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Mira was already there.

Her hands glowed gold, steady and quiet. She touched his forearm as he drew his blade. The sword dropped from suddenly nerveless fingers.

"Nerve suppression," she said calmly. "You'll regain sensation in approximately ten minutes."

The hunter stared at his useless hand, confusion and fury warring across his face. Mira had already moved past him, fingers moving in precise patterns, golden threads drifting toward Morrison.

They settled against his rifle arm. Morrison's grip loosened. The weapon dipped.

"What—" He looked down, trying to force his hand to obey. It wouldn't.

Mira smiled.

Near the barrels, Garrick and Ashby were still locked in their brutal dance. Blood ran from a cut above Garrick's eye. Ashby's lip was split, his cheek already swelling.

The knife flashed between them—thrust, parry, both men moving with the terrible efficiency of people who'd trained together for years and now knew exactly where to aim to kill.

The younger hunters regrouped. Four still standing despite our efforts. Their weapons came up. They'd watched what we could do and were already learning, already adapting.

One of them fired.

The shot hit Beatrice's hastily-woven reinforcement and lodged in the gold threads, stopped dead. But the impact cost her. Beatrice staggered, the magical backlash rippling through her already-exhausted reserves. Gold light flickered and dimmed.

"I cannot hold this much longer," she gasped, face drained of color.

Marigold's shield was failing too. The cracks had spread across the entire surface, light bleeding through in a dozen places. She was crying now—tears streaming down her face even as she kept her hands raised, kept the barrier from collapsing completely through sheer stubborn will.

I scanned the yard with vision that kept trying to blur at the edges. Six hunters. Most still armed. Us exhausted, injured, and held together by nothing but desperation and Beatrice's failing magic.

We were losing.

The pendant surged again. The corruption found a crack in my defenses and pushed through. Pain exploded through my skull. My knees buckled. For one terrible second the corruption bled through—not controlled, not directed, just seeping⁠—

Golden threads wrapped around me, not binding but supporting.

Lily was there, her hands glowing faintly, her own depleted magic reaching for mine in a way that had nothing to do with restoration and everything to do with simply holding me together long enough to keep fighting.

"Stay with me," she said quietly. "Just a little longer."

Morrison raised his rifle with his other hand, though his aim wavered. His gaze found mine across the yard.

"Elias was wrong about one thing," he said. "You're too dangerous to exist. Always have been."

He fired.

The bullet struck Marigold and Beatrice's shield dead center. The barrier didn't crack. It shattered—the sound like glass exploding under pressure, sharp, bright, and devastating. Shards of distorted magic scattered outward, dissolving before they hit the ground.

The backlash hit Beatrice. She cried out and dropped to both knees, hands pressed flat against the cobblestones. Marigold collapsed, and Mira caught her before she hit the ground.

We had nothing left. No shields. No reinforcements. No magic to spare.

Morrison raised the rifle again. This time aimed directly at me.

His finger was already tightening on the trigger—the minute shift, the final decision.

This was the shot that would kill me.

I couldn't move fast enough. Couldn't think fast enough. The pendant had drained too much. My body wouldn't obey.