“Let’s head back to the bookstore, Dani.”

A strangled sound was the only reply.

I spun and sucked in a screech of breath. I didn’t think. I just lunged and slammed my palms into her to Null the bitch.

The Gray Woman froze, but I was too late.

I stared in horror. While I’d been lost in my own thoughts, the lesion-covered, beauty-sucking Gray Woman had sifted in, grabbed Dani unaware, and begun devouring her. Right behind me, and I hadn’t even noticed!

All I could think was, But this isn’t her MO—the Gray Woman devours men!

Dani tried to shake her off but couldn’t. “Dude, how bad’m I?”

I looked directly at her and nearly lost it. Bad. I gaped. This was not happening. This was unacceptable. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t lose Dani. I felt something wild and dark stir inside me.

“Aw, man, get her off me!” she cried.

I tried. I couldn’t. Dani tried, too, but the Gray Woman’s hands created an unbreakable suction, fusing her victim to her until she chose to release it. I kept hitting her with my palms to keep her frozen, running a constant Null effect on her, trying to clear my head and figure out what to do. I kept stealing sideways glances at Dani. What was left of her hair was no longer auburn. Big bald patches showed, and lesions had formed on her scalp. Her eyes were sunken holes in a bloodless face. She was covered with sores and looked like she’d lost fifty pounds, and she couldn’t have weighed more than twice that soaking wet.

“Shoulda known,” Dani said miserably. “She hangs here. Likes Chester’s. I been hunting her. Guess she knew it. Ow!” She touched her mouth.

Her lips were cracked, oozing. It looked as if her teeth were about to start falling out.

Tears stung my eyes. I slammed my palms into the frozen Gray Woman. “Get off her, get off her!” I shouted.

“Too late, Mac. Ain’t it? That’s what I’m seeing in your eyes.”

“Never too late.” I pulled my spear out and pressed it to the Gray Woman’s throat. “Do what I say, Dani. Don’t move. Just let me handle this. I’m going to let her unfreeze.”

“She’ll finish me!”

“No, she won’t. Trust me. Hang on.” I closed my eyes and opened my mind. I stood on the black beach and stared at the dark waters. Deep down, something stirred, whispered welcome, greeted me with affection. Missed you, it said. Take these, they are all you need. But come back soon, there is so much more. I knew that. I could feel it. The lake was like the padlocked box in which I kept thoughts I couldn’t face. There were chains to break, a lid to lift. The runes I gathered seeped out cracks. But one day I was going to have to open that dark place of power and look deep. I scooped crimson runes from the black waters. I opened my eyes and pressed one into the Gray Woman’s oozing cheek, another into her leprous chest.

I waited.

The instant she unfroze, she tried to sift, but as my dark lake had promised, the runes prevented her. The more she resisted, the brighter they pulsed. I realized this was the Song of Making ingredient Barrons had told me about, the one that had added the punch to of the prison walls. The more powerful the Fae that tried to push through, the more resistant the walls became.

She exploded away from Dani and began trying to tear the runes from her skin, shrieking. They seemed to burn. Good.

Dani whooshed to the ground like a sheet of paper, thin, white, and badly crumpled.

I kicked the Gray Woman. Hard. Again and again. “Fix her.”

She rolled over and hissed up at me.

I raised a fist, dripping blood and runes, flung a third one at her.

She screamed and curled in on herself.

“I said fix her!”

“It is impossible.”

“I don’t believe you. You sucked it out. You can give it back. And if you can’t, I will trap you in your own leprous skin and torture you for eternity. You think you’re hungry now? You have no idea what hunger is. I’ll show you pain. I’ll keep you in a box and make it my personal mission in life to—”

With a snarl of rage and pain, she rolled over and clamped her oozing hands to Dani’s face. “Free passage!” Bloody spittle flew from her lips.

“What?”

“You will not kill me if I do this. You and I will have—how do they say?—détente. We will be comrades. You will owe me.”

“I will give you your life. That’s all you get.”

“I can take hers before you can take mine.”

“Feck that noise,” Dani cried. “Kill the bitch. You ain’t owing her nothing, Mac.”

There was something bothering me. This had the feel of a personal attack. “You don’t kill females. Why did you come after Dani?”

“You killed my mate!” she snarled.

“The Gray Man?”

“He was the only other. Now I hurt you. Get them out of me!”

“Give her back what you took. Make her like she was before and I’ll remove them. Otherwise, I’ll skin you in them.”

She writhed on the pavement.

“By the count of three, bitch. One, two …”

She held up a thin, sucker-covered, oozing hand. “Make oath with me. Free passage or she dies.” She laughed bitterly. “We were separated when we escaped. We were going to hunt together, feed together. Who knows? In this world, perhaps we might have had young. I never saw him alive again.” Her lips peeled back. “Choose. I weary of you.”

“Feck her,” Dani seethed.

“I want more than her life. You will never harm any of mine. I won’t waste my breath explaining to you who is mine. If you think there’s even a minuscule possibility that I might know the person you’re thinking about feeding on, don’t, or our truce ends. Understand?”

“Neither you nor any you consider yours will ever hunt me. Understand?”

“You will leave no trace of your foul touch on her.”

“You will grant me a favor one day.”

“Agreed.”

“No, Mac!” Dani cried.

I pressed my palm to the Gray Woman’s. I felt the sting of a single sucker mouth as it bled me and we made the oath.

“Fix her,” I said. “Now.”

“Can’t fecking believe you did that,” Dani muttered for the tenth time.