I rounded the tree, stepping into another clearing in the middle of the woods. About fifty feet ahead, I caught another flash of Salina's blond hair streaming out behind her, shimmering like melted gold in a patch of sunlight. I leaped over a fallen log, determined to catch her, but to my surprise, she did the most curious thing of all - she stopped.

She turned around and faced me, standing on a small rise at the top of the clearing, and I wondered if she was out of gas already. A satisfied smile curved my lips. If so, too bad for her. I put on a final burst of speed and surged up an incline to the edge of the clearing - and then I stopped too.

Because a creek lay between us.

The water had worn its way through the hill we were standing on, creating a slight dip in the landscape. About fifteen feet of water separated us, churning and frothing its way down the ridge to parts unknown.

Salina had already crossed the clear water, probably walking on top of it as she had the Aneirin River out by the Delta Queen. For a moment, I thought about saying the hell with it and plunging into the creek to continue my hot pursuit, but I knew better. Besides, I could easily blast her with my elemental magic from this side of the creek.

"You know, I'm getting rather tired of you interfering with my plans," Salina said in a mild, slightly amused voice. "And look at you - you're covered with blood, sweat, dirt, and who knows what else. Disgusting. What did Owen ever see in you?"

"Oh, I don't know," I said, my voice as cold and calm as hers was. "Maybe the fact that I'm not a psychotic bitch who tortures people for kicks. I'm also not the one going around Ashland killing his friends and family because I'm secretly jealous of them. Tell me, how many folks are you going to bump off before you're satisfied that you have him all to yourself? Call me crazy, but I don't think murder is the way to Owen's heart."

Her eyes narrowed in her beautiful face. "I think I know a lot more about Owen's heart than you ever will, Gin. I saw how he looked at me that night at Underwood's and just a minute ago in the clearing. He still loves me, and he'll always love me - no matter what."

I shook my head. "That's where you're wrong. Sure, he might have some feelings left for you, but believe me when I tell you they won't be enough to overcome you trying to murder Cooper - or what you did to Eva when she was a kid."

Salina gasped, surprised by the fact that her dirty little secret had finally come to light after all these years.

"Oh yeah," I said. "Cooper and Kincaid told him all about what you did to his baby sister. Owen's not the kind of man who forgets things like that. He protects the people he loves."

Salina stared at me, the rush of water the only sound between us. I kept my gaze on the other elemental, waiting - just waiting - for her to reach for her magic and try to blast me with it the way she had Cooper. I was ready for her, ready to reach for my own Stone magic and use it to harden my skin to protect the water in my body. Then I'd strike back at her with all the Ice magic I could summon and freeze her where she stood. I discreetly tucked my knife back up my sleeve and got ready to raise my hands up and throw my power at her.

Instead of being scared by me and the magic shimmering in my gray eyes, Salina still seemed amused. I was getting real tired of her laughing at me.

"You should have driven back to Ashland while you had the chance," she said. "I was going to be considerate and let you live a few more days. At least until after I finished my other business in town and could devote my full attention to Owen."

Once again, I wondered what she was plotting, but I pushed my questions aside. All that mattered was killing her before she could hurt anyone else.

"And you should have known better than to come up here," I snarled. "I warned you to leave Ashland. You really should have taken my advice. What did you think would happen? That you could just kill Cooper and go on your merry way? Fat chance of that now."

"Who said Cooper was the only one I wanted to kill?"

Then she smiled at me - smiled and smiled like she'd just won the lottery. My eyes narrowed. What was she grinning at? Salina wasn't in the clear - far from it. I wasn't going to be stupid enough to step into the water, and all I had to do was blast her with my Ice magic from this side of the creek -

My eyes dropped to the water that rushed in between us. Too late, I realized what Salina's plan really was. I tried to back away from the edge of the water, but I was too slow - too damn slow.

With a twisting motion of Salina's hand, water exploded out of the creek like a geyser. Even as I tried to lunge back out of its range, I could see the water arcing through the air, writhing and twisting into long, slender tentacles.

That happened in the first second. In the next one, the liquid tentacles wrapped around my legs. And by the third, they'd pulled me down into middle of the creek.

Chapter 23

So this is what it's like to drown.

That was the thought that filled my mind as the cool creek water closed over my head. Oh, I struggled, of course, struggled with all my strength against the tentacles wrapped around my body. But it was like a hundred, cold, wet hands were twisting me around and around underwater, and I just couldn't get a sense of what direction was up.

Finally, I managed to break the surface of the water long enough to suck down a breath. Then the tentacles were around me again, dragging me under once more.

Over and over, the tentacles let me rise up just long enough to draw in precious oxygen. I knew what Salina was doing - the bitch was playing with me. She'd thought she'd already won, that she'd already killed me, and she was savoring the moment, savoring her victory over the Spider.

And I couldn't figure out a way to stop her. Cooper had warned me that her magic was wet, wild, and slippery. Every time I tried to pry off one of the tentacles wrapped around me, my fingers harmlessly slid through it like the water it was. Plus, she was strong in her magic, maybe even as strong as I was in mine, and now she had a whole creek full of water to use against me. I was in her element now - and it was going to be the death of me.

At some point, Salina must have gotten bored with making me bob up and down like a Halloween apple, because the tentacles wrapped me around a final time - and then dragged me down to the bottom of the creek. The water wasn't that deep, maybe eight feet, but there was more than enough for Salina to kill me with.

Mud and rocks ground into my back as I blinked, staring up through the creek. The water was pure, sweet, and clear this high up in the mountains, and I could make out Salina's wavy figure standing above me on the bank. I couldn't tell for sure, but I thought she was smiling.

But the worst part was that I could - I could see her through the water. Standing beside the tub watching me drown - smiling while I was drowning.

Eva's words whispered in my mind. I remembered what she had said about how Salina had watched her drown - and the pleasure the elemental had taken in it. Now, all these years later, Salina was doing the same thing to me.

Not if I could help it.

There was no use struggling against the tentacles, not now, when Salina had moved in for the kill, so I let my body go loose and slack against the water that surrounded me like a wet tomb, like I was already halfway to drowned. Not much of a stretch. I had maybe two minutes' worth of oxygen left before I blacked out. After that, the end would be quick.

My Stone magic was useless in this situation, so I focused on my Ice power, gathering and gathering it around me. It was the only chance I had left - and I didn't even know if it would work. If I had enough power to do what needed to be done in order to survive.

Ten seconds passed . . . twenty . . . thirty . . . My lungs burned a little more with every passing second, the need for air so great I wanted to scream from it, but I forced myself to be calm, to wait to bring all of the Ice magic I had to bear, along with what I had stored in my spider rune ring. I thought about reaching for the Ice power that was in my knives as well, but my concentration was a little shaky, and I didn't know if I could tap into the magic of all six items at once. So I decided to focus on combining my magic with the ring's and releasing all of that power outward at once. I'd only get one shot at this, and I had to make it count - or I was dead.

So I gathered up the final scraps of my Ice magic . . . and let loose with it.

I sent out a blast of Ice, forcing the cold power out of my hands and into the water around me. I didn't know if I had enough strength, enough magic for what I needed to do; hell, I didn't even know if it would work at all.

The creek water that had been rushing by immediately froze. One second, I could feel the water flowing around me. The next, it had stopped cold - literally. The entire creek had frozen around me, including the tentacles of Salina's magic. They wrapped around my body like crystallized tendrils of ivy gnarled and knotted every which way. The whole scene, all the glittering, elemental Ice around me, was strangely beautiful - and still deadly.

I might have stopped Salina from drowning me by freezing the creek, but I still wasn't getting any air. I might have been an Ice elemental, but that didn't mean I could breathe through it. So I sent out another desperate burst of magic, hoping to crack the Ice that encased me like a crystal coffin.

But I'd already used up so much of my power, and the Ice was frozen solid. Again and again, I sent out burst after burst of magic.

And at last, slowly, much too slowly, the Ice around me began to chip and crack and fall away from my body.

But it still wasn't enough.

Running after Salina, fighting against her water tentacles, using my own Ice magic until there was none left - all of that had taken everything out of me, and I simply wasn't strong enough to claw my way out of the weight of Ice pressing down on me and get to the air I so desperately needed.

I thought I punched one hand free of the Ice, but I wasn't sure, and it wasn't enough to matter anyway. Bit by bit, the blackness crept over me before it rose up in a wave in my mind and blotted out everything else.

The last thought I had was of Owen, and what he would think when he realized that Salina had killed me.

Chapter 24

Someone was pounding on my chest. Over and over again, a tight fist smacked into my ribs right over my heart. An uncomfortable sensation, especially when I'd been so peaceful just a moment before, drifting along in that calm, soothing, unending blackness . . .

"Come on, breathe, dammit, breathe!" a harsh voice barked at me.

Something hot and wet pressed against my mouth, forcing air down my throat and into my lungs. Again and again, that hot rush of air invaded my mouth, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. A few seconds later, my chest began heaving and convulsing, and I started coughing, spewing up all the water in my lungs and trying to choke down all the air I could at the same time.

Hands rolled me onto my side to make it easier for me to breathe. I just lay there, cold and half-frozen by my own Ice magic, my fingers curled into the dirt, my face resting on a bed of dried, cracked leaves, sucking down breath after breath. After a few moments, I managed to open my eyes and found a face right there on the dirt next to mine - but it wasn't the one that I expected. His eyes were blue, not violet, and his hair was as light as the sunshine kissing the forest.

Kincaid gave me a crooked smile. "Don't think you're going to weasel out of our deal just by dying, Gin."

Deal? We didn't have any deal. I'd never agreed to kill Salina for him. I opened my mouth to tell him that, but the words just wouldn't come. The blackness rose up in my mind again, and I was helpless to resist it once more.

The girl had finally quit screaming - if not crying.

Even though her father was dead and had been for a while now, the girl was still slumped over his body - or what was left of it - and sobbing like she would never, ever stop. Each one of her loud, wild, soul-wrenching cries was like a knife piercing my own heart. I knew that pain, I knew those screams all too well - they were the same ones that had torn my heart to pieces and spewed out of my mouth after the murder of my family.

I was still a little shocked by what had happened. Mab Monroe had spent the better part of an hour torturing Benedict Dubois, burning him with her elemental Fire, delighting in his tearful pleas and whimpers as he begged her to stop. And she'd made everyone watch - all the dinner guests, all the chefs, all the waiters, even Dubois's own daughter.

It had been like a nightmare come to life.

At first, Mab had toyed with Dubois, jabbing her red-hot fingers into his arms like they were slender cigarettes she was stubbing out. Then, she'd used her elemental Fire to burn the rest of him - his chest, his legs; she'd even used her power to singe all the hair off his head like she was scalping him.

Still, no matter what Mab did, I made myself watch the whole thing just like Fletcher did beside me. These were the realities of life in Ashland, especially for an assassin-in-training like me. Because if I was ever captured, especially by someone like Mab, I would face the same sort of torture. Fletcher didn't say the words. He didn't have to. Not tonight. Not when I was faced with something like this.

Once Dubois was dead, I'd thought the Fire elemental would turn her wrath on the girl to quiet her down, but Mab just let her scream and scream, as though the sound amused her. It probably did, given all the cruel things I'd seen the Fire elemental do tonight. Finally, the girl broke free of the boy holding her, threw herself on top of her father's body, and started crying, her sobs just as loud as her screams had been.

When it was finally over, Mab dusted the pieces of ash and burned flesh off her hands and turned to face the horrified crowd.

"Am I going to have any more problems from the rest of you?" she asked. "Or has this been an adequate enough display of my position in Ashland? I'm happy to demonstrate further, if you like."