can you walk?"

"Of course I can walk." He rubbed his head, his gaze locked on my body. "They just pulled on my hair."

"I have to show Baltic this. He won't believe me otherwise," I said, taking my child by the hand and marching around the tower to the far side of the bailey.

"You're a lot bigger than I thought you would be," Brom said as he bounced against my side a couple of times.

"I'm not big. I'm statuesque," I corrected, staring down at myself, unable to keep from twitching my tail experimentally. It felt strong, as if I could take down a tree with it. "Male dragons are intimidating when in dragon form. Females are statuesque while still retaining femininity. What do you think of my tail? I rather like it."

He glanced thoughtfully over his shoulder. "It's nice. Doesn't have pointy things on it like the pictures Nico and I saw in a museum. He said mortals don't understand dragon form at all, and that they were always giving them wings and horse heads and things like that." He was silent for a few moments. "Your head isn't like a horse."

"Of course not." I took a deep breath, enjoying the sensation of power that seemed to flow through me.

"You've got small front arms, though, compared to your back ones," he continued, then frowned. "Or are they all legs, like on a dog?"

I held out my free arm. It was perfectly normal in length. I stopped and bent over to look at my legs. They were dragon legs, true dragon legs, not at all human looking, strong and powerful, and covered in white scales that shimmered in the morning sun. I looked back at my arm. "Oh, great, I have tiny little ineffectual T. rex arms!"

"I don't think they're that bad—" Brom started to say, but I cut him off by bellowing Baltic's name as we approached the stairs to the curtain wall.

"What is it?" came his answer.

I stomped up the stairs, taking a perverse satisfaction in the little tremor shocks that accompanied each step. "You never told me I was going to be a mutant dragon!"

He and Pavel both had their backs to us, the curtain walk around them covered in metal bodies interspersed with blood and gore and the remains of negrets that had been dispatched when they were conserving their dragon fire.

"What are you talking about?" Baltic asked, turning around to ask, an irritated look on his face that only grew more irritated when I gestured toward myself.

"I have tiny little arms! They aren't at all like yours! They're minuscule! They're like baby arms or something! I cannot tell you how disconcerting this is!"

Pavel, who had also turned to look, took a step back in surprise, tripped over a negret corpse, and fell off the wall to the ground below.

"You see?" I gestured toward Pavel as he picked himself up off the ground. "Pavel is so horrified by my puny little arms that he would rather leap off the wall than stay on it with them," I declared, knowing it was untrue, but unable to keep from expressing my unhappiness.

"You choose now to find your dragon form?" Baltic snarled, backhanding a couple of negrets off the wall down onto their brethren. "You couldn't wait for a time where I might guide you? You had to do it now? I am busy , mate!"

"It just happened! I thought I was going to explode, and instead, this happened." I stared at him for a moment, unable to put into words what I most feared.

"You don't know how to change back, do you?" he asked.

I slumped a little, relief filling me that he was there with me. "No. Behind you."

He spat fire over his shoulder, sighing heavily as he walked over to us, pausing at the sight of Brom's bloody face. "You are hurt?"

"Just my hair."

"Ah. Good. Mate, look at me."

"I don't like my arms," I said, releasing my death grip on Brom to wave them at him. "They're really, really disappointing. I thought I was going to be big and beefy like you. You have powerful arms. You have arms that make people respect you. You don't have widdle runty arms like me."

His mouth twitched, but he managed to keep his expression sober as he pulled me against him, shifting as he did so back into human form. "You are female. Your arms are suited to your form. Nothing more, nothing less."

"I don't like them," I repeated petulantly, letting a little of my fire caress his chest.

"Then change your form. It is simply a matter of controlling your will, chérie . Will yourself to your other form, and it will be so."

I kissed his neck, breathing deeply of his scent, now overlaid with the metallic smell of blood. I thought of myself as I normally appeared, of how my body fit so well against his, of the pleasure I took in our embraces, of my true inner self, of who and what I was, and when I reached up to pull his head down to mine, it was a normal human hand that brushed back a strand of his hair. "I love you," I told him.

"I know," he answered, kissed me swiftly, gave my butt a squeeze, and released me to take care of the next batch of negrets that forced themselves through the window. Pavel limped past us, giving me a crooked smile as he picked up his sword.

"Will you be mad if I said I like you better when you look like a normal person?" Brom asked as we trotted down the stairs to see how the others were doing.

"Of course not." I put my arm around him, rubbing his back, relieved to be in my human form once again. "I liked my tail in the dragon form, but I prefer this body, too."

"You have normal arms now," he pointed out.

"Yes." I frowned as we approached Nico, who squatted next to Holland. The latter, I was pleased to see, was still alive, although mostly unconscious, and missing one arm and part of an ear. Maura had helped Savian to his feet, his shirt and pants covered in blood and dirt. He weaved as he staggered against her, gesturing toward us. "And don't you think I won't have a thing or two to say to the First Dragon about those puny dragon arms when I see him next."

"Are you all right?" Savian called.

"We're fine. The negrets got in through the crypt, though. We need to block it off again in case more try to come through that way."

Nico and I did most of the work since Savian just wasn't up to it, and Maura was still firmly attached to him. We left them to watch Holland and the door while we swung the tomb back into place, and we wedged the base with a bit of broken wood from a window shutter.

"Let's hope that holds. Nico, are you all right to come with me?"

"Yes. Just a bit worn out," he said, trying to put a brave face on what I knew were some pretty grievous injuries.

"Good. Savian, you and Maura stay here with Holland."

"If he would just unlock me, I could help you," Maura complained, shooting a potent glare at Savian.

He lifted a feeble hand at her. "I would if I could, princess, but I told you that somehow, in all of the excitement, the key fell out of my pocket."

"Great, just great." Maura huffed to herself as she plopped down on the ground next to him. "This is so how I wanted this day to go."

"At least you can heal yourself," Savian said with a soft moan as she jogged his arm.

"If Holland recovers consciousness, tell him we'll get him to a healer just as soon as we can," I told them. "You may not want to let him see his arm lying there, though. That's an awfully startling thing to see when you just come to your senses. You're sure the bleeding has stopped?"

"His, yes. He's a corporeal spirit. Me, I'm human," Savian said, leaning back against the sun-warmed stone wall with a groan of pain.

"We'll get you and Maura a healer, as well," I promised, hesitating when my gaze landed on Brom.

"Can I come with you?" he asked, and I saw fear in his eyes that I knew he would never acknowledge.

"You would be a big help." He smiled in relief as the three of us went to pick up the Molotov cocktails that Brom had managed to make before the negrets had burst in on them.

I yelled up to Baltic my intentions, receiving in return a warning to be careful. We hurried over to the other side of the wall, which fortunately none of the negrets had managed to breach.

"With luck, they've either run out or realized we're just going to toast them into extinction," I said as I hurled a lit bottle down on the small cluster of negrets.

"You wouldn't think there was an endless supply of them, would you?" Nico asked as he—taller than me—tossed a bottle over the wall.

"I sure hope not." I bent down to drop another bottle, but movement to the far right side caught my eye. "What now?"

" What what?" Brom asked, handing me a bottle.

I handed it back to him. "You supply Nico for a minute, lovey. I want to see what's going on over at the far side. If the negrets have found a weak spot, we need to know about it."

"Don't leave the curtain walk," Nico called after me as I hurried down the narrow walkway.

The movement that had caught my peripheral vision was around the north side of the fortress, where the wall melted into the heavy stone mountain that rose above our heads. I peered down through the branches of a half dozen lemon trees that ringed a low stone wall that formed a drunken oval outside the bailey. The ground inside the oval was much less rocky than the surrounding area, although a few large flat stones were scattered around. My eyes narrowed as I focused on one of those stones. It looked like a headstone. I turned to look behind me, into the bailey. The chapel was directly below me with Maura, Savian, and Holland propped up against the wall.

"Must be the fortress graveyard for people not buried in the crypt," I said to myself, turning back to the area and searching it for signs of life.

A little flash of red through the green leaves had me gasping in surprise and shock, followed swiftly by terror. The sight of bodies forming out of nothing sent me running back along the wall. I didn't stop to explain when I got to Brom and Nico; I grabbed my son's arm and dragged him after me as I raced down the stairs and across the bailey.

"Baltic!" I yelled as both Brom and Nico asked me what was wrong. "Baltic! We have to get out of here. Now!"

"We can't until it is safe for me to take you and Brom," he said, appearing at the head of the stairs and tossing a metal negret down onto a stack that sat at the base of the stairs. "There are fewer of them coming now. Another hour or so and we will have depleted their forces enough that I can take you away."

"We don't have an hour. We have to go now!" I insisted, starting for the chapel. "We'll have to go out the bolt-hole and blast with dragon fire any negrets that remain."

"Ysolde!" Baltic said in his most domineering voice. "I insist that you allow me to decide when it is safe for you and Brom to leave."

"Thala's here!" I yelled over my shoulder, pausing long enough to gesture toward the north. "She's not in Nepal; she's here !"

He froze for an instant, then smiled.

I shivered at the smile.

"Good. We will capture her and take her to the watch."

"You don't understand. Oh, for the love of the saints—" I shoved Brom at Nico and marched back to Baltic, taking him by the arm and trying to pull him after me. "She's not alone!"

"She has ouroboros dragons with her?" He shrugged, refusing to allow me to budge him from where he stood. Pavel slowly came down the stairs, looking curious.

"No, she doesn't. She's in the graveyard. And unless I'm way off base, she's resurrecting the dead people there."

I'll say this for Baltic: he may love a battle, and will happily fight when the odds are greatly against him, but he's not stupid; he knows when the time is upon him to retreat.

That time was now.

He had to see for himself, however. While Nico and I whipped together a makeshift stretcher in which we gently rolled the still-unconscious Holland and his arm (we couldn't find his ear), he and Pavel went up onto the north wall, returning almost immediately with identical grim expressions.

"Liches," Baltic said, moving me aside as I threw myself on the tomb, trying to slide it back. "We will leave now."

"I can't go with you!"

We all turned to look at the woman who stood in the doorway, Savian next to her. She held up her hand. "Someone has to get this off, because I'm sorry, but I really cannot leave."

"Look, I know you feel some sort of loyalty to Thala—"

Her face twisted in pain. "No, it's not that at all. It's—it's…Oh, it's too complicated to go into now. You just have to believe me when I say I can't leave."

I turned to Baltic. "She's been nothing but helpful since we got here. Would you go ahead and break the handcuffs? Savian lost the key to them, so you're going to have to use brute strength to get her free."

"He won't be able to," Savian said wearily as Baltic started toward Maura.

"Don't be silly. Baltic is extremely strong, and even stronger in his dragon form."

Savian shook his head. "These aren't mortal handcuffs, Ysolde. They're titanium, spelled, warded, and scribed with not one, but two banes. They are unbreakable, even by a dragon."

"Oh goddess," Maura said, moaning as she put one hand to her head. "What am I going to do?"

"I have another set of keys in my flat," Savian told us. "If we can get back to England, I can unlock them."

"You're just going to have to come with us," I said loudly when Maura vented her spleen on him, telling him in no uncertain—and sometimes anatomically impossible—terms what she thought of his ineptitude. "I know it's not what you want, but we have no choice, and no time to stand here arguing about it!"

The negrets in the tunnel were taken by surprise when not one, but three dragons all descended upon them, filling the entire passageway with fire. Brom and I carried Holland—over Savian's protests that he felt fine, really, and the fact that he fainted when he stood up a minute before was just the merest coincidence—while Maura and Savian brought up the rear, the latter in a drunken stagger that owed its existence to a severe loss of blood.

"It's clear," Baltic said once he and Pavel returned from reconnoitering the entrance of the bolt-hole. "She has raised only a half-dozen liches thus far. Ysolde, would you—"

"No," I told him, taking his arm. "I know you want to take her while she's so close to us, but"—I glanced toward Brom—"she wouldn't bat an eyelash over the idea of using him against us."

He hesitated, torn between the need to take care of the threat Thala posed us and the acknowledgment that Brom was in danger by being so close to her. She was absolutely unscrupulous, and I didn't doubt for a second that she would use him mercilessly to harm us.

"You are right, I know, but…" He snapped off the word, his jaw tightening until a muscle twitched. "You are right. We will go. There will be other opportunities to find her—ones that do not pose such hazard."

"If I weren't already head over heels in love with you, I would be now," I told him as we hurried through the rocks and scrubby plants to the area where we'd left our cars, praying as we did so that we could get Brom away safely.