Because Solange was still drinking.

“Anyone could see her,” I whispered, horrified.

“And she doesn’t care,” Kieran agreed grimly. “If any other Helios-Ra saw her like this they’d shoot her on sight, no questions asked. And they’d be within treaty rights to do it.”

Solange seized the girl by the neck, tilting her head to a near-breakable angle. Her fangs sank deeper through skin and flesh, blood trickling slightly as if she were biting into a ripe peach. The girl made a fist just before her arm went limp. She struggled briefly, then just dangled. There was no pretending it was two drunk roommates holding up each other.

There was too much blood for that.

Solange looked enthralled, manic. Deadly. So I did the only thing I could think of.

I threw a snowball at her head.

It didn’t hurt her, of course, but at least it made her pause. She glanced up, lips curled. I scrounged around the ground until I found a rock at the edge of the flower bed behind me. I threw it as hard as I could and it hit her on the temple. She hissed, blood me welling on her pale skin. The girl in her arms slumped to the ground unconscious, moving so gradually, she could have been water freezing into an icicle.

Solange looked right at me then, and even through the fog of exhaust fumes, her glance was cold and sharp as a needle.

And then she smiled.

“That’s definitely not her,” I muttered. “And I’m getting that bitch out of my best friend.”

“But not tonight,” Kieran said, still crouched next to me, his jaw tight as bowstring. “Tonight we have to save them both. And soon.”

He was right.

“You run faster than me,” I said, straightening up. “So I’ll pull focus while you get her the hell out of here.”

I walked around the front of the car and stood in the middle of the street. “Wooo-hoooo!” I yelled, as if I was drunk and very, very annoying. Glances flickered my way but it wasn’t enough. I looked at the building in the opposite direction of Solange, reading the sign over the door. “Free keg at Kinsley Hall!” I yelled.

Not everyone detoured to take advantage, but at least they were all looking at the crazy girl in the road and not the guy in black cargos chasing down a bloodstained waif of a girl who ran like a deer.

Chapter 4

Solange

I knew she was a witch the moment I saw her.

She peered out of a cave set back away from the smoke-tinted woods. She wasn’t old, like the woman who’d spoken the Drake prophecy, or like Kala, or like the witches I’d read about in storybooks. She was only a couple of years older than me, at most. But there was something in her eye, some distant, mysterious quality that made me think of Isabeau. She had half a dozen pouches on her belt and holed stones dangling from braided yarn in her long brown hair. She smelled like mint and mud, even from here.

“You’re safe for now,” she said. “Once the dragon leaves, the rest of them follow. They only really care about the castle.” She smiled, stepping farther out into the haze. “They don’t even know I’m here.”

“Where exactly is ‘here,’ anyway?” I asked, still trying to catch my breath. “And how the hell do I get home?”

She blinked, emerging fully from the cave to stare at me. “You’re her,” she murmured. Her smile wasn’t remotely comforting. Neither was her laugh. “Finally.” She turned back to the cave, stopping to glance over her shoulder. “Are you coming?”

I paused but ended up following her, since I didn’t exactly have a lot of options.

The cave was small and damp, with water running in steady rivulets through the crevices. It wasn’t like the vampire caves; it was rough and unpolished without a single tapestry or rug to cut the chill. There was only a small fire in the back, a pile of pelts, a wooden chest, and iron lanterns stuck in the crannies.

“I’m Solange. Who are you?” I asked.

“Gwyneth. I’ve been hiding here for centuries.”

“Um. Okay. And you know who I am?” I guess I should have been used to it by now, but I just wanted to be invisible and unnoticeable. The feeling was familiar, as worn as a fleece blanket. And it was another sign that I was finally back to being myself.

“You’re the one she thinks about,” the girl replied. “She says your name sometimes when she sleeps. When she’s not too busy moaning and weeping.” She rolled her eyes, clearly unsympathetic.

“Who?” I asked, even though I was pretty sure I knew the answer.

“Viola.”

“Do you know who she is?” I crept closer to the fire, trying to warm my hands. The smoke from the fire made my throat hurt.

“Daughter of a lord, isn’t she?” Gwyneth answered. “Spoiled, soft, and romantic. It was that last bit that got her killed, and trapped us here. That and her vampire blood.”

“How?”

“I was the one that gave her the spell. I miscalculated,” she admitted, crouching by the fire. “She wanted a love spell, the girls always did. By the time they were women, they’d come for babies or poison, but she was still a girl. And I didn’t know then what I know now.” She sighed. “Didn’t like the man her father picked out for her, preening about bloodlines and kings. So she came to me.”

“Love magic,” I said grimly. Montmartre had tried a love spell to control me, just after my birthday. I still remembered the alien tingle of energy inside my brain and my body. It made me itch even now, to think of it.