“An aerial battle is not wise,” Bastian says.
A flash of blue light punctures his right wing and he growls, his claw tightening around me. He tucks in his wings and dives toward the field beside the festival—the hay maze…
We land with a heavy thud that knocks over a row. Bastian towers above the maze, but the robots drop down and disappear between the hedges.
I have to do something or we’re not going to make it. My lightning attacks are powerful, but I don’t think I have any left in me.
“Set me down,” I whisper.
“No,” he hisses back.
“Please, trust me,” I urge, knowing we’re almost out of time to make this work.
He drops to a knee and puts me between his legs. I force my magic out through every pore, camouflaging myself while creating a copy of me on his shoulder.
“Weapon,” I whisper.
Bastian wastes no time creating a golden dagger just my size. I kiss his hand as I take it and run to the hedge wall. I find a triangular stack and climb to the top, breathing shallowly through my nose.
I’ve read about powerful heroines in my books. Dragon riders, witches, chosen ones. I am all of those women right now.
And I will be the hero he needs me to be.
Gymnast vaults over the hedge and plants one of her spider spears in Bastian’s arm as the other reaches for the illusion of me. She opens her arm blades to cut my head clean off, but Bastian headbutts her. Their collision rings like a hammer on an anvil and Gymnast’s body drops to the hay beside me.
It’s dazed, and I’m scared, but I don’t waste the opportunity to leap on it, straddling her chest and pinning her arms. I stab the dagger down into her face, popping her right eye. Blue squelches out from the socket as I remove the blade. I stab down again, and again, until the thing below me stops twitching.
Bastian screams in pain behind me and suddenly, there’s fire in the air. My head whips over my shoulder to see him letting lose a bout of flame thirty feet long. It catches the tail end of Nightgown, lightingher clothes. The shift burns off her, revealing very human-looking anatomy.
What the fuck is it…?
Bastian curls forward, cradling a gushing wound on his shoulder where my illusion once sat. Nightgown’s glinting gaze locks on me, and she dashes across the maze. I hold up the dagger and summon whatever magic is left into my hand.
Bastian’s claw smashes down on the hay in front of me, forcing Nightgown to leap over the gap. His golden spear whiffs just below her feet as Bastian collapses forward, his eyes closed.
I call for lightning, but it doesn’t come. My chest feels so empty, and so heavy at the same time. My magic is expended…
One of her ropey tentacles snaps the dagger from my hand, ripping the flesh across my knuckles. I pull my arm in reflexively and cradle it to my hollow chest.
My heart thunders loudly as my eyes dart between the unconscious Bastian and the approaching nightmare.
“No loose ends,” she whispers. “As Master commands.”
I can’t believe I’m going to die to a freaking Terminator.
I wish I was like the heroines from my books.
I wish I’d trained my magic more.
The robot lunges, a wide leer splitting her doll-like face.
I suck in my last breath.
I wish I’d told him I loved him, at least once.
Claws close around the robot, stabbing into her gut and throat. They squeeze and she twitches, her arm blades flailing and cutting at the talons impaling her. Bastian’s thumb comes up to her head andpushes hard, his nail spearing through her mechanical skull. Blue goo spills from her slack jaw, and sparks fly from her eyes.
Bastian’s hand slackens and she falls to the ground with a clatter. I run across the ruined hay maze and fall onto him. His eyes roll in their sockets and his head lolls about.
