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My sword flashed. Magic came at me from all directions. The Mind Manipulator tried to command me to stand down, but I shoved him out of my brain with the vicious might of a clap of thunder. Cobblestone cracked beneath my feet and a sharpened root shot up to wrap around my ankles, but I simply teleported out of its hold and reappeared in front of the responsible elite just in time to slice his throat.

Now a few elites screamed. Others billowed in size, shifting themselves into something stronger and deadlier than me. It didn’t matter. My Walking power allowed me to flit in and out of existence before any of them could reach me.

My sword whistled, whispering truth after truth as I cut the Good Council down. When an elite sent a cloud of fire in my direction, I spun out of thin air and into the next free space. When another sent rocks hurtling at me, I did the same.

Slice. Stab. Strike.

It was only when an invisible Object Summoning hand tightened around my torso, anchoring me in place, that I breathed out a series of curses.

I scrabbled for my dark, fathomless magic. Nothing. The remaining elites closed in, roots shooting toward me, fire blasting into my face, fingers morphing to claws that would surely shred my face into bloody strips…

Two scythes came zipping from the jungle where Sasha and Sylvie still hid, sharp, curved points lodging between the shoulder blades of a pair of elites.

The Object Summoning hold on me snapped. My sword found a heart, then a lung, then a stomach. Only a few remained. So close—

Sylvie screamed. I knew it was her in the first fraction of a second the sound split the air from the direction of the jungle. I’d grown up with the twins, played and lived and mourned with them as surely as if they were my siblings.

And I would not lose another sibling today.

The Mind Manipulating elite was grinning her way, clearly having caught her in some kind of mental snare after he’d seen where the scythes had come from. I didn’t give him a chance to continue whatever the fuck he was doing.

I stabbed him with a command. His arms snapped together. Dutifully, he walked toward the village man still chained to the post in the middle of the square, unchained him, and wrapped the chain around his own neck instead.

The next second, Sasha—I was willing to bet anything it was Sasha—yanked him high up into the air with a sound like a twig cracking underfoot.

Then dropped him back onto the ground in a glassy-eyed heap.

Only one elite left. The man cowered under my gaze, his cloak like a melting puddle around him. His pants bloomed with piss.

I took a single step in his direction, and he turned. Ran.

I let him go. My quota was far beyond filled, and I wasn’t about to kill anyone who might have had a change of heart. Rayna had told me that most pre-elites seemed to crave the job, to want the most powerful role that could cause the most pain, but maybe some had been forced into the position like she’d been.

When the elite’s footsteps faded away, silence rang out once more.

Slowly, I turned to face the villagers. A few had fled the scene, but my brows hooked up in surprise at how many had stayed to observe the fight. Mouths hung open. Eyes swept over the pile of my bodies at my feet and then up to my face… no, my mask. Because I hadn’t wanted the Good Council to recognize me and get away in time to report to Dyonisia that I was alive. Rayna’s trick would be exposed then, and her life would be in even more danger than it already was.

Still, when their whispers snaked through the air, I felt an urge to answer.

“Who are you?”

“What are you?”

I angled my head to reveal my pointed ears and grinned with all my canines.

“A faerie, of course.”

Then I disappeared in a whirl of darkness.

Back among the dripping trumpet trees, I found the twins with their arms looped around each other.

“You okay?” I asked. Sylvie nodded, eyes fogged.

“That elite just… he commanded me to kill her, and I almost—”

“You weren’t even choking me that hard.” Sasha rolled her eyes, and it was then that I noticed the reddish handprints checkering her neck. Anger, worry, more guilt—it all punched me in the gut. Sasha just sighed with exasperation. “Look, we don’t have time to snivel about it. No harm done to us, all the harm done to the elites. Are you ready?” She nudged Sylvie. “Can you feel them?”

Sylvie nodded, forehead scrunching with concentration.