“Maybe you should have thought of that before you killed the princes.”

“The princess refused to disclose their location until we did.”

“Dree-lia can sift,” I point out.

“Have you any idea where to find her, lass?” Dageus says. “None of the Seelie are responding to our summons.”

“We could go into Faery and hunt for them,” I say. I scowl when the lumbering Hummer nearly tosses me into Ryodan’s lap, and brace myself better on the console.

“Aye, and potentially lose years of our time trying to locate her,” Drustan growls. “Leaving Christian on the cliff, dying over and over. Bad plan.”

“We don’t need sifters,” Jada says. “I can do this.”

“We can do this,” Dageus says. “ ’Tis the only option. We won’t be returning to Christopher without his son. He’ll be bloody well furious enough that we left without him.”

We’d told no one what we’d learned of Christian’s whereabouts and stole off like thieves in the night to prevent the other Keltar from joining us. The larger our party, the greater the risk. After twenty minutes of heated debate, with Ryodan insisting Jada be included, we’d narrowed our rescue attempt to six participants, picked her and the Keltar up, and left Dublin immediately. I’d argued against the Keltar. Both Barrons and Ryodan had insisted we take backup.

“We’re close enough for now,” Barrons says, as we slow to a stop beneath a rocky outcropping that should keep us hidden from above. When he turns the engine off, Ryodan takes a pair of binoculars from the dash and gets out, quietly closing the door.

I finally have the whole seat to myself!

I sink into it gratefully and stretch my legs as we settle back to wait for the details of his reconnaissance mission to finalize our plan.

Three hours later Ryodan’s back with a second SUV, and bad news. Christian is indeed chained to the side of a mountain, about a half mile from here, a thousand feet above a rocky crevasse. Although Ryodan located a spot accessible by vehicle where we can conceal it near the Highlander’s location, as we feared, there’s no way to get to him from below.

Ryodan estimates he’s roughly two hundred feet from the top of the sheer stone face. There are cables driven into the backside of the mountain, a modified path for hikers. Ascent is possible. Descent will make us targets, except for me, of course.

Unfortunately, when I touch people, they don’t turn invisible like my clothing and food, so I can’t get everyone back down that way. Nor do I have any desire to have these particular five people clutching pieces of me for hours.

“Why did you acquire another vehicle?” Drustan asks.

“Backup plan. If something goes wrong and we need to split up.”

“Wise decision,” Dageus says.

According to Ryodan, the Hag has built herself a nest on a splinter of rock opposite Christian, about a quarter of a mile away from where he’s chained. While Ryodan watched, she swooped in, flayed him from breastbone to groin, then returned to her nest to resume her gruesome knitting.

“Exercise in futility. One would think she’d cease doing it,” Jada says.

“All is not governed by logic,” Ryodan says. “Though you like to pretend it is.”

“Fools and the dead are not governed by logic. Survivors are.”

“There are biologic imperatives, like it or not,” he says. “Eating. Fucking. For humans, which you are, sleeping. For her, knitting.”

“I eat. And sleep. Fucking is only relevant if one intends to reproduce. I don’t.”

“Christian,” I remind. “Stay on point.”

“The point is I don’t need any of you,” Jada says. “Give me the spear. I’ll return in two hours.”

We all ignore her.

Ryodan says, “The bitch actually lances him then sits on him like an insect on a cocoon, taking her time collecting his guts.”

“Bad for him, good for us,” I say. “The problem with the Hag has always been getting past those damn legs she uses as weapons. That’s how we get close enough to kill her.”

“What are you suggesting, lass?” Drustan says.

Jada says swiftly, “I’ll kill the Hag first, then rescue Christian.”

Ryodan says, “The Hag is nested like an eagle on a splinter of stone, impossible to scale.”

“I could,” I say. “I’m invisible.”

“Physically impossible,” he clarifies, “it’s hundreds of feet, straight up. Nobody’s climbing that needle. That’s why she chose it. We’re going to have to kill her somewhere else.”