“Says the girl who got out,” said the Candela.

Her words stung because they were supposed to. Once, I was just like them, and while I never stooped to peddling drugs, I did a lot of other things that I’m not proud of. That was with Devin to protect me—and while he might have abused me in some very profound ways, he made sure I had a roof over my head, food in my stomach, and backup if I needed it. Without Devin and Home, the kids who’d been in his care were scattered to the streets. I’d tried to keep tabs on them for a little while, but Devin taught us all to be good at disappearing. At the end of the night, maybe I didn’t try as hard as I could have.

“Hey, girl who got out,” said the spiky boy. “You bring anybody with you?”

I hesitated. The boy smirked. At that point, he’d know if I lied, and so I told the truth: “No.” The fact that this was a bad idea was beginning to occur to me. There were five of them, and while I’m pretty good at one-on-one, the bad guys never charge you one at a time in real life. I kept my hand on my knife. “I came here to tell you to stop. Selling goblin fruit to changelings is not okay.”

“It’s not illegal.”

“That doesn’t make it right.”

“You know what does make us right?” asked one of the other kids, one of the ones I’d never seen before I started this ill-advised stakeout. “Strength of arms.”

With that, all the kids except the Candela produced guns and knives from inside their coats or from their belts. I took a step backward, trying to keep my expression neutral.

Oh, shit, I thought. “It doesn’t have to go down like this,” I said.

“Sure it does,” said the spiky boy, and shot me in the shoulder. The bullet went clean through. I screamed, but I didn’t fall.

Thanks to the vagaries of fae biology, I heal fast. Pain still hurts. I clapped a hand over my shoulder, rocking backward. The pressure made it hurt worse. I didn’t let go. Blood loss won’t kill me, but it makes the world fuzzy and unpleasant in a way that I can’t say I’m fond of.

“She didn’t ‘go down,’” said the Candela, putting a mocking spin on the words she was quoting. “Shoot her again. I want to see her—urk.” The sentence ended not with a threat but with the small, strangled sound of someone having her trachea forcibly crushed.

“Have we reached the point where my intervention will not get me shouted at for being a meddling tomcat who doesn’t respect the boundaries of others?” Tybalt stepped out of the shadows behind the Candela, tightening his hand around her throat. “I ask to be polite, you realize. There’s no way I’m walking away.”

Relief washed over me. “Hi, Tybalt,” I said, hand still clamped over my shoulder. “Good to see you, too.”

“Isn’t it always?” Tybalt gave the Candela a shake. She made a gurgling noise. “Strange taste in company you have these days.”

The kids looked confused as to who they should be aiming their guns at. Some settled on me, some on Tybalt, and others wavered back and forth between us. “I don’t like goblin fruit on my streets,” I said. “I hoped I could talk them into taking up a safer hobby than drug dealing.”

“Always the optimist.”

“I try.”

Our casual conversation was the last straw for the boy with the hedgehog spines. “You sellout bitch!” he screamed, and shot me twice more, this time in the stomach. Then he turned and ran, the other kids pelting after him—all except the Candela, who was still held fast in Tybalt’s hand.

I was a little too distracted by the pain in my belly to care where they were going, or what they were going to do when they got there. I looked down at myself and made a small gulping sound very similar to the one the Candela had made, watching blood run in ribbons through the fabric of my jeans. The gunshot wound in my shoulder had already closed over. That was good; it freed both my hands to press against the newer wounds, struggling to stay upright as the world hazed gray and black around me.

“October!” There was a horrible crunch as Tybalt flung the Candela girl into the wall. Then he was lunging for me, catching me before I could hit the ground. The smell of blood was everywhere. “Toby. Toby? Toby, don’t you do this. Don’t die. Please. I can’t allow…you wouldn’t dare…”

“I’m fine,” I whispered. The bullets had gone clean through. Maybe I wasn’t fine yet, but I would be, if I could just be still. “Go after them.”

“If you think I’m going to leave you, you’re—”

“Right. I’m right.” I gathered my magic around me, and it leaped to obey, already half-summoned by the sheer amount of blood that I was shedding. I’m Dóchas Sidhe. For me, all magic is blood magic. “Go after them. Make them understand that goblin fruit isn’t welcome here. I’ll meet you at the house.”

“Fine.” He spat the word at me like a curse and let me go, leaving me sitting on the alley floor while he raced off into the darkness.

I sat for a moment. Then I lay backward on the cold pavement, closing my eyes. The smell of blood was everywhere, and my hands were sticky with the stuff. Somehow, that bothered me more than the fact that my shirt and jeans were ruined. I was still bleeding. That was a problem. How much blood does the body hold, anyway?

Answer: not enough. I took a deep breath, pulling more magic out of the air, and forced it down again, trying to press it into my skin. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was doing, but I didn’t have any better ideas, and I didn’t want Tybalt to come back and find me dead in the alley. It would be cruel of me to do that to him after swearing that I’d be fine.

The magic sank into my skin, and the burning around the bullet holes faded to a dull ache as my body finally started focusing on the twin issues of lead poisoning and physical trauma. The sensation of muscle knitting itself back together wasn’t exactly what I’d call pleasant, but I gritted my teeth and didn’t move until the pain had faded. I touched my belly with one sticky hand and found only equally sticky skin.

I sat up, using the last of my magic to spin an illusion that made me look both human and uninjured. It wouldn’t do for me to go staggering down the street looking like something out of a Saturday night horror movie. The effort left me winded again. I stayed where I was for a few more minutes, waiting for my head to stop spinning. Then I stood and began walking back toward the street. I was done. I was exhausted, I was covered in blood, and I was absolutely, without question, done. Nothing was going to keep me from going home. Absolutely—