“Never that, girlie,” came a woman’s voice next to me. “That will be the end of you.”

I pivoted around, aware that Phaedra was somehow contained behind a wall of power that stretched neatly in front of me and where Anyan still lay crumpled on the ground. More than anything, my legs wanted to carry me to him, but I had to know who was behind me.

Blondie, I realized as my eyes latched on to the overly skinny woman from the ice-cream shop.

She was wearing a man’s white wifebeater, her tattooed arms and torso glimmering fiercely in the light created from Phaedra’s attacks striking her shield wall behind us. Her jeans were huge and low-slung, showing off sharp, tattooed hipbones.

“We all have our limitations,” she intoned, patting my cheek gently. I was so in shock at seeing her again, I didn’t even pull at my power, but feeling the force that emanated from her, I knew it was pointless if I did. Blondie would squish me flat as the medieval earth.

“Now go to your friend,” she said, flicking her fingers negligently at Anyan. I felt a burst of power fly through the air at him, and suddenly I didn’t care that I could die.

“Don’t you hit him!” I hollered, raising probably the wussiest mage ball of my life.

She smiled. “It was healing magic, babydoll. Now go. I’ll take care of that one.”

And Blondie walked away from me, opening her shield as she did so. Without even thinking I lunged over to Anyan, physically covering him with my body in case Phaedra chose that moment to hit. But Blondie was already taking care of the Alfar.

Standing just inside the alley so no one else could see her, Blondie lifted Phaedra off the ground. At the same time, my rescuer did the same thing to Phaedra she’d done to me, and neatly blockaded the Alfar’s power in the same way I’d trap a fly in my cupped hands.

Then Blondie threw Phaedra, and I don’t mean tossed her away. I mean she flung her, using more power than I’d ever felt. And Blondie didn’t even bat an eyelash. But there was Phaedra, flying through the night sky like the catapulted cow in Monty Python’s Search for the Holy Grail. She arced over the nearest building and away.

I saw the still-healthy harpy flying after her a split second later, even as Anyan’s power shimmered beneath me. A few seconds later and I was lying on top of all that naked man-flesh I’d been wanting to ogle just a little while before.

“What happened?” he moaned, putting his arms around me so he could pull himself up into a sitting position. It took every ounce of self-control I had not to snuggle close and breathe in his warm, healthy, healed, not-hurt-anymore skin. Instead, I pulled back, again keeping my eyes off the prize below.

I looked up to call Blondie over so she could explain herself, but she was gone.

This will be fun, I thought grimly, even as I crawled the short distance to where Anyan had dropped his clothes. After tossing them over to him, I stood shakily and headed toward the mouth of the alley. Caleb was healing both Ryu and Daoud, despite a cut on his own head that was bleeding like crazy.

Miraculously, everyone was alive. Except for the crumpled body of our doctor, lying dead in the center of the road.

And with her, our only chance of getting at Jarl.

CHAPTER TWENTY

… love you, too, Dad,” I said, before saying good-bye and closing my cell phone. I was in our new suite’s bedroom—since the old one now had a rather expansive hole in the outer wall—taking a moment to make sure everyone was safe back at the homestead.

I lay back on my bed for just a moment, feeling exhausted. We’d been traveling all over, following so many leads, and we’d put together so much information. Yet for all intents and purposes, we had nothing. Losing that doctor had put us back at square one.

My mother and Iris were still dead; labs were still operating; and we were no closer to nailing Jarl then we’d been before we’d left Rockabill. Meanwhile, all I wanted, more than anything, was to go home.

Instead, I joined the others in the main room of our suite.

“Everyone’s fine,” I reported. “Still crashed out at my place. My dad thinks I’m now touring the Andes.”

I folded myself onto a free, out-of-the-way love seat, as far away from everyone as I could get, and combed through my wet hair. Anyan had taken me swimming, so I could recharge and so he could question me about Blondie. The barghest was freaking out over who she could be. Even now, he was standing at the window, staring out with an expression similar to what I imagined Miss Marple’s would be as she knitted and put together clues.

Then I thought of Anyan’s big, clever hands busy knitting, and wished with all my heart we were in a different time and place.

Ryu, meanwhile, was in his own bedroom, talking to his king and queen. Caleb and Daoud were watching CNN, although Daoud looked so sleepy I was pretty sure he’d be watching the inside of his eyelids in a few minutes. Julian was working on his laptop, ordering some equipment he wanted for the investigation.

All of which left me to brood on my love seat; so brood I did. Until Anyan turned around and walked over to me.

Part of me couldn’t help but enjoy him wedging his big frame beside me into the little two-seater sofa. But the other part of me knew what he wanted.

“Are you sure you couldn’t recognize her power?”

I sighed. Rather unsurprisingly, the barghest was like a dog with a bone about this subject: worrying away at it so that he could get to the marrow.

“Anyan, I told you: no. It sort of felt elemental, but it was just so strong.”

“Hmph,” he said, his long nose twitching furiously as he thought.

“And she wasn’t antagonistic?”

“Nope, she was really friendly. Called me ‘babydoll,’ and healed you. Then saved me from Phaedra. She was just… nice.”

“Nice,” Anyan grunted.

I nodded. Yes.

“Hmph. Maybe she’s a renegade Alfar,” he hazarded after a few minutes.

“If I didn’t think they were legend, I’d wonder if she was an Original,” Caleb said from where he sat on the couch. Anyan’s face darkened in thought.

“An Original?” I asked. I’d never heard of the term.

“They’re a myth,” Daoud said groggily, not bothering to open his eyes.

“Well, a myth of what?”

Anyan answered my question finally. “The Originals are like the humans’ missing link. They’re supposed to be the very first generation of Alfar, before they were even really Alfar.”

“Well, how are they different than Alfar?”

“The legend is that they had all of our supernatural powers, even that of shape-shifting. So take every single faction, no matter how obscure, and combine them to make the Originals. They could fire up, like ifrits; shift shape, like nahuals; take power from any element, like the Alfar; and even harvest essence, like baobhan sith.”

“Wow,” I said. “That’s a lot of mojo.”

“Yeah, but they’re myths,” Daoud mumbled again. “Fairy tales we use to scare children.”

Thinking about what I’d just been told, I thought hard. “She didn’t do anything that wasn’t… normal. I mean, nothing she did was normal, but it wasn’t anything an Alfar with a lot of power couldn’t do.”

“Yes,” said Caleb. “No doubt she’s a renegade Alfar.”

I shrugged my shoulders. I had no idea what she was, but “renegade Alfar” was as good a guess as any.

“Maybe she senses discord in the territory, thinks she can take advantage of it,” the barghest continued, unable to drop that bone.

I just looked at him.

“So you’re sure you didn’t recognize her power?”

Groaning, I buried my head in my hands, just as Ryu came back into the room.

“Well, according to Wally, Jarl’s being extra-present around the compound. Showing up for every meal, every event… making sure everyone knows he never leaves.”

“Making sure everyone thinks he can’t be involved,” Daoud muttered, his eyes still at half-mast.

“Yup,” Ryu said, sitting down across from Anyan and me. “Plus, he’s called Phaedra, Graeme, and Fugwat home, announced publicly that they’ve been risking their lives running spying missions into the Borderlands and that they’ve brought him all sorts of important information.”

“And since Jarl is the spymaster, he can make up whatever ‘information’ he likes to support his claim,” Anyan added. “What about the harpies?”

“They’re still unaccounted for. Jane did a real number on Kaya. Or did she hit Kaori? Anyway, whichever one she hurt, they’re probably holed up somewhere, nursing wounds. But I’m sure they’ll be back to spying on us once they’re both at full strength.”

“So what are we going to do?” I asked glumly.

Ryu frowned, but Anyan spoke.

“Wait. Make calls. Contact more people. We’ll get another lead.”

“I’m sick of waiting,” I said, knowing I sounded petulant but not caring anymore.