Reid didn’t appear to care whether iron was supposed to work on mixed-blood Fae or not. He held up his hand, light sliding on the dark ring, and brought his hand down and wrapped it around Lorcan’s throat.

Lorcan screamed. He tried to scramble away from Reid, the chains clinking, chair scraping. He yelled rapidly in Fae before settling down to English. “Make it stop! Make it stop! Please! Stop!”

The rest of the Shifter leaders watched in a mixture of surprise and unease. Who the hell is this? their body language said clearly. And do I have to worry he can do that to me?

Reid lifted his hand from Lorcan’s neck, took a step back, and nodded at Dylan. Dylan didn’t return the nod.

Graham went forward, tired of waiting. The Morrisseys could toy with Lorcan all day, like the cats they were, if they decided to. Wolves were more straightforward. “What is going on with the Collars and the swords?” he asked, pushing his face to Lorcan’s. “I want to know everything, including how to keep the Fae from activating them.”

Lorcan licked the side of his mouth, where blood had dripped. More blood dripped from his nose, thin streams of it. “It’s too late. The High Fae have been making swords to match the spells in the Collars for many years. They’re almost ready. My father and I were chosen to help prepare the way.”

“Because Fae want Shifters back under their power?” Graham asked. “Guess what? They’re not getting it.”

“Fae wish to walk the earth again, as they once did. Shifters will fight the humans for the Fae—Shifters can fight iron.”

“You mean Shifters kill all the humans, and the Fae pour out of their stone circles and rule the earth?” Graham leaned closer to Lorcan. “Do they realize how many humans are on this planet?”

“Fae aren’t that good at math,” Lorcan said, gray lips quirking to a little smile. “But there are many millions of Fae in Faerie. Only a handful of them ever lived on earth. It’s getting crowded in Faerie, and they want the human world back.”

“Using Shifters to get it?”

“The battle beasts, yes.”

Oison had called Graham a battle beast. “If Shifters get wiped out in this little war, the Fae won’t have their battle beasts anymore,” Graham said.

“They’ll make more,” Lorcan said. “You have many cubs now.”

Graham felt the blood drain from his face. Shifters started to growl, move.

Rage replaced Graham’s shock. He grabbed Lorcan by his shirt. “They touch the cubs, and we’ll rip off their heads, starting with yours.”

“I told them that,” Lorcan said desperately, more blood trickling from his nose and mouth. “I told them how protective you were of cubs. They don’t care.”

Reid said, “Sounds like typical hoch alfar. Cold and stupid.”

Dylan broke in, his quiet voice even more deadly. “Why did they wait twenty years? In the first years of the Collars, we were weaker, more vulnerable. There was chaos trying to settle into Shiftertowns and find our feet.”

“They wanted you stronger,” Lorcan answered. “Shifters started to live longer, be more healthy, have more cubs. Multiply.”

Graham shook Lorcan once, spraying blood. “So the Fae would have a bigger army.”

“Larger and stronger.”

“Shit.” Graham released him, and Lorcan thumped back into the seat.

“What is the secret of the swords?” Jace asked around Dylan. “How can we break their effect?”

Lorcan shook his head. “You can’t. The Fae made the swords to have the same technology as the Collars—they taught my dad how to make the Collars in the first place, and he taught me. The spells in the swords activate the Collars. They don’t have to actually touch the Collars, but touching makes the control stronger.”

“But swords and Collars have to be in proximity,” Dylan said.

“For now.”

The chill of those words worked their way through the Shifters. “How many?” Graham asked.

“Swords? As many now as there are Shifters.”

Silence descended in the hanger. Graham remembered the pain that had encased him when Oison had touched his sword to Graham’s Collar. Oison had been able to manipulate Graham’s gunshot wound, healing and unhealing it at will. The water spell had been a way to bring Graham close enough to Oison, he realized, through the dreams—Graham would never have voluntarily walked into Faerie on his own. The Fae spell, through the water, had taken Graham to Oison, so Oison could use the sword . . .

“Inside Faerie,” Graham finished his thought out loud. The other Shifters jerked attention to him. “Oison didn’t come outside Faerie, with the sword, to where I was dying in the desert. He coerced me through Misty into drinking the water, to get me under his thrall first. He couldn’t just come and get me with the sword—I already had to be weak and in his power. Which means the sword spells must not completely work yet.”

Lorcan looked nervous. “Oison is impatient. He thinks we should move now. The leaders say the plan hasn’t matured, but Oison wants to start immediately, before Shifters get too strong.”

And Shifters were now learning how to control the Collars and even to remove them. Graham wondered if Oison knew Shifters had discovered the secret of removing the Collars, but Graham wasn’t going to voice the thought to a man hand in glove with both the Fae and the human government.

“Oison jumped the gun, you mean,” Graham said. “He gave the game away. That’s what he gets for being a f**kwad.”

“No, I gave the game away,” Lorcan said. “I’m doing it now. The Fae won’t let me live for telling you all this.”

Dylan almost smiled. “Then you’ll have to trust Shifters to keep you safe and alive.”

Liam grinned. “Ironic, isn’t it, lad?”

“Keep him safe?” Graham growled. “You mean I can’t tear him in half? Or watch Reid do the trick with the ring again?”

Liam shook his head. “We can’t risk the humans investigating us if Lorcan turns up dead and shredded, or cut in half by a Fae sword. So he’s now under our protection. Poor guy.”

Liam was laughing, looking positively gleeful. Graham wished he could be so happy. “How do we deactivate the swords?” Graham asked Lorcan. “All of them?”