I crawled toward it, one excruciating knee at a time, my arms and legs shaking with the effort, sweat pouring down my back, shots firing in the distance. I reached inside, began pulling the magic together one hot and miserable thread at a time. Every time I thought I’d managed to corral all the magic that had buried me, I found another hank of it hiding in a dark corner of my psyche.

Just as the magic had rushed me, it poured out again. Cold surrounded me, seeped in where the magic had vacated. I felt like I’d been thrown from the equator to the Arctic Circle, my teeth and hands chattering with the sensation.

I coughed, and my throat felt parched. But I had to bind the power. I had to bind it or my body would seek it out again, and I’d be back at the start.

I put my hand on the cypress, begged the magic to bind itself, to sink in and find its home. But the buzzing continued, a hornet’s nest inside my head.

Tears of frustration slipped from my eyes. I flexed my fingers again, put my palm back on the stump. I couldn’t ask it; I had to demand the magic be bound.

I imagined the conversation I’d like to have with Rutledge, what it might feel like to push a little magic into him, let him feel what it meant to be “contaminated” or “tainted” with it.

That was close enough to a demand for the stump. The magic filtered into the wood, and the world finally stopped vibrating.

“Thank God,” I said, and hit the ground.

CHAPTER TWENTY

I woke in the truck. I was nestled against the door, the vehicle bumping along the road. The world was quiet and dark, no lights across long lots of former farmland.

I put a hand on the dashboard, tried to sit upright. My head spun like a tornado. “Oh God,” I said, and put my other hand on my head as nausea swelled in my belly.

“Don’t toss your cookies,” Liam said, handing me a bottle of water. “Drink this.”

I uncapped it, drank until I was heaving for breath. “Are the Dupres all right? Tadji?”

“She’s fine. They all are. They’re in the car behind us. How are you?” He put a hand on my head. “Your temperature feels a little better. You were freezing.”

I glanced back to check the headlights, but my stomach rumbled with objection. I turned around again, put a hand on the dashboard, waited for the world to stop spinning. “I think I had all the magic at once. And then I got rid of all the magic at once.”

“Phaedra said you’ll heal, although that tree stump will never be the same. It’s mulch at this point.”

My head felt five or ten pounds too heavy for my neck, and I was only barely keeping it from rolling off onto the very dirty floorboard. I put my head back on the seat, closed my eyes, breathed quietly until I could sit upright without wanting to hurl. “What happened?”

“Since you survived the first war,” Liam said, “it will not surprise you to learn that even guns are often not a match for Paranormals with a point to make. The operatives had been planning on taking the Dupres without any trouble. So when the Paranormals advanced, they retreated pretty fast.”

“Maybe that will make Rutledge think twice before pushing further. Before taking a shot at the Veil.”

“Or he’ll just come with more firepower next time. A man like that doesn’t just abandon his plans. He tweaks them.” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “We’re taking the Dupres to Gavin’s. He’s a less obvious target than Gunnar. And Gunnar’s house is too big, with too many people. That assumes his father would even let us in anyway.”

“Okay,” I said.

He glanced at me. “But I want you to tell Gunnar what happened here, about everything. He needs to get Tadji and her family under protection, warn the Commandant about Rutledge.”