“I just carry coffee for the vampire,” she said with a steady voice. “He lets me tag along.”

“Indeed.” A thin-lipped smile spread across the High Chancellor’s liver-spotted face. “Be that as it may, I have a treasure trove here, don’t I? Will you come quietly?”

“Dumb questions speak of an inadequate mind,” Reagan said.

“Mouthy, for a vampire’s slave.” The High Chancellor looked off to the side as my phone vibrated again. The shifters’ magic pooled around us, their hackles raised. The vampires stood stock-still, studying each movement and word.

“You realize that you have cornered a lot of very dangerous magical beings, right?” Reagan said, her body positioning selling a complete lack of worry. “I mean…” She pointed at me, and I slapped her hand away. I didn’t need a spotlight on me. “Just cornering her results in some extreme situations. Almost as extreme as that hideous robe. But the Rogue Natural, an elder vampire, several powerful shifters, and the vampire’s slave? You planned well, but this is probably your greatest mistake. Do your underlings realize how dull your mind has gotten with age?”

“Silence!” Spittle flew from the High Chancellor’s mouth. Their natural shifted in her place. Reagan had clearly done this sort of taunting before. She knew the right buttons to hit.

“Oh.” She threw up her hands, twirling her knife through her fingers as she did so. “And I didn’t even mention the warrior druid you probably failed to notice. I won’t point him out. It’ll ruin the surprise.”

“That is enough!” The High Chancellor took a step toward us, his face creased with anger.

The mages on the outside of the magic veil started moving—their hands working, their bodies ducking and shifting. Our reinforcements had arrived, only to confront a wall of mage and magic. They’d never get through in time.

The phone vibrated again. “Would someone check that?” I said through my teeth, the pressure a heavy weight on my shoulders. My magic boiling. The storm inside me brewing.

“See? Stage one of Wow, Did You Fuck Up.” Reagan pointed at me again.

I slapped her hand away as Emery dug out my phone. “‘Stay away from the cavern of buildings,’” he read.

“A little late for that,” Reagan muttered.

“This is your final offer. Come quietly, and I will spare you the creative torture we have in store,” the High Chancellor said as the people outside the veil moved faster. One of the mages jerked out of sight. A furry head appeared somewhere else, followed by a pair of paws, and someone else was dragged away.

The sound had been muted. We couldn’t hear anything outside of our cage. Couldn’t feel any new air. No whisperings of magic.

“I think I can counter that spell,” Emery said, his eyes leaving the phone and shooting upward. “But it’ll take me a minute.”

“One minute, or a few minutes?” Reagan murmured without moving her lips.

“Resist, and I will destroy all you hold dear,” the High Chancellor said.

“That was a helluva jump there, bub.” Reagan hefted her throwing knife, and I held my breath, but she didn’t throw it. She twirled it between her fingers again. “Not like we believe you anyway. You’ll take Darius and ransom him off to the vampires, right? I mean, we both know he’s worth a shitload—”

“Anything else from my mother?” I whispered while Reagan distracted the High Chancellor.

Emery handed over the phone, still looking at the ceiling. “‘The easiest spell is above.’ Which is no help.”

I read the rest of the messages from my mother.

Find your alleys.

Alleys? When their formation splits, maybe?

Reconnect.

Reap what you sowed.

Callie and Dizzy say they are with the others outside the stronghold. Didn’t elaborate. Shifters and vamps clearing away people so they can work on spell. Far wall.

“What the donkey spit does far wall mean, Mother?” I said, my fingers white-knuckled around the phone.

“Silence her!” The High Chancellor flung out his hand, pointing at Reagan.

“Here we go.” Reagan hefted her throwing knife again before hurling it at their natural. Someone in purple dove in front of her, taking the blade and sinking to the ground.

Steve roared, guttural, powerful, and so loud that I accidentally screamed. The mages he faced visibly quailed, one of them dropping her casings and scrambling to pick them up. His muscles bunched and he leapt forward, crashing into a cluster of mages.

Cahal shifted behind me and an arrow was loosed. Red blossomed in the center of a mage’s chest, and he looked down in surprise before he slumped. Cahal turned again, another arrow ready, his elbow bumping my arm.

My phone flew out of my hand and skittered across the cracked concrete. As I bent for it, a splash of red caught my eye. To my right, at the corner of one of the buildings encircling us, the veil of magic was discolored. The effect faded but then flared a brighter red and spread.

Callie and Dizzy. They were figuring out how to bust a hole in the spell, starting at the spot where it was likely anchored the weakest. Warmth filled my chest. Experience was a huge advantage.

“That wall.” I pointed as Emery wove together a complex spell. “The dual-mages are working on that wall. We need to combine our efforts.”

The whisper of a sword leaving a sheath forced me to glance up. Cahal held a wickedly curved blade, black on black, the handle the same color as the steel. It glimmered in the light of the compound, promising death to anyone who dared trifle with him…or me.

A black haze interrupted my vision. Another premonition!

He jerked around, about to deal with a potent spell that had to have come from their natural, as I slammed up shields using Emery’s and my survival magic. Ours was much more powerful, as we’d formed a dual-mage pair, and with the added might of the magic I willingly accepted from the goblin.

“Keep working,” I told him as the spell hit my magical wall and warred with my magic. “We have to get out of here.”

Reagan’s ice magic poked holes in the walls as the mages encircling us took a step forward. They fired off spells so fast that I couldn’t keep enough energy in my magical wall. Cahal moved and flowed like a peaceful stream, batting magic away with his (clearly magical) sword, working so fast that his movements blurred. But he couldn’t get a second to charge. Or to throw a knife.

Darius hissed as he sliced through the center of one mage and threw another into a group of them. Shifters tore through people. One took a spell center mass. Another was hit in the rear.

Heart in my throat, I worked faster. Stinging sweat dripped into my eyes. “We’re losing.”

“We can do it,” Emery said, desperation ringing in his voice. “We can do it. We always have before.”

Through the roars, snarls, hisses, and screams, I heard rattling across the ground. My phone vibrating against the concrete.

The racket seemed to filter away as I glanced at it. Memories crystalized. Something whispered inside of me.

Reap what you sowed.

“The spells,” I breathed, colors zipping around us. A vampire fell with black goo spreading out of her chest. “The spells,” I said louder, looking around wildly. “When we were first here. My mother said to plant seeds, remember?”

Emery looked up at me with dawning understanding sparkling in his eyes. “Yes.”

“Reap what you sowed!” I sank to my knees, putting my hands on the cement. Squeezing my eyes shut, blocking out absolutely everything around me, I opened up my magical senses. The whispers increased in volume, snaking through my blood, wholesome and pure. Nature cried out, begging for release. The magic Emery and I had planted pulsed somewhere deep within the earth, a time bomb.

“Grow,” I said, willing those spells alive with everything I had. Connecting to the creations we’d made what seemed like so long ago, their imprint still heavily drilled down into the bedrock of the compound. I found a slice of myself stored in that once-barren soil. “Grow.”

The ground trembled. Someone screamed. I glanced up to take in the situation. Ice poked more holes in the magical veil, cutting through the layers. The dual-mage pair peeled away the spell’s anchor from the building, weakening it. Steve suffered a magical knife to the gut, pushing him back. Darius took a slash to his arm and dropped it to his side, clearly useless.