I blinked with surprise at that. I’d never seen Olivia sincerely accept a comforting gesture before. Hell, I’d never seen her treat anyone like an equal, ever. I wasn’t getting any kind of romantic vibes between them or anything, but was it actually possible that Olivia had found…a friend?

Maybe it was the morphine, but I almost giggled. The psychopathic monster vampire had a friend. Then I remembered what they were about to do.

“Why go after Kirsten?” I asked Mallory bluntly. Way to form a question, Scarlett! Keep going! “You’ve got all this power, why waste your time on another witch? Why not just…do what you’ve been wanting to do?”

Mallory raised her eyebrows at Olivia, who shrugged like I was a puppy that just wouldn’t stop begging. Might as well just give her the treat. Mallory advanced on me until our faces were inches apart. “Stupid girl,” she said. “Killing Kirsten is what I’ve been wanting to do.” She glared at me. “Years ago I wanted to kill her with magic, to prove that she was nothing special. And I thought it would be elegant to force the Old World to take care of the cleanup for me.” She tilted her head at Olivia. “But now I’ll be able to not just kill her, but take what she has for my own.” The witch turned away from me.

Her power. Mallory was going to use the Transruah to steal Kirsten’s power. “But why?” I blurted. “What did she ever do to you?”

Mallory stopped and spun on her heel. “You people,” she hissed with frustration, glaring at me. Olivia was tense beside her, looking from me to Mallory and back again, but she stayed silent. “You think you’re—what, a government? With your rules and your procedures? You think you can regulate magic, tell witches what they can and can’t do?” She spat at my feet. Which could probably only help my boots at this point, I figured. Olivia twitched, like she was ready to get between us. “We are better than all of you. We have fought longer and harder for what we can do, and Kirsten dares to call herself a leader to us. When all she really does is hand out muzzles and teach the other witches to be grateful for them.”

I only had one move here, I decided. I had to stall the two of them, to buy Kirsten as much time as I could to get her strength back, and to try to push Mallory’s timetable so that she wouldn’t have the solstice to aid her. It wasn’t much, but it was the only play I had left. The only problem was that I was having a little trouble holding my head up at this point. It kept threatening to loll forward, which probably wouldn’t look very dignified. I decided it was time to bring out my personal superpower: insolence.

No more Meek Scarlett. Fuck Meek Scarlett.

But by the time I had put that string of thoughts together, Mallory had turned away again. “So wait,” I said in a thoughtful, conversational tone. “You’re saying it’s not just because she’s prettier than you?”

Mallory whipped back around, seething, and slapped my face. I tasted blood in my mouth, but didn’t feel any actual pain. I had no idea what the usual chemo treatments felt like, but I was beginning to think someone could make a killing selling a Domincydactl and morphine cocktail on the street. Olivia shot me a glare but stepped in between the two of us. “I can’t have that,” she warned Mallory. “She is mine to protect, mine to strike.”

“I meant now, by the way,” I interjected. “Obviously you were a total dog an hour ago, but at least your face had some character. Now you look like plastic that melted and got re-formed all wrong.”

Mallory looked from me to Olivia, incredulous. “You heard what she—”

“She is trying to annoy you,” Olivia cut in smoothly. “She wants you to focus on her so you’ll stay away from Kirsten. Don’t fall for it.” Damn. I had forgotten that as well as I knew Olivia, she knew me too. “Change the IV bag, and let’s go collect our witch,” Olivia said to Mallory. To me, she said, “I must thank you, by the way. My intention was to wound Kirsten and bring her with me, but I got overzealous. If you hadn’t stepped in front of that second shot, I might have accidentally killed her.” I stared at her. “Of course, my poor heart almost stopped again when I saw you get hit,” she added, as an afterthought. “I’m so glad you had the vest.”

She poked me in the stomach, provoking a surprised little grunt from me. “Not wearing it now, I see. Good to know.” I felt my IV line swaying as Mallory disconnected the now-empty first bag of fluid. She tossed it to the floor and hung the next bag in its place.

Before she could connect the tubing, however, every lamp in the room went out. The generator had ceased its buzz. The only light was from the candles that still burned around Mallory’s pentagram. “What was that?” Mallory asked, annoyed. I felt her drop the IV tubing in disgust. “I can’t see a damned thing,” she snapped.

“The generator went out,” Olivia said. “It’s probably nothing.”

But Mallory’s voice was suddenly in front of me again, her breath hot on my face. “Who did you tell?” she growled at me. “Who knows we’re here?”

“Calm down, Mal. She didn’t tell anyone.”

“How do you know that? How can you know for sure?”

I felt a familiar hand begin to caress my hair. “Because her greatest fear is that someone else will die for her. I threatened her loved ones. And attacked her favorite, the werewolf. She wouldn’t take any risks that I might hurt one of them here.”