the blasts that i'd been keeping aimed at graeme had never ceased, but now they were coming twice as fast, and with twice as much fury.

[careful, young one,] the creature warned. but despite the emotional storm raging inside me, i knew what i was doing.

i acknowledged the creature's thought with an unvoiced response of my own, even as i broke through graeme's inner shields. that left only his personal defenses - the thin skin of mojo we all wore around ourselves as a last resort.

i had them down in seconds.

by that point i was nearly on top of him, having strode forward with each carefully timed blast. so when i peeled away that last layer of shield, pushing him to his knees as i did so, i was able to get right up in graeme's grill.

it was time to send a message.

i took a page from anyan himself as i sent my power out like a hand, taking a viselike grip on graeme's throat. his eyes widened as i squeezed, ever so slowly.

when he was blue and wheezing, i spoke.

'you're going to take home a message for me, you shit,' i said, letting up just enough on graeme's throat that he didn't die and could take a breath. then i squeezed again.

'you're going to tell morrigan that i'm coming for her. and that she made a mistake taking anyan. before, we were ready to play the way she'd always played, but now all bets are off. we're going to find a way to kill her, and for good.

'she's going to die, and she's not coming back from this one.'

i let go of graeme's throat so promptly he fell forward; choking with harsh strangled sounds that were like the sweet tinkling of bells to my ear.

'now get the hell out of here. and if you ever step foot in rockabill again, i'm killing you.'

with those words i sent a massive arc of power at the frozen golem. it exploded in a magnificent shower of icy mud that rained over graeme like a riot of chocolate sprinkles.

he looked up at me, then, and although his eyes were still full of the same hate they always were, i saw something new.

i saw fear.

i saw respect.

i saw the jane i'd become - the avenging fury who meant it when she said she'd kill someone.

a dark shadow swooped down on graeme from above, and then he was aloft, carried by the now recovered harpy.

i signaled for ryu to release the other one, who launched herself in the air with the aerial version of a limp.

she buzzed out of sight, lumbering in the night sky like a pollen-drunk honeybee, following the larger shape of her graeme-laden sister.

turning back to ryu, i found him watching me with a dark, inscrutable gaze. graeme wasn't the only one who got schooled that day.

it seemed that everyone was learning just what jane was made of, including jane herself.

chapter five

'is that the creature?' iris whispered at me, pointing surreptitiously at the giant eyeball staring at us from the rock wall.

'yes. well, its eye at least.'

'and the, um, appendages?' she said, giving a furtive flutter of her hand toward the piles of tentacles lying around the cave.

'yes, they belong to the creature, too.'

the creature had apparated all of us down to its underground lair. graeme had undoubtedly taken my message back to morrigan, but we knew there was a good chance the harpies were still skulking about, trying to spy on us.

and since harpies, with their control over the air, could do all sorts of things to make listening from a distance easy, the creature had suggested we meet underground, on its turf.

the cave hadn't changed much - it was still dank, drippy, and muddy. i was relieved, however, that phaedra's body was nowhere to be seen. the creature had speared the little alfar like a kebab; only tentacles make much bigger holes than skewers.

it hadn't been a pleasant sight, watching her die, and her corpse would be even less pleasant after time to rot.

with us for this meeting were iris, caleb, ryu, daoud (in from boston), nell, and trill. at my insistence, we'd also brought my father, grizzie, and tracy. ryu was not convinced that they'd be of any use, but i wanted them there for a few reasons. i wanted their support, if i was honest, but i also knew that, sometimes, those farthest from a problem could often see it the clearest.

we had left gog, magog, and hiral back at the ranch. it's not that i didn't want to trust them, but i also knew that they had divided loyalties, no matter how much they liked and supported me. they'd always have their affiliations to the rebels of the great island, and after lyman's betrayal i wasn't able to trust his brother, jack, the rebel leader. for even though i knew jack was devastated by his brother's betrayal and subsequent death, we now knew jack didn't have the control over his people that he thought he did. if his brother could go that rotten without him realizing, lord only knows what else was lurking in his crew. so while i trusted gog and magog to have my back, i didn't trust them not to tell jack what we were up to.

hiral was another matter. the little gwyllion had grown on me, and i'd have been willing for him to come. but he'd asked to stay back, to my surprise. it took me a few minutes to realize that he was actually intending to keep an eye on gog and magog, but i was grateful when that realization hit.

'should we get down to business?' ryu asked, casting a fastidious gaze around his surroundings. the baobhan sith wasn't really a mud person.

[yes. let us commence,] rolled the creature's sonorous voice through my mind. i could tell from everyone's startled reactions that he was speaking to all of us, and i suppressed a smile.

despite what all the fantasy books might lead you to believe, psychic phenomena were actually unheard of in the world of magic. we could manipulate energy, but thought was something entirely different. i'd been more than relieved to learn that fact, as i'd always been rather frightened of the idea of psychic phenomena. maybe it was so much time spent in the loony bin, but i had a certain respect for the idea that our minds were our own, no matter how fucked up they were. so psychic stuff had always struck me as frighteningly external - like a lobotomy, or really strong drugs like lithium.

things coming in from outside and wiping out my mind scared me after my stay in the hospital.

which brought me back to anyan. we had to save him. i couldn't imagine being trapped in my own mind, and yet i hoped that's what he was. because if he was just gone, if the white had managed to eradicate anyan...

i couldn't even consider that outcome.

i also realized that everyone was staring at me expectantly, waiting for me to begin. that was a huge change from our normal modus operandi, in which i was mostly listening to the other supes talk. it struck me that the tagger-along had become the leader.

so i'd better lead.

'i'd like to start by thanking all of you for coming. i know that sounds lame, but i mean it. i now feel like we can actually do this.'

everyone nodded, acknowledging my thanks but also, i think, affirming my words. my father, standing next to me, squeezed my shoulder in support.

'i've been scared this whole time that our only option was to go after anyan and destroy him, to get to the white. but ryu had some really good reasons why working to save anyan is actually a smart course. ryu?' i said, turning to my ex.

ryu stepped forward, squaring his shoulders.

'jane told me that iris already touched on the ideas that i had, but i'll share them with you anyway. in my thinking, the red and the white aren't physical, which is why killing them never worked.'

iris nodded manically, her eyes wide with excitement.

'they're not bodies!' she hooted triumphantly.

'they're not bodies,' ryu repeated. 'we've always been so focused on their physical selves - their bones - that we never stopped and asked how they could keep resurrecting themselves. but it's because they're souls, or spirits, or something else. as long as they could animate their own bodies, they chose to do so. but when that was no longer an option...'

'they went incorporeal,' caleb said, his gaze turned inward as he thought through what ryu was saying.

i cast a glance at my dad, grizzie, and tracy. tracy and my dad looked a bit lost, if i was honest, but grizzie just looked ... blank.

every once in a while, grizzie's grizelda mask dropped, and we would catch a glimpse of the outrageously clever woman who lurked beneath. that woman loved being grizelda, but she was something both of and apart from her persona. she'd also lived as many different personas, all with very different interests. so i was used to looking over and seeing grizelda look like somebody other than grizelda. but i'd never seen this. she looked ... empty.

creature? i asked. is someone spying on us?

i felt a tingle in my head, an acknowledgment of my question telling me the creature had understood and would investigate.

i kept an eye on grizzie as ryu continued. 'if it is true that they are able to exist noncorporeally, that explains why we can't kill anyan. all that would do would be just that: we'd kill anyan, leaving the white still in existence and now free.'