At least I wasn’t doing it alone. My fall had put me on the side of the stage with Dominic and Alice. They’d pulled back to the wings, out of the snake’s direct line of sight, and they beckoned Malena and me forward as we ran.

Dominic broke cover when we got close, grabbing my wrist and dragging me the rest of the way to temporary safety. “Are you hurt?” he demanded.

“Later,” I said, pulling my hand away and drawing my gun for a second time. “We need to stop this thing.”

“How?” asked Brenna. She was farther back in the shadows, where I hadn’t noticed her at first. She looked terrified, and there was blood on the front of her previously spotless dress. It was the first time I’d seen her look anything less than perfectly groomed.

Oddly, seeing her shaken made me think of something. “Does Osana have a cellphone?”

Brenna blinked. “Yes.”

“Good. Call her. Tell her Clint’s our magic-user, and he needs to be stopped. There are so many dragons in this place, there shouldn’t be any problem restraining him.”

“Anders was the one who finished the ritual,” said Malena.

“Anyone could have finished it once it was that far along,” I said, unable to suppress the stab of betrayal accompanying the words. “Anders spends too much time dancing to have done the necessary research. Clint recruited him. Both of them.” Had he been trying to recruit me? I sort of thought he might have been.

“I’ll call her, but she’s not going to risk my sisters for this,” said Brenna.

“Tell her if she does, I will move heaven and earth to get you that baby.” It felt like I was bargaining with things that weren’t mine to give, and I’d feel bad about that later, when this was over and we were still alive. Right here, right now, I needed everything I could get.

Brenna’s eyes widened. “Got it,” she said, and retreated, presumably to make her call.

I turned to the others. “We have to stop it.”

Alice nodded grimly. Dominic just looked at me. Then, with no warning, he grabbed me by the shoulders, pulled me close, and kissed me.

Maybe it was the mortal peril, and maybe it was the adrenaline, but that might have been the best kiss I’d ever had.

When Dominic pulled away, his eyes were bright and his breath was coming a little too fast. “Do not die,” he said, and his words were a plea and a command, all at the same time. “Do whatever must be done, but do not die.”

“Same to you,” I whispered.

“This is fun and all, but let’s go see where on a giant snake we can stuff a grenade,” said Alice.

We turned.

The snake was still swaying, tongue flicking constantly. Anders had stopped painting with Lyra’s blood and moved to Clint’s side, both staring at the snake with expressions of proprietary satisfaction. This was their terror, their great accomplishment, and they were planning to enjoy it.

I still didn’t know if they could control it, and I wasn’t waiting around to find out. “The scales were rough but graspable; I think I could climb it, if nobody stabbed it while I was on the way up.”

“Gunshots seem to hurt it less, maybe because it’s so damn armored,” said Alice. “I can distract it without making it thrash. Then you see about feeding it something it won’t like.” She held out a grenade.

I took it and stuffed it down the front of my dress. It wasn’t like I had anyplace else to put it. “Great, let’s do that. Malena, think you can make it up with me?”

Malena stared at me like I’d just grown a second head. “Are all humans this suicidal, or are you a fringe case?”

“My mother always said I was special. Dominic—”

“I will help your grandmother. Do not die.”

I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice as I said, “Enough people are dead already. Now move.”

We moved.

I ran for the snake like I was being timed, leaping at the last moment and grabbing hold of the rough scales on the side of its body. Malena didn’t jump. She just slipped back into her quadruped form and swarmed up the snake, talons finding grips where I would have sworn there were none. I struggled to hold on, before realizing there was a better way.

“Malena!”

She knew. Immediately, she knew, and climbed back down, moving to cling to the snake next to me. I swung over to cling to her back, locking my left arm around her neck while I dug the grenade out with my right hand. Malena climbed.

I looked behind me. Dominic and Alice were on the stage, shooting at the great snake’s body as they ran around it. They were fast. It was faster. It tensed to strike, and then recoiled, nearly knocking us off. I twisted. There was Pax, still in his half-and-half form, burying his teeth in the snake’s side. It hissed like a steam engine getting ready to explode and tensed again. Alice and Dominic resumed their shooting. It was like a terrible game of whack-a-mole, and I found myself feeling almost bad for the snake. It hadn’t asked to come here. It was just an animal, doing what animals do, and we were doing our best to kill it.