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Magic filled the park, thick enough to fog the air, as they battled for control. I’d wanted Ruadan for myself. But I’d known that wasn’t going to happen. Not when Claudia could get to him first.
The world paid the price for the war that they waged. The neat lines of sidewalk across the park lifted and fractured, then spread with a thick carpet of undulating grass. Trees disappeared, reappeared.
The stuttering had begun, and the rest of the fairies wanted none of it. They scattered, trying to leave the field of battle to thegenerals. And we were there to meet them. Humans and supernaturals emerged from their positions on the edge of the park.
Connor and I stepped out of the trees, into the paths of two running fairies.
“I’ll take the right,” I said, heart speeding as I unsheathed my katana.
“I’ll take left,” Connor said, pulling a dagger from his boot.
The monster clawed at me. And this time, instead of pushing it down or giving it control, I let the monster step beside me. It didn’t so much as hesitate. Two consciousnesses in one body, with all the combined strength and power.
I looked back at Connor, saw the acceptance—the encouragement—in his eyes.
“Use it!” he yelled to me, before turning to avoid the downward thrust of a dagger.
If the fairy understood what the scarlet shade of my eyes meant, he didn’t mention it. And he didn’t wait for me. He advanced, horn-handled blade held aloft and ready to strike.
“I guess we’re skipping the preliminaries,” I said, and met his blade with mine. He was strong, and the force rattled my bones nearly as effectively as the magic.
I lunged forward at the fairy, blade raised, and sliced a line of red across his shoulder as he pivoted away. He screamed with pain and stabbed out again, the tip of his blade catching the edge of my hip and sending searing heat through my abdomen.
Together we pushed forward and swung our katana, tearing skin and muscle across the fairy’s calf and sending him to the ground.
Part of me was afraid. Part of me was thrilled.
Another fairy came toward us, and we spun the katana and sent the man sprawling to the ground.
“LSD is back!” said the voice reporting through my comm. “United Center is stuttering.”
“No!”
The scream was sharp and shrill. I glanced over, saw a fairy with his blade at the neck of an officer he’d grabbed from behind. The fairy slit the officer’s throat and let him drop to the ground. Then he looked up and met my gaze. He was the fairy who’d killed Tomas, who’d held the knife on me.
He turned to run and saw a woman at the edge of the park, a human who hadn’t relocated or who’d come back to see what was becoming of her city, camera aimed at the unfolding drama.
“Stop!” I screamed.
He grabbed her, started running, dragging her along. So I ran, too.
“Elisa!” I heard Connor’s voice behind me as I darted toward the edge of the park.
The ground rumbled beneath me. A hill of grass bubbled up, disappeared, then bubbled up again as the masters fought for superiority.
The woman screamed, and I ran harder, but the fairy was fast.
The hill just got larger, the grass spreading as Aqua shrank and disappeared beneath a carpet of stone and sky. And then the stones rose, a dozen of them. Four feet wide and growing taller with each second, atop the mound where humans had once lived.
The fairy spun, tried to avoid them, came face-to-face with a new stone. He turned around, his back to it, his thin fingers around the wrist of the screaming woman.
“Let her go.”
The fairy looked back at me, eyes all but spitting with rage. “Bloodletter,” he muttered.
“Let her go,” I said as we swung the katana. “Or learn what a bloodletter is.”
His eyes narrowed. He shoved her behind him but kept a grip on her wrist, the blade—still scented with human blood—in his free hand.
