Isabeau lifted the leg bone of what must have been a truly huge dog. It was painted with runes and swirls and hung with crystals. It was an echo of a real talisman, one reserved for Shamankas and their handmaidens; I’d seen something similar when Kala had used magic to help me see the prophecy. It was so deeply imbued with magic that the moment Isabeau snapped it in half, the dried marrow exploded into a cloud of glitter.

“Vérité,” she whispered in her native French tongue. “Vérité,” she said again, shaking the magic off the bone over Hope’s head until it covered her like dandelion pollen. “Vérité,” she repeated for the last time.

Hope frowned suddenly, shaking her head as if an insect had crawled into her ear.

“C’est fini.” Isabeau smiled and drifted away, taking me with her.

“Okay, what just happened?” I asked. “I assume you didn’t do all that just to make her itchy?”

Isabeau didn’t answer. She was too busy scowling down at the Hel-Blar scurrying through the camp, clacking their jaws. One of them stopped to lick the dried blood off the splintered ruins of the post and the chains coiled like dead snakes. I could also see the outcropping jutting over the long feast table where Logan stood over Isabeau’s body with his sword, looking pale. Charlemagne sat behind her head.

“It’s time,” she said, snapping the ribbon of light that bound our wrists. “You must return to your body. Do not linger.”

I shivered, feeling odd. “Don’t worry.” The pull of the silver cord was making me nauseated as it tugged my spirit back home. I followed the trail, passing through pine boughs and branches, to the platform where Kieran was crouched by my side, looking frantic. I reclined into my body, the way Isabeau told me. My eyes snapped open.

Kieran jerked back, slipped, and fell on his butt. I blinked again, feeling the cold boards under my back, the snow seeping into my clothes, the warmth emanating off Kieran’s body.

“You scared the hell out of me,” he said hoarsely, as he got to his feet. “Again.” He offered me his hand to help me up and I shot up so quickly I ended up pressed against his chest. The sounds of the bloody battle beneath us receded for one moment. And then one of Lucy’s classmates darted past, jostling us.

“What the hell happened?” Kieran asked, stepping back but not letting go of me completely.

“Magic,” I replied. “Isabeau this time, so I’m okay. And she worked a spell on Hope, so it was worth it.” I finally stepped away from him, feeling the cold wind snake between us. His scent of cedar and mint clung to me. “But there are Hel-Blar down there now. So I should go.”

“We should go,” he corrected me.

Chapter 40

Lucy

We ran over the rocky terrain, heading around to the far end of the Blood Moon camp into a grove of red pine. There was nothing but dead needles and snow on the ground, no bushes or undergrowth to hide us as we raced against the wind and right into a clutch of Hel-Blar. What was the plural for Hel-Blar anyway? Pack? Nest? Murder.

Definitely murder.

These weren’t even the ones Aidan had just released. They wore no collars, no leashes. They’d been drawn by the smell of spilled blood.

“Climb up that tree.” Connor tossed Christabel up onto a low branch and spun back around, a stake in each hand. The Hel-Blar clacked their jaws, saliva dripping off their fangs. “When you reach the satellite give a holler.”

“I’ll give a holler when I crash out of this tree and onto your head from fifty feet up,” she muttered. I knew why she was muttering, I was doing the same thing as I climbed up after her to distract myself from the height, the adrenaline swimming through me, the sounds of jaws clacking at Nicholas and Connor, and people dying in the near distance.

“Being a vampire seemed like a lot more fun in those books you used to read,” she said to me as I pulled myself up onto a wide, sturdy branch below her. “And it’s probably not a good sign that all I can think about it is Tennyson’s ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’: ‘Theirs was not to question why, theirs was but to do and die.’ ”

I shook my head. “Connor’s right, your taste in poetry has gotten downright depressing.”

On the ground, Connor dodged a clawing grab, swinging up onto a branch just long enough to swing back down, stomping hard. His boot crushed a Hel-Blar’s shoulder, cracking his bones. He howled, stumbling. Connor kicked him onto the stake he’d left sticking out of the ground.

“Who could have guessed smart geeky boys were so hot?” Christabel flashed me a conspiratorial grin. She wrinkled her nose. “Being a vampire and hanging out with you again is clearly a bad influence. I’m thinking how hot Connor is when we might all die horribly before the sun comes up.”

“Keep calm and carry on,” I said cheerfully.

“Isn’t that from World War II London when the bombs were falling?”

“I stand by the comparison.”

I glanced at the feral blue monsters currently attacking our boyfriends. “Good point.” She climbed faster, until she reached the small satellite. “Got it,” she yelled down.

“Okay, flick on the switches behind the dish, on the left,” Connor called up, then grunted when he tried to avoid a bite and hit the tree hard enough that we nearly lost our perches.

We clung to the trunk, swearing. “Are you okay?” Christa asked.