Page 220 of Keldori By Daybreak

“I told you I’d make it,” I whispered back, turning to face Stanley, Mom, and the Rift.

“I never doubted you, dear.” She regained her composure to ask, “What has gotten into Stanley?”

“He works for the Baron as a Lucid Nightmare.”

“Stanley? A Lucid Nightmare?”

“It’s the chickens.”

Gams swore. “Then I suppose I’ll have to discontinue them. Pity. They do so well with customers.”

Ciarán lined up on my other side, his thoughts vibrating against mine. We’d been here before, held at weapon point at the Rift. That had been against Ferrin and Caitria. We could manage Stanley.

The trick was figuring out how to do so with no casualties. Stanley was less calculated than Ferrin, but that made him less predictable too.

“End the storm,” Stanley demanded.

“You don’t want that,” Gams crooned. “Stanley, love, what are you going to do when the armies lined up on the shore come to meet us here?”

“Tamora will be here first.”

“You can’t know that.”

Except that he absolutely could know that, if his bond with Tamora worked at all like my bond with Ciarán, or even the bond I’d shared with Galahad when he had been my nocturmancer.

If Stanley was so sure that Tamora would be here soon, then she must be nearby.

“Drop the storm. Last chance, Frozen God.” Stanley straightened up and better positioned the gun against Mom’s temple. A flash of lightning illuminated the scimitar tattoo on his arm.

Sparks flickered in Gams’s hands, and I wondered if she was going to risk Mom and fight Stanley, but then she dropped her arms. The wind died, and dusty snow settled over the ice. Clouds dispersed with a final peal of echoing thunder to reveal the star-studded Skalterran sky and its two moons.

Smoke and ash rose on the mountain peaks at our backs, and I could feel more pushing its way to the surface, ready to blow and destroy everything in its path.

“There she is.” Stanley grinned out at the sea where red steam highlighted the outline of Tamora’s armada. “And I’ve cleared the way for her.”

My mind raced, searching for a solution, but I couldn’t get past the pistol. A million ideas vied for my attention. Each of them carried the risk of a bullet in Mom’s head.

Mom’s shoulders heaved. Stanley was distracted looking out at Tamora’s waters, so he didn’t see Mom bracing herself for what she was about to.

My mother was strong and brave and would rather go down fighting than be used as collateral.

She snatched Stanley’s wrist in her grip as she ducked away from the barrel of the gun.

“You—!” Stanley cried. He wrestled against Mom, trying to gain the upper hand. As weak as he was in his real form, Mom was tiny and clearly exhausted after sustaining her chrysalis in the shop.

I raced across the ice, ready to help, ready to get shot if I needed to, but a figure stepped from within the Rift and beat me to them.

He wrapped his arm around Stanley, wrested the gun from his grip, and a shot rang out across the ice.

I slid to a stop as Stanley went limp in Maxwell Brenton’s arms and fell to the ice where he moved no more.

It was not the first time I’d seen death in Skalterra, but something about the easy brutality of Stanley’s end made my knees weak and my blood cold.

Mom staggered away from Maxwell, quaking hands rising to her mouth.

“Max?” she hissed. “What are you—?”

“Eliza,” Maxwell said with a curt nod. He raised the gun.