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The crowd has lost their minds, gargoyles buzzing off in every direction.
“The crown!” Atticus shouts. “We can’t come to you unless you take the crown.”
The blind queen curls her fingers into claws that look way too similar to a gargoyle’s. She runs toward me, and I step aside, spinning slightly as I do—and holy hallucinations, there’s a dragon coming at the Bridge. Now I see why Rona called the wyvern a baby. This monstrosity is bigger than the tower that’s on fire.
On. Freakin’. Fire.
Smoke billows from the stone openings. Glass shatters, pelting the gargoyles below.
The Bridge cries a shrill, piercing note, and I fight the need to cover my ears. Not that it would do any good.
Huey drops beside me in full monster mode, blade-lined wings glinting in the firelight. He screeches at the blind queen who has grabbed the dagger Truman threatened me with.
“Oh no you don’t.” I shove her, tripping her in a move that my brothers used on me far too many times. With her fingers still curled into claws, she goes for my eyes. I hold up an arm to block her, and Huey flaps his wings, a violent ting of metal that has her hesitating. I take advantage of her pause, ripping the crown from her head.
“Even if you keep the dragon off the Bridge, it’ll destroy everything and everyone here,” she tells me. “You’ll die with your gargoyles.”
“I won’t live without them.” I put the crown on my head.
She vanishes.
What just happened?
Another gust of fire torches the Royal Tower, sending flaming pieces of wood and stone tumbling around me into the River of Souls. The Bridge groans, part of it collapsing.
“Rosemarie!” Jace yells. “Give the order.”
Right. A royal order. The Bridge whispers to me as if it was a living, viable being. Defend.
“Defend the Bridge,” I command. “Every gargoyle on it. No dragons allowed.”
Gargoyles rush past me and Huey. Even the elders join the fight.
Jace and Atticus shield me, but not before I have an up close view of the dragon snapping Truman in its jaws. Blood and fire paint the sky with ash raining white and grey. Smoke burns my nose and eyes.
“Get to our tower,” Atticus tells me.
“I won’t leave you,” I say. “Either of you. And I can’t leave the Bridge.” As much as I feel bonded to my mates, an even more powerful connection to the Bridge thrums through me.
“Then stay down,” Jace says, in full general mode as he directs some of the fighters from his position.
“Hide your light, my queen,” Atticus says.
I work at dimming the runes with no luck. The dragon’s tail whips into gargoyles, knocking them from the sky. The flames lick closer. The dragon raises his tail again, arcing it toward the Bridge.
In my head, the Bridge cries out. Choose, it says. Make your wish.
My wish.
Suddenly wanting to see my Lala once more seems infinitely selfish. Even asking for my mates and Huey to be shielded won’t be enough. Not if we can’t hold the Bridge against the monsters that will keep coming against us. The memories of those languishing souls and their torment echoes as if they’re around me. Where will they go if the Bridge falls? How will anyone cross over? I give up my one wish, casting it into the universe in hopes that someone, anyone who can answer it might hear me.
“Take my wish and save the Bridge,” I whisper as fast as I can.
The stones beneath us tremble.
The dragon’s tail crashes toward where my mates and I make our stand.
“Please,” I beg the Bridge’s goddess.
