Laura was bawling hysterically, her face already red from the effort, one hand clutching the back of her scalp.

“I’m…I’m so sorry!” Sophie screeched, her hand shaking violently, and a second later, she burst into tears, too.

“Give me that!” I jerked the scissors from her grasp by the closed blades, then spun Laura around to assess the damage. The center section of her hair had been clipped so close to her head I could see scalp showing through.

Great. A half-bald beauty queen. Laura was going to need therapy—I could already tell.

“Go to the office and have them call your mom,” I said, unsure if Laura could even hear me over her own snot-strangled tears. “I’m sure they can get you some kind of emergency salon appointment. Or something.”

Not that there was anything they’d be able to do for her, short of shearing the rest of it to match.

Laura wiped tears from her face with one sleeve, then wandered out of the bathroom in a traumatized daze, rendered virtually useless by a bad haircut. Not that I couldn’t sympathize.

“Sophie, what the hell?” I demanded, as soon as the door closed, but my cousin just stood there, clutching a handful of her best friend’s hair.

“I don’t know!” she screeched, her words so painfully high-pitched I wanted to slap both hands over my ears. Maybe she was part bean sidhe, after all… “She was working on her hair, going on and on about being Snow Queen, and I just kept thinking that she never should have won. Then I just…snapped, and the next thing I know, I’m holding half her hair, and she’s screaming, and all I can think is that it should have been me. It would have been me, if you hadn’t trashed my dress. I didn’t even get to compete after that!”

Her eyes widened, then narrowed in sudden understanding. And fury.

“This is your fault. I would have been Snow Queen if you hadn’t ruined everything, like you always do! Luck of the Irish, my ass. You’re like an agent of darkness. I swear, you have horns growing under all that stringy hair.”

“Sounds like you found the family resemblance.” I scowled and stepped closer to her, and Sophie backed up until her hip hit the sink. “I ought to cut your hair to match hers, and if you open your mouth one more time, that’s exactly what I’ll do.” With that, I dropped her shears into the big covered trash can and stomped out of the locker room, leaving Sophie to her guilt and tears.

I was almost out of the gym—Sophie had yet to emerge—when a familiar voice shredded my remaining self-control like wood through a chipper.

“So you actually died, and she just…let it happen?”

Sabine. My pulse spiked with irritation. What the hell was she doing?

“Well, I don’t think she could have stoppedit…” another, softer voice said, and my anger was a white-hot ball of fury flaming in my gut. Emma. Sabine had Emma, and they were talking about…things they shouldn’t be talking about.

“But you don’t know for sure, right? I mean, you don’t actually know what she’s capable of, do you? All you really know is that she’s not human and she screeches louder than a police siren. Right?”

I spun silently, trying to pinpoint the voices, but the gym looked empty.

“Yeah, I guess…” Em finally answered, and confusion slowed her words, like the first drink of the night.

“Don’t you ever worry about the next time? I mean, being best friends with a bean sidhe should come with hazard pay, right? You’re always in the line of fire, thanks to her.”

“Actually…yeah. Something went down last night, and she and Alec wouldn’t tell me what. Again.” She paused as I crossed one corner of the basketball court quietly. “But everything turned out fine.”

“But what if it hadn’t? What if you’d become collateral damage again? Do you ever worry that she might…”

“Just let me die?” Emma asked, and I could hear the fear in her voice. My blood boiled. Sabine was goading her, reading and manipulating her fears with every word, but the actual fears were all Em’s. Things she’d never told me about.

“Yeah,” Emma continued. “Kaylee and Nash can’t save someone without letting someone else die. One of these days, it’ll be my time to go, and I’m afraid that Kaylee will just…let it happen. Or that they’ll save someone else and end up killing me by accident.”

“It could definitely happen,” Sabine said, as I rounded the edge of the bleachers to see her smiling at me over Emma’s shoulder. She’d known I was there the whole time. My hands curled into fists and my jaw clenched so hard my whole face ached.

“Sabine, what the hell are you doing?” My voice sounded lower and darker than I’d ever heard it.

“Just getting to know Em a little better.”

Emma was watching me now, a familiar edge of irritation in her narrowed eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me Sabine isn’t human? And don’t tell me this is more bean sidhe business—she’s not a bean sidhe. And why do you and Alec have Netherworld secrets now? Are you just using any excuse to lock me out of your life?”

I raised a brow at Sabine. Clearly I was late to the conversation—Em had obviously confided several fears.

Sabine only shrugged and grinned, so I turned back to Emma, my arms crossed over my chest.

“Did she tell you what she is?”

“More than you told me. She’s a mara.”