I belatedly jolted forward to follow him, but Grove grabbed me by the sleeve of my uniform and held me back with a shake of his head.
Orrin stopped when he reached Sarge. “Jade is the only supernatural who would lay down her life for a teammate and consider it an even bargain. She’s the only staff member of the entire department who sees each one of us as a potential comrade—no matter our background. Of course, the department would move realm and skies to save her.”
I stared, shocked by Orrin’s speech.
He wasn’t wrong—I would sacrifice for my teammate, even against stupidly poor odds. It was my concern for Considine that had driven me here without my team, after all.
But…
I didn’t think that mattered.
I didn’t even think anyonecared.
Grove gently elbowed me. “Drink your potion.”
I went back to sipping it, and for a moment I didn’t know if the haze in my eyes was tears, or a healing effect from the potion.
“Medium-Sized Robert? Bring the cuffs,” Sarge called.
“Yessir.” Medium-Sized Robert held the cuffs up and started toward the team.
Gisila sagged in the vampires’ and shifters’ grasp, her hair still dripping with water. She let her head hang, and then began to laugh.
Grove frowned and pulled another bottle from his satchel—this one was an unnatural shade of neon yellow.
I narrowed my eyes and felt the spicy zing of dragon shifter magic. “Guys—she’s going to—”
Gisila wrenched her arms and legs free and ran.
Tetiana leaped at her—her hand grazing the back of Gisila’s jacket—but she missed and fell, smashing into Clarence.
Binx and Brody tried to race after Gisila—who sprinted across the loading station. But the shifters lacked speed and couldn’t catch up.
“Don’t let her touch that weapon!” I shouted as I sprinted across the room while Gisila made it to the viewing room.
Sarge directed the water to her, but the liquid flowed too slowly.
Gisila reached the vault and pulled out a bundle covered in cloth that was so heavily bespelled with dragon shifter sealing magic, it felt like my head was on fire.
Magic gathered around Gisila, and I heard the roar of a dragon that was so loud and so deep it shook my bones and the floor trembled beneath my feet.
Just as I reached the viewing room, the sealing magic shattered, clearing my head.
Unfettered, Gisila peeled back the cloth, revealing a recurve bow.
It was massive—easily as long as I was tall—and was impossibly made of chipped black stone that looked like it would cut whichever archer tried to use it. The only ornamentationon it were the phases of the moon that were embossed on the thickest section of the bow with some kind of strange silver metal.
Sunshine’s suspicions were likely correct, and the weapon’s power waxed and waned with the cycle of the moon.
The bow sparkled with a foreign magic that took me a moment to identify as the same magic I’d felt before when Gisila and Orrin had used an elven artifact to open gates into the fae realm.
It’s the elf weapon.
As soon as I identified the magic, I realized the bow seethed with malevolence—the same kind of hatred I’d seen in the eyes of vampires who cared only for death and destruction.
“Wait—Gisila—don’t!” I shouted. I threw my potion bottle at her, hoping I’d get her attention off it.
Gisila ignored the bottle when it thumped her shoulder and bounced off. She was too obsessed with the bow. “Finally—my priceless birthright! Passed down through the Von Faulken line. It should have been my inheritance, but my parents gave it to my brown-nosing sister!” She held the bow in a traditional stance before fitting her fingers to the bow string and pulling it back. “It’smine! Finally, mine! It’s—what?” The humor left her voice and was replaced with bewilderment as she peered at her fingers, which were bleeding heavily where the bow string cut into her skin like a finely honed blade.
