“Anyan, I am to Phaedra as sparklies are to Fugwat!” I shouted at him over the din, finally using my SAT-analogy skills in the real world. “You can use that! Just dangle me in front of her, and she’ll do something stupid!”

Anyan looked at me like I was suggesting he trample babies, and I rolled my eyes at him. He was so damned protective, but we needed whatever advantage we could scrape up.

Before the barghest could respond to my suggestion, however, we were distracted by the sight of Daoud flying through the air as Fugwat finally shook the jewelry’s spell and broke free.

Caleb immediately pivoted neatly, running back to take on the spriggan and scoop up the djinn on the way. Daoud looked dazed but unhurt, and he was already reaching into his pants for some more bling.

Which left Ryu once again battling Graeme by himself. Unsatisfied with their inability to beat the shit out of each other with mage balls, Ryu had conjured a sword of flaming blue light. Graeme, meanwhile, had armed himself with a tire iron from the SUV; his power arcing up the steel with a dull red flare.

Watching the two dueling was like enjoying a scene from Star Wars, and I mentally added the appropriate sound effects each time their weapon of choice whizzed through the air.

Meanwhile, Anyan and I were still creeping toward the alley to our left, holding our shields as tight and strong as we could against Phaedra’s onslaught. She wasn’t tiring at all and, if anything, had stepped up her barrage. I understood what Anyan meant about getting out of the open with her; she was gonna wear us out then take us down.

Luckily, we were close to some cover, and we had just started to back our way into the alley when I saw Kaya (or Kaori)—whichever one was uninjured—get out of the van.

Fuck, I thought. I hope whichever one that is, it’s not Graeme’s girlfriend.

Unfortunately, the harpy hustled immediately over to where the incubus was now definitively getting his sexual-sadist ass kicked by Ryu, effectively turning the tables on our baobhan sith. Caleb and Daoud were still dealing with the spriggan, who was covering for his own weakness by keeping his eyes covered with one meaty hand, as he used his other arm to karate-chop through the air. While randomly hitting in front of you isn’t a particularly effective strategy, the waves of buffeting power he sent in front of him were.

Fugwat may be dumb and rather ham-handed, but he’s strong.

More important, the big brute was keeping his two attackers busy. Without the lure of the bling, Caleb and Daoud couldn’t penetrate those ridiculously strong shields. And while they weren’t in any danger and still had him effectively pinned, blind and in one spot, neither of them could slip away to help Ryu.

“Ryu needs help!” I yelled at Anyan, watching as Ryu gave up the sword fighting and backed away to duel his two foes with mage balls. In real life, unfortunately, our enemies didn’t come at us one at a time, or stand in a circle waiting their turn for us to kick their ass. They came all at once, full on. They wanted to kill us, not pad out an action scene.

“So do we!” the barghest growled. He was right, of course, but I couldn’t stop watching Ryu. He might be a rat fink at times, but that didn’t mean I didn’t still care about him.

I was trying to figure out a way to help—I was thinking I could do something to help take down Fugwat, so that Caleb or Daoud would be freed to aid Ryu—when Anyan pulled me fully into the cluttered, stinking alley. He was peering about, trying to find some advantage we could use in our fight, when I saw my former lover fall.

He’d been holding his own against his two attackers, when the other harpy—her wing held awkwardly behind her—made a surprise appearance behind him. I never saw her leave the car, but then again, I was rather distracted. She got close enough to cut him with one of Phaedra’s cursed machetes. The pain broke Ryu’s concentration, and his shields faltered. The other sister and Graeme, seeing their opportunity, blasted at Ryu with a simultaneous bolt of energy that sent him flying through the air to hit what I think was the Escalade—we were blinded by the alley’s walls, but I could hear it—with a resounding crash.

Despite everything that had happened between us, seeing Ryu fly through the air like that nearly made my heart stop. I might not be able to see a future with him as a couple, but the gods know I never contemplated a world without Ryu in it.

Goddammit, Jarl will not be responsible for killing another person close to me, I thought as rage blossomed through me and I really pulled with my power.

This time I went on the offensive. I was still pretty juiced from the last time I swam, and there were spring showers tingling in the air that I pulled from. I battered at Phaedra with everything I had in me, taking a moment to yell at Anyan:

“Figure something out while I hold her! Sneak around the back way or something!”

For a second he responded just by looking at me, and I knew he didn’t want to leave me.

“Go!” I roared. “Now!”

So I blasted and I blasted, my libido noting with a small harrumph that the barghest was shedding his clothing beside me. Alfar attacks do not make for good ogling conditions, however, so I couldn’t spare any attention to the blur of tanned man-flesh on display in my peripheral vision.

Then Anyan was off and I was on my own. Against an Alfar. Who smiled at me like she was Garfield and I was a trayful of lasagna.

“Alone at last,” she purred, her red eyes almost glowing with power.

Fuck, I hate you, Phaedra, I thought as I pulled from the air around me, reaching all the way up to the rain clouds above, through the tiny droplets of moisture connecting us.

I let all that emotion come blasting out of me with my power. I knew the Alfar preached that emotions had to be shunted away in order to allow control, but I knew firsthand that was only one way of doing things. It was safer, as you were less likely to lose yourself to the power, but sometimes “safe” wasn’t the best option.

My enemy’s eyes widened, almost imperceptibly, at the force I was unleashing. That said, and despite my bravado, I did recognize I was skating a thin line. With nearly disastrous results, I’d given myself over to the Atlantic all those months ago, when I’d connected myself to her in order to escape Phaedra’s trap. The storm clouds above me were definitely different from the ocean, but equally strong in their own way… and equally tempestuous.

Keep your eyes on the prize, I reminded myself, forcing more power out of me in waves. Need to keep her distracted. So I pushed down my concern for Ryu and for Anyan, who was even now probably sneaking up on Phaedra, trying to focus on keeping the evil Alfar focused on me.

Luckily, I did annoying very well. Still concentrating on my power, I managed to pull my arms up, lodge my thumbs in my ears to make antlers, and then stick my tongue out at the little woman in front of me. Phaedra’s only response was to narrow her eyes, but translated from the Alfar that was like a normal person yelling bloody murder.

We were blasting so hard at each other at this point that my own shields were almost entirely based at my front.

If someone were to sneak up on me now… But just then, as if to relieve some of my worry, Ryu came stumbling, half supported by Caleb, across the mouth of my smelly alley, the satyr and the baobhan sith engaged in a fierce battle with both harpies and Graeme.

Momentarily distracted by the kerfuffle directly behind her, Phaedra’s attention faltered ever so slightly, and I used my chance to reach, reach, reach into the clouds and pull down a slug of power out of the sky. To my surprise, a lightning bolt came with it, which nearly hit me till I unconsciously redirected it at the Alfar. It sliced right through her shields, giving her quite a shock and spinning her like a top…

… directly into Anyan’s ambush. I had been expecting him to go around the building, but somehow, he’d managed to go up it and had leaped down all four flights (cushioned by his earth magics) to land on top of the Alfar.

Well, theoretically to land on top of the Alfar. Because she’d spun about, she was looking right at him as he fell. The lightning bolt had fucked her up for sure, but not enough that she couldn’t counter a direct attack.

With a pained expression Phaedra unleashed a burst of wild magic that flung Anyan aside. He hit the wall with a crack, his doggie-form sliding down to land in a sickening heap at the bottom. I heard myself crying out, panic and rage rushing through my system.

All I could think was that I had to get to Anyan, had to make sure he was all right, had to heal him, had to had to had to, so I reached…

For a second, I felt like I was in that opening scene from The Matrix, with all the computer code streaming at me. Only instead of code, it was water droplets, attaching me through their atoms to every other bead of water on the planet. In that ever-so-brief moment of time, I saw that we were all connected and that we were indeed, as Gus the stone spirit had said not long ago, “ugly bags of water.”

If I just reach, I thought, seeing how all the threads could come together if I pulled…

Only to have what felt like a bell jar drop over me, neatly cutting me off from all those pretty beads of water. I shook physically as all the power roared back into me and I felt just how far I’d extended myself.