Come on, Sugar. Come and get me.

The gates of Mishmar’s wall flew open. A sphere of fire and light rolled onto the bridge and broke apart, revealing my father. His face was dark. A blood spear formed in his hand.

“YOU DISOBEYED ME AGAIN, MY DAUGHTER.”

I’d never seen him this pissed off. Not even when I fought with him at his castle. I pulled Sarrat out of its sheath.

Behind us, Mishmar trembled and bellowed like a tornado. I turned around. The tower shuddered. The strange birds took to the sky, their guttural cries swallowed by the noise. Car-sized chunks of concrete and stone broke loose and tumbled down.

“SHARRIM!” My father’s voice rippled with magic. If the bridge had been metal, it would’ve melted in fear.

“It’s not my fault!” I yelled back.

“STUBBORN, IGNORANT, IMPERTINENT CHILD! I TOLD YOU NOT TO COME HERE. I WILL KEEP YOU HERE UNTIL YOU LEARN TO OBEY ME!”

Oh crap.

Thunder punched my ears. A massive crack formed in the tower’s wall. The purple inferno of my grandmother’s magic splashed and coiled within it.

I turned back to my father and saw the familiar winged shape behind him diving toward me.

“Can’t talk now. Grandma wants to see you.”

My father snarled, pointing his spear at me. A chunk of Mishmar the size of a small house rolled off the top and plunged down. The entire tower rocked. The purple magic spilled out, its fury mind-numbing. The prison rumbled, threatening to collapse.

My father swore, each curse word charged with magic, and planted his spear on the bridge. Golden light burst from it, battering against the purple.

I charged past him.

Sugar landed and ran toward me across the bridge. I sprinted to her. She turned, stopping for a heartbeat, and I jumped and landed on her back.

Behind us the gold and purple magic tore at each other.

The pegasi took off, huge wings beating. I pulled all of my magic out of myself, trying to shield us.

The two spheres of light exploded.

“Higher, Sugar. Higher!”

The pegasi’s powerful muscles rolled under me. She beat her wings, climbing higher and higher. Below us the glow of magic splayed out, as if a second sunrise burned down below. The edge of the explosion expanded toward us. I held my breath. The glow fell a few yards short.

“Did he kill Grandmother?” I whispered.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Erra’s voice said in my ear. “She is already dead. Besides, your grandmother was the Shield of Assyria. Even if he committed every drop of his power to it, he couldn’t stomp her out of existence. She’s buying us time. He’s got a busy night ahead of him.”

“North,” I told Sugar. “Fly north.” He wouldn’t look for us in that direction.

The pegasi turned and fled north, as fast as her wings would carry her.

“And for your information,” Erra said. “I wasn’t always the City Eater. That’s the name our enemies gave me and you won’t use it.”

Oy. “What were you called before you were the City Eater?”

“The Rose of Tigris. Now shut up and make this horse go faster.”

Chapter 11

ERRA WAS RIGHT. The Shar was real. I felt the familiar pull when I crossed into my territory. I hadn’t realized how much it was wearing me down, until I had to slide it back on, like a tired plow horse who was being put back into her horse collar.

All of me hurt. My back was probably bruised from being thrown around. My stomach wound ached. I wanted to get home and sleep.

Sugar unloaded me in front of my house. I hugged her and gave her another sugar cube. “Thank you.”

Sugar neighed, bumped my face with her head, and took off into the night.

I didn’t make it more than two steps into the house, before Curran appeared out of the living room and hugged me to him. He didn’t say anything. He just pulled me over, wrapped his arms around me, and squeezed until my bones groaned.

He smelled of blood. I probably smelled worse. My whole body hurt and being hugged felt like being run over by a car. And there was no place I wanted to be more than right here.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” he said.

“I . . .” I resurrected my aunt who tried to kill you so hard, you were in a coma for eleven days. “. . . I’m glad to be home.”

“I’m glad you’re home, too.”

“How did it go?”

“The degenerate is at the Guild,” Curran said. “Regenerating.”

“Did any of your people . . .”

“No,” he said. “King’s got broken legs and Samantha was burned, but we got out alive.”

He rescued Saiman and got them out alive. I exhaled.

“How was it?”

“It was okay,” Curran said.

“We did okay,” Derek said from the living room, almost at the same time.

Curran opened his arms, but I held on to his hand. Not yet. I still wasn’t one hundred percent sure he’d made it back in one piece. I still needed proof for a little while longer.

In the living room Derek sprawled on the floor on a blanket, his eyes closed, his body human, corded with hard muscle, and covered only with a strategically placed towel. Julie knelt by him, long tweezers in her hand.

“What’s going on?”

“Quills,” she said. “Very thin quills. There was a magic plant and he decided it would be a good idea to give it a hug. Because he is smart that way.”

So they had taken Julie with them. Considering where I’d gone and what I did while there, I didn’t have room to talk.

Derek didn’t bother opening his eyes. “I wasn’t giving it a hug. I was shielding Ella.”

“Mm-hm.” Julie plucked a thin needle from his stomach. “You shielded her really well. Because it’s not like we didn’t have Carlos with us.”

Carlos was a firebug. The plant must’ve gotten torched.

“We’ll need to work on mixed-unit tactics,” Curran said. He looked tired. It must’ve been hell. “So what did you do in Mishmar?”

Umm. Ehh. In my head I had somehow expected Erra to stay in Mishmar.

“I saw my father,” I said. Start small.

“How was that?” Curran asked.

“He’s a little upset with me.”

“Aha.”

“I broke Mishmar a little bit.”