Oh man, this was going to suck.

She had to do both actions simultaneously. Bracing herself back against his chest, she pushed as hard as she could against his forearm, lifting the tip of the knife momentarily from her throat—just an inch, but hopefully it would be enough. With her other hand, she reached back and smacked him upside the head.

The blow lifted them in the air and sent them flying back several feet. As Ashe crashed into the wall, his hold on her loosened. She crashed into Ashe, which wasn’t quite as bad as stone, but it was still bad enough. A line of burning pain flared along her collarbone as the edge of his knife ran across her upper body. They fell in a sprawling tangle of arms and legs.

She didn’t have to win this fight. All she had to do was get out of the way. Kicking free of him, she rolled and kept rolling.

A heavy weight slammed down on her. Ugh!

She got ready to smack Ashe with the other telekinesis spell, but then she realized the man was covering her body with his.

“Easy, lass,” Gawain muttered in her ear as he sheltered the back of her head with both hands. “I’ve got you.”

Overhead, there was a cyclone of savage movement and breathless cursing. She tried to turn her head to see what was going on, but Gawain’s hands were in the way. She gasped, “I can’t see.”

“Hold on.”

As the fight shifted down the corridor, Gawain lifted off her. Hooking one arm around her waist, he picked her up and ran several feet away. Only then did he set her on her feet, and together they turned to the confrontation.

Nikolas was the cyclone, but she knew that before she ever laid eyes on him. He had drawn his sword and was slashing with vicious, brutal accuracy at Ashe, who gave way down the hall and parried as well as he could with his knife.

“Did you tell the Light Court where I was going to be on the road to the solstice gathering?” Nikolas asked. “When I showed up that night, you asked me if I had taken the M6.”

“I’m sorry I grabbed her! Look, let’s stop to talk about this.” Ashe backed down the hall. “I lost my head, Nik. That’s all it was. I swear it.”

Even Sophie heard the lie in that. Ashe’s face twisted, and he swore under his breath.

Nikolas lunged so fast he turned into a blur. Suddenly a line of red appeared down the side of Ashe’s face. “Did you tell them about the puck? How Gawain and I met in the pub in Westmarch? Did you, you son of a bitch?”

Pressing relentlessly forward, he lunged again and pierced Ashe high in one shoulder. Ashe reeled back, then in a liquid twist, advanced to slash at Nikolas’s abdomen. With a catlike grace, Nikolas leaped back, and the attempted blow went wide.

“How many people, Ashe?” he asked. “How many of our people did you kill with small betrayals? What did they pay you? How much were our lives worth to you?”

Suddenly Ashe roared, “It wasn’t about how much your lives were worth! It was about saving mine! They were killing us—they’ve been killing us for centuries!—with no way home, no way out.”

Nikolas paused, chest heaving. “You could have deserted.”

Bitterly Ashe snapped, “With what money? How far could I have gotten? I struck a deal for amnesty and enough cash to start a new life and get out from under this godsforsaken doom the Dark Court has been under for centuries. All I had to do was feed them information until I could deliver you to them. Once the commander of the Dark Court force had fallen, I would be free. Then she showed up and found her way into this pile of shit, and you decided it would be a bright idea to make this your last fucking stand.”

“The Hounds waited to attack until you and Gawain had left with the lorry, didn’t they? That’s why you insisted on going.” After such an extremity of rage and movement, Nikolas held still and sounded eerily calm. “You told them we had come here. You turned this into our last fucking stand, Ashe. You did this.”

Down the hall, the other four men had appeared. They walked forward, staring, their expressions stricken and shocked. The pain and rage emanating from every one of the men was so raw and palpable Sophie could hardly bear it.

She felt like she shouldn’t be watching the confrontation. This was their betrayal and their pain, and they had the right to deal with it in privacy, but there was nowhere she could go to escape it. They blocked the way to the courtyard. All she could do was retreat into the cell with Robin. Sitting on the floor, she scooped him into her arms.

An odd, incongruent sound filled the hall as Ashe began to laugh. He staggered, shoulders shaking. The blood from his shoulder wound had spread down his side.

“I guess you’re right, Nik. I was too goddamn stupid to make a break then. The deal did hinge on your life, after all.”

“Why didn’t they attack the group at summer solstice?”

“Because they thought they were going to get you before then. I’d already met up with the others by the time we found out what had happened, and besides, you might have gotten away. I thought I might still meet the bargain if I could only let them into the house when everyone was sleeping—but everybody had so much to say to one another, some of you talked through the night, and then this morning, you got the bright idea to set watches. What a clusterfuck, hey?” He looked around at the circle of stony faces surrounding them. “None of it was personal.”

“Well, it felt pretty fucking personal to me,” Nikolas said. He sprang forward, and his sword flashed again.