The pixie’s small body trembled against my neck, and I reached up and gently patted his back, careful not to crush his wings, which were twitching in grief, anger, and agitation.

“It’s okay,” I whispered. “I’m here, and you and Tiny are safe now.”

Oscar hugged my neck again, and he stayed perched on my shoulder while I reached up and lifted Tiny out of the air conditioning vent. I put the tortoise in one of the front pockets of my coat, so that he could stick his head up and see what was happening. Then I reached back into the vent and grabbed the final thing hidden inside—my mom’s black blade.

The second my fingers touched the bloodiron, I felt just a little bit better, like I hadn’t lost almost everything I cared about tonight.

I wasn’t sure why.

Because things were still terrible, horrible, awful. This was one of the worst nights of my life, second only to the one following my mom’s murder. Victor had captured Claudia, Mo, Angelo, and Reginald. The rest of the Sinclairs were either captured or dead as well. And if my friends and I weren’t careful, we’d end up just like everyone else.

But as I stared down at the five-pointed star carved into the sword’s hilt, I felt as if my mom was standing right next to me, whispering to me about all the things I needed to do next. Get the black blades. Take my friends someplace safe. Strike a bargain with the Draconis to get back Claudia, Mo, and the others. And figure out a way to finally end Victor’s reign of terror once and for all.

And that was exactly what I was going to do—or die trying.

“Lila?” Devon asked. “Are you okay?”

“No,” I said, buckling the sword’s scabbard to my belt and hopping down off the counter. “Not even close. But I will be. And so will everyone we have left. I promise you that.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

I grabbed a few more things from my room that we might need; then we went back down to the dining hall. Devon, Felix, Deah, and I stood in the doorway, with Oscar riding on my shoulder and Tiny nestled in my coat pocket, and stared out at the sickening, senseless slaughter before us.

“I will never forget this,” Felix said in a sad voice.

“You don’t forget,” Deah said, her tone harsh, her dark blue eyes blazing with grief, rage, and determination. “You remember. You use that anger, that pain, that grief, and you fight back with it, with everything you’ve got.”

She reached down and yanked the gold Draconi cuff out of her pocket. Deah’s fingers tightened around it, as if she were thinking about hurling it away from her as far and hard as she could. But in the end, she simply tossed it down at her feet, disgusted by the sight of it and everything it stood for. The tink-tink-tink of the cuff rattling around and around on the floor was as loud as a clap of thunder in the absolute quiet of the mansion—

“Over here!” someone called out. “I heard something!”

Deah’s eyes widened. “That’s Blake! He’s here!”

We all froze. Sure enough, the slap-slap-slap-slap of footsteps sounded in the distance. More than one set, all hurrying this way. After they’d taken the prisoners away, Blake and the Draconi guards must have doubled back to make sure that there were no survivors—or to capture anyone who might come to the mansion looking for safety after the fight at the restaurant.

We didn’t dare go back out the door and into the hallway, so I waved at the others and pointed over at the windows that lined the wall. Oscar zipped off my shoulder and flew over to the windows, peering out them.

“It’s clear this way,” he called out in a low voice. “Let’s go!”

We hurried over to the windows, trying to make as little noise as possible as we waded through the broken dishes and smashed food on the floor. Like most of the others in the mansion, these windows had been shattered during the initial attack, so it was easy for us to climb out the jagged panes and drop down five feet to the soft grass below.

I scanned the landscape around us, but the Draconis weren’t on this side of the mansion yet and we had a clear shot from the lawn all the way over to the trees. From there, we could disappear into the forest and head back to the SUV that we’d stashed down at the scenic overlook.

But instead of moving forward, Devon let out a soft curse.

“What’s wrong?” Felix whispered.

“We didn’t go down to the training room to get the black blades,” Devon said, his mouth twisting with disgust. “We can’t leave here without them.”

I winced. “Yeah, about that . . .”

Devon, Felix, and Deah turned to look at me, with Oscar hovering in midair beside them.

“We don’t have to go down to the training room because the weapons aren’t there,” I said, shifting on my feet. “Not the real, magic-filled black blades anyway.”

Devon’s eyes narrowed. “You stole the weapons, didn’t you?”

I shrugged. “More like moved them to a safer location.”

He kept staring at me, his mind churning as he put all the facts together. “That’s what you were doing last night. Instead of sleeping in your room, you were breaking into the training room, switching out the black blades for another set of fakes, and hiding the real weapons somewhere else.” His eyes narrowed a little more. “My mom helped you, didn’t she?”

I blinked, surprised that he had guessed that. “How did you know?”

A ghost of a smile flashed across his face. “Because she wouldn’t have wanted to risk Victor ever getting his hands on those black blades again, and who better to hide something that important than a thief? I bet she told you to take them someplace where only you would know where they were.”

“Yeah. Are you angry about that?”

His smile widened. “Are you kidding? I think it’s bloody brilliant.”

I grinned back at him. “Good. Then let’s go get them.”

We sprinted across the lawn and stopped inside the tree line to look back at the mansion. Through the windows, I could see Blake moving from room to room, along with more Draconi guards, their red cloaks rippling around their shoulders like all the blood that stained the inside of the mansion. I’d thought that we’d at least put a dent in their numbers at the restaurant and then at the lochness bridge, but it looked as if Blake had just as many guards with him as before. Maybe even more.