Shards of glass and droplets of alcohol sprayed into the air. Katherine grabbed a thick piece of glass and stabbed it into her right hand. She yanked at her power, pulling at the dregs of it so she could—
Sylvia hit her so hard with a ball of magic that she slammed all the way into the back wall.
Katherine’s vision went black. When it returned, she saw Sylvia stalking toward her, drink still in her hand. She towered over Katherine, taking a sip before resting it on a nearby table and bending down to Katherine’s level.
“Did you really think that would work?” she taunted. “Did you think your half-assed little spells would be enough to take me down?”
Sylvia leaned in, her face inches away from Katherine’s. This close, Katherine could see that her eyes were bloodshot. Her skin was paper white, ice-blue veins bulging against her forehead. Katherine couldn’t tell if it was just her vision, but it seemed like Sylvia was almost swaying.
Sylvia placed a hand on Katherine’s leg, digging her fingers into the flesh. “You’re just a sad, lonely little girl,” Sylvia snarled. “I don’t know what I ever saw in you. You were never going to be strong enough to do what it takes to survive.”
Katherine stared past Sylvia, watching the bright lights reflecting through the windows over the bottles in the bar.
“Maybe you’re right,” Katherine said. “Maybe you are stronger than me.” She tightened her fist, letting the glass dig further into her palm. “But there’s one difference between me and you.” She pushed herself up further, so she could look directly in Sylvia’s eyes. Sylvia’s grip tightened, magic starting to burn at the tips of her fingers, singeing Katherine’s skin.
“I learn from my mistakes.”
Katherine kicked at the same time she cast, dislodging Sylvia’s arm from her leg and rolling to the side just as her magical flare shot into the air above her, shooting through the roof of Sunspot.
And then a car blasted through the wall and slammed right into Sylvia’s chest.
Sylvia’s body flew backward across the room, hitting the bar with a loud crack. Fiona whooped as she slid out of the driver’s seat. “God, that was just as cool as I imagined it’d be.”
Katherine tried to laugh, but she was too out of breath for much sound to come out. Fiona heard the attempt and rushed to her, helping her off the floor. They looked over at Sylvia, who was slumped againstthe bar. Her body had fallen to the floor in a crumpled heap, blood from a cut on her temple running over her closed eyes. Katherine couldn’t tell if she was still breathing.
Katherine brushed a piece of drywall out of her hair. “What happened to ‘I promise I’ll stay in the car, Katherine’?”
Fiona gave a faux innocent shrug. “Oops.”
Katherine rolled her eyes. She’d realized, when she was downstairs staring at her friends and rescuers, that they were right—she couldn’t do this alone. Even if she’d been at her full magical strength, Sylvia was going to be too much for her.
But despite that acknowledgment, Katherine was still Katherine, and she’d made her friends promise to help in a way that kept them as far from the actual action as possible. Tess was off clearing any potential collateral damage out of the nearby buildings—and, because Katherine was in a benevolent mood, getting Byron out of harm’s way as well. (A decision she was already regretting.) Fiona, who had come up with the brilliant idea to use her car as a battering ram, was supposed to live out herGrand Theft Autodreams and then get the fuck out. The twinkle in her friend’s eyes when she agreed to that should’ve been Katherine’s first clue that this would happen.
“Fine, you can stay,” Katherine said to Fiona. “But promise you’ll stick behind me.”
“Aye aye, captain.”
The damn twinkle was there again, but Katherine knew there was nothing for it. She kept the piece of glass angled in her hand as she walked toward Sylvia. Fiona, for her part, did at least stay a few steps behind her, pulling her caster into her hand.
Katherine was a foot away by the time she was able to spot the low rise and fall of Sylvia’s chest. Relief squared off against regret.
She heard the soft hum of a knife cutting into skin. Katherine looked at Fiona, raising an eyebrow in question.
“Take however much you need,” Fiona said. “Do your body-locking spell and make her walk down to the cell. We can throw her in there until we’re able to get the big guns.”
Katherine shook her head, pushing away Fiona’s palm. “It won’twork,” she said. “The wards in there couldn’t hold unsettled magic. We have to…”
But Katherine couldn’t get the words out. The faces of the three deaths she already had on her conscience danced in her mind’s eye. Adding another to that list—addingSylviato that list—would put Katherine in a hole no amount of therapy could get her out of.
She shouldn’t care. Sylvia had done awful things. She wasn’t a victim. She had lied, fought, killed.
But staring at her lying on the floor, her breathing shallow, Katherine couldn’t help but pity her.
She knelt down, pressing her finger against Sylvia’s wrist to feel her thready pulse. Fiona rested a hand on her shoulder.
“You don’t have to do this,” Fiona said.
“Who else will?”
