"Be safe, be safe, be safe."
Once down, I realized I'd landed on one side of a huge open room. And, in the flicker of candlelight, I saw Aunt Ruby and Mr. Washington, standing in the exact center of the room. His back was to me, and he was shouting at her, brandishing a shiny, jeweled object that had to be the dagger. When Aunt Ruby saw me, I held my finger to my lips and started toward them.
"All you have to do is tell me how to use the portal, Ruby. Iknowyou can do it. I've read the town records. I know every mayor gets the secret file with the information to access the Fae portal."
She shook her head, dust flying from her curls. "No," she said, stubborn as ever. "I don't know what you're talking about, Albert. I keep telling you. I don't know how to use any portal!"
He suddenly pulled back the hand not holding the dagger and backhanded her across the face, and I cried out.
He whirled around, yanking Aunt Ruby with him, and held the dagger to her throat. "Don't make me kill her, Tess. I don't want to do it. All I want is what's mine. I've spent twenty years researching the Fae treaty and dealings with Dead End. When that prince left the dagger in the tree, I felt the magic the first time I crossed the town square. Do youknowwhat I had to do to get it? And I couldn't carry the case up too, because some damn kids were throwing rocks at the 'dirty snake.' Iearnedthis dagger, Tess. I earned the right to know how to access the portal. Twenty-fiveyearsof putting up with you horrible kids. Just tell her to give me the information. That's all I ask."
I felt the quiet thud as Jack dropped into the room behind me and then the whisper of wings as Logan flew in. "After all these years, you're still a frustrated thespian giving melodramatic soliloquies, aren't you? Let my Aunt Ruby go, or you'll be very sorry."
Aunt Ruby said nothing, which was unlike her, and I realized she was trying to signal something to me with her eyes. I glanced to the side where she was looking and saw a gun on the floor. I took a step toward it, but Mr. Washington saw what I was doing.
"No, no, no, Tess. Leave my gun right where it is, or I'll have to cut your aunt. You don't want that, do you? And tell your shifter friends that if they make a single motion toward me, I'll kill her."
The eagle, however, dove at my former teacher's head. Mr. Washington ducked, and his grasp on Aunt Ruby must have loosened, because she tore herself free and ran to me.
And then ran right past me.
I glanced over my shoulder to see her standing behind the tiger who was backing me up. Smart. I would have picked the tiger over me too, usually.
But not this time. I dove for the gun, but Logan, now suddenly human, was there just before me. He snatched it before I could grab it and pointed it at Mr. Washington.
When I stood up, Logan pointed the gun at me. "I'm sorry, Tess. I was starting to like you very much, almost in spite of myself. In fact, if it weren't for Jack, I could have convinced you to fall in love with me."
My lip curled. "Not a chance, in this or any other world."
He laughed. "No matter. I need that dagger."
Mr. Washington still brandished it, eyes wild with madness. "Never! You will never have it."
Behind me, the deep rumble of a tiger about to go truly feral sounded, echoing in the underground space like thunder.
Logan never even glanced Jack's way. "I just needed to find Iona and convince her to sign up for another Bargain. Another year and a day of service to the Fae, and I'd be out of my current jam. But either she's hiding from me or dead, and I can't find her. Ineedthat dagger."
I stared at him in shock. "That's the only reason you want to find your sister? To use her? You reallyarea monster."
Logan sneered at me, but just then Mr. Washington started backing away, still shouting "never!" and also mumbling incomprehensible things, and Logan glanced over at him and sighed.
"Fine. Have it your way."
Then the eagle shifter shot my chemistry teacher.
When Mr. Washington fell, the dagger clattered to the ground and skidded away from him. Logan, focused entirely on this prize, didn't notice Jack gathering himself to leap until it was almost too late. But he turned at the last second and shot Jack in the leg, and I screamed and watched a quarter-ton of tiger crash into Logan, who was still in human shape.
"Stay there," I yelled at Aunt Ruby, and then I raced over to retrieve both the dagger and the gun, which had flown out of Logan's hand when Jack rammed into him.
Somehow, even after hitting the floor with a tiger on top of him, Logan shoved Jack's wounded body off himself and jumped to his feet. He snarled at me and grabbed for the dagger, but I pushed him—hard—with my other hand.
Then he made his first big mistake: he grabbed my hand with his.
I screamed in his ear—so loud and so long that my banshee grandmother would have been proud of me. And then, while he was trying to throw off the shock and pain of a possibly perforated eardrum, I stabbed him in the stomach with the dagger.
Then it washisturn to scream.
I yanked the dagger out of his body and he fell to the floor, bleeding. I stared down at him without feeling an ounce of pity and told him exactly what I'd seen when I touched him.
