“How can you think you have a headache?” Drustan says irritably. “Either you do or you don’t.”

“I can’t bloody well think in the backseat, so how would I bloody well know? I drive. I don’t ride.”

Barrons laughs, and I remember him saying something similar once: Who’s driving this motorcycle and who’s in the sidecar? I don’t even own a bike with a pussy sidecar. He turns sharply and we begin our off-road ascent, slowly clambering over the rocky terrain.

“You used to ride horses,” Drustan says.

“I was bloody well controlling the bloody reins.”

“Focus on the mission,” Jada says flatly. “Discomfort is irrelevant. Bloody means bleeding or having bled. Accuracy is expediency. You’ve not heard me complaining.”

“We’ve not heard you talk at all,” Drustan says. “You speak less than that one.” He gestures at Barrons, who just so happens to be driving and has been doing all of the driving since we left Dublin, barely talking to anyone, not even me except for an occasional silent message he shoots me with his eyes. Since he can’t currently see me, my ocular replies are lost on him. “Unless to correct our bloody grammar,” Drustan adds.

“Communication is difficult enough when all parties to the discussion strive for clarity,” she replies coolly. “Employ precision.”

“Precision” and “expediency” rank right up there with “grace” as Jada’s middle freaking names. I puked on the ferry. She sure didn’t. I caught the lovely, not-one-hair-out-of-place Jada scornfully regarding my projectile over the side. We were all testy and tired and the passage was stormy and I don’t have sea legs.

Now we’re in Austria and it’s cold, and although I dressed warmly, anticipating a mountainous climb, I wish I’d put on more layers. I’ve been in a Hummer H1, modified for comfort—as if such a thing is possible in a Hummer—for a day and a half straight, sharing the front seat, half astride its enormous console with Barrons and Ryodan on either side. They put Dageus and Drustan in the backseat, and Jada behind them, to keep her and me as far apart as possible, although, loath though I am to admit it, she’s the most even-tempered of us all, relaxed, focused, and apparently undisturbed by any facet of her current physical conditions.

Sprawled like a long-legged, curvy commando in the far back on top of rappelling gear, gloves, grappling hooks, and other assorted supplies, and aside from eating protein bars and jerky constantly, Jada looks smoothly in her element.

The interior of the Hummer smells of beef jerky. And testosterone. It’s been the most trying road trip I’ve ever been on.

Before plotting our course, we’d studied Ryodan’s map of the many places that were iced, so we could avoid treacherous black holes. Between dodging untethered IFPs—other countries lack the Nine to tidy up for them—detouring around blocked roads and freeways, having to find petrol for the ferry, and siphoning abandoned vehicles for more gas, this drive has made sifting a thousand times more desirable than it already was.

Along the way, amid the eternal grousing that happens when you pack six alphas of varying temperaments—who can work together for a common goal but would probably kill one another—into a sardine can, we’ve been discussing possibilities and plans.

The princess scrawled a picture at the bottom of the scrap of map. After much debate we all managed to agree Christian is somehow attached to the side of a mountain in the Dreitorspitze range, but we have no idea how high or low. We just have to find the right mountain, scale the face of it, and get him down. Oh, and kill the Hag so she doesn’t rain down death on all of us as we try to escape.

Simple, right?

We agree that our primary goal is to rescue Christian, secondary to kill the Hag. However, any way we look at it, both need to happen. The Hag can fly alarmingly fast for short bursts of distance, although Ryodan claims she can’t sustain it for long according to his sources. Considering how creepy-crawly and numerous his sources are, I believe he knows what he’s talking about. If we have to climb up for Christian, it won’t be quite as dangerous. But if we have to go down for him from above, once we free him we’ll all be on top of a mountain, with no cover, and one very pissed off Hag circling. Unless she’s somewhere else, hunting something else, if we could get so lucky. Fact is, we won’t know anything until we see the scene.

“We need sifters,” I say for the dozenth time.

“Wake the fuck up, Mac,” Ryodan says, “there aren’t any. Few of the Fae can sift, and we’ve killed most of the ones that can.”