9

Fionn

There was a time when I held Brianne Lamarre in high esteem.

She has class, no doubt about that. She also has conversation, wit and humour, and a personal style I admire. She’s exactly the type of person I’d want for a friend, in short, were it not for the incidental fact that she has no morals whatsoever.

We found that out a long time ago.

I haven’t seen or heard from her for many years. Presumably she went back to that undersea palace she’s so proud of, and has contented herself with draining (and drowning) an occasional mortal ever since.

Her turning up at Eventide tonight of all nights might be a coincidence, but her making a beeline straight for Cellann’s table could not be.

I smiled as I strolled up to join them. ‘Ah, have we discovered the identity of the secret gown donor? How generous of you, Brianne. But you always did have excellent taste.’

‘As do you, love,’ she said, casting my attire a look of decided approval. ‘Naturally I couldn’t think of patronising anybody else.’

Cellann appeared flustered, as well she might. Brianne was stunning, her sleek, jade-green hair coiffed in sculpted waves, her mouth a perfect crimson pout. Eyes to drown in; a calculated effect. But it’s more the glamour of her that seduces people. She has an enviable magnetism, an effortless confidence and poise that cannot help but cast others into her shadow.

Most others, anyway.

‘Did you really send me this gown?’ Cellann was saying, pink with pleasure. ‘How, how can I thank you—’

Tai took a seat, and propped her splendidly heeled feet upon another chair. The lounging, casual pose was deceptive; I knew she was anything but unthreatening. Brianne probably knew it, too. ‘One rule to remember in life, Cellann,’ she said. ‘Never say thank you until you understand the angle.’

Cellann blinked at her.

‘Ulterior motive,’ Tai elaborated. ‘Why would someone you’ve barely met make you an expensive present, do you think?’ She smiled at Brianne. ‘What is the angle, Bri?’

‘Ah, and sweet Tai,’ answered Brianne, her slow smile containing more actual warmth than I’d expected to see. ‘Charming to see you lovelies together again. Shall we be expecting the wonderful Daix de Montfort as well?’ She glanced around the club. ‘Perhaps she’s here already. I hope she wouldn’t think it necessary to avoid me.’

‘Games afoot, Bri?’ said Tai.

‘Just contributing my mite to the deserving, sweetheart.’

‘Been doing a lot of that, have you?’

‘Generosity is a virtue, in case nobody’s told you.’

‘I thought I’d already called bullshit on that.’

‘How cynical of you.’

‘The product of long experience.’

‘Let us be clear,’ I interjected. ‘I have taken an interest in this deserving soul myself. I’d like her for my next show, and it would be a great pity were anybody to interfere with that.’

Brianne’s smile faded. ‘It would be a great pity, would it not? To lose one model might be considered misfortune. To lose two — or, we may say, three — looks more like carelessness, doesn’t it?’

Curse the woman for quoting Wilde even as she needled me. ‘I won’t lose three,’ I said calmly.

‘Let us hope not, hm? For this charming young person’s sake.’ She turned her feline smile on Cellann again as she rose from her chair. ‘Any problems, darling, call me,’ she said, and left without another word to Tai or to me.

‘Three,’ murmured Tai.

‘Yes,’ I said. If Rudy was right, everyone knew about Narasel’s demise; it wasn’t too much of a stretch to imagine that word of her profession, and her connection to me, might have got about also.

But Brianne had heavily implied she knew about Melly, too.

We lingered at Eventide for a few hours more, to minimal effect. If any other rendezvous had been planned for the night, our presence had probably put paid to that. We had warned Brianne we were paying attention, which had ruined all possibility of further covert observations — at least for one day — but I hoped that it would be enough to protect Cellann.

That Brianne was involved somehow seemed beyond question; I couldn’t see how else she could be aware of Melly’s disappearance otherwise. But what was she? Was this her scheme, or was she merely acting as bait?

Either way, what was it for? Cellann’s precise heritage still eluded me, but I was fairly sure she was half selkie, if not more. Most modelling agencies have at least a couple of selkies on their books, whether they know it or not. The inherent beauty that makes our skins so widely desired can also serve us well, in certain professions.

It begged a number of questions, though. What would Brianne, of all people, want with either selkies or their sealskins? Why would she lend herself to such a scheme?

‘Bitch is slippery,’ muttered Tai as we left Eventide at last, disappointed of our hope of discerning anything useful about Brianne’s actions. She had lingered hour after hour, charming her way through various of the club’s patrons, and ostensibly ignoring the both of us. She’d drunk a lot, danced a lot and laughed a lot, and nothing else that she’d done had given us the least clue as to what she might be up to.

‘I don’t like her involvement, either,’ I agreed, drawing my gauzy wrap closer about my shoulders. The night was moonless and dark, and the midnight air held a dank chill to it. ‘It makes no sense.’ From what I remember of Brianne’s tastes, while she’s certainly capable of predatory and deadly behaviour she tends to prefer the human male. Selkie girls like Cellann, no.

‘If she knows where Mea is…’ Tai left the sentence unfinished, but I knew where she was going with the idea. The consequences were likely to involve a certain set of diamond-knuckled fists applied, repeatedly, to Brianne’s smiling face.

I hope I get to be present when that day comes.

‘I’d like to have her tailed,’ I said. ‘But I don’t have those resources anymore. I haven’t had to think about shadowing anybody in years.’

‘Nor I,’ said Tai. ‘But Daix hasn’t been nearly so lax.’ She was already calling Daix, her phone casting an eerie glow over her face in the darkness.

I stepped closer, and tilted my head towards Tai’s to hear the conversation.

‘Yes, darlings?’ came Daix’s voice, tinny and distant through the phone. ‘You have something juicy for me?’

‘Darlings?’ said Tai. ‘Now you sound like Brianne.’

‘Brianne?’ said Daix sharply. ‘Brianne Lamarre?’

‘Who else?’

‘She was at Eventide? Tell me quick.’

I stood shivering as Tai filled her in. Daix listened in near silence, interjecting an occasional ‘Okay, yes,’ and, once, a low whistle. ‘Bitch,’ she said when Tai had finished, but her tone wasn’t condemning. It was… admiring.

‘Still got that crush going on, hm?’ said Tai.

‘Badly,’ said Daix cheerfully. ‘But I love you much more.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You too, Fionn. You are listening, aren’t you?’

I rolled my eyes. ‘Yes, Daix,’ I said, when Tai held out the phone for me.

‘Quit flirting and focus,’ said Tai, echoing what she’d said, a little earlier, to me. ‘We need to find out what the lady’s up to. Can you turn some of those surveillance operations of yours to good effect?’

‘I’ll ignore the suggestion that keeping tabs on the two of you doesn’t qualify as good effect,’ said Daix. ‘I’ll be delighted to find out everything about the luscious Brianne’s doings.’

‘Not loving that tone of gloating satisfaction,’ said Tai.

‘Live with it.’

‘This is Daix,’ I said. ‘We let it pass—’

'—or we live to regret it,’ Tai finished. ‘Right. I’ll get the hang of this thing again, I swear.’

I heard a distant cackling from the phone.

‘Anyway,’ Tai said, ‘the model, Cellann. I’m hoping Brianne or whoever won’t be dumb — or brazen — enough to make a target of her now that they know we’re aware, but I can’t be sure. I’ve asked Rudy to watch her—’

‘Rudy?’ spluttered Daix.

‘If you’re under the impression that Rudy’s ineffectual, get over it.’

‘Fine, fine. Rudy’s a god. But you were going to ask me to watch her, too, weren’t you?’

‘I was.’

Daix gave a deep, theatrical sigh. ‘What would you two do without me.’

‘Beat information out of Brianne,’ said Tai.

That prompted a gasp. ‘Break that perfect face? Tai, you wouldn’t.’

‘Not today. Probably tomorrow. So if you were planning to make use of that perfect face, make it fast.’

Daix sighed again, a more mournful sound. ‘Too late for that. We’ve already been rumbled.’

‘It’ll have to be stealth, then.’

‘Shame.’

‘It is,’ Tai agreed. ‘Seduction is way more fun.’

‘Way.’

‘Did you turn up anything useful for us while we were hobnobbing?’

‘Ooh!’ said Daix. ‘I did!’

‘Great. Floor us with your brilliance.’

‘The Quinn-Diamhors,’ said Daix. ‘Just bought another club in the city. Sale went through two months ago. Not like Eventide, this one. It’s on the other side of town. Used to be a bit of a dive by all accounts, though they’ve fixed it up.’

‘Not their usual,’ I said.

‘Not at all their usual. They weren’t interested in advertising the purchase, either. They acquired it via a puppet company called Greenacre, and it wasn’t easy to trace that one back to them.’

‘What’s the place called?’ said Tai.

‘Used to be called Moondance, but it reopened three weeks ago under a new name.’

I waited.

‘And?’ Tai prompted. ‘Suspense successfully heightened, spit it out.’

‘Remind me to talk to Fionn next time. Woman has patience.’

Tai handed the phone to me without another word.

‘Hello, Daix,’ I said.

She squealed. ‘Fi!’

‘I love you too. What’s the new name?’

‘You won’t like it.’

‘Intriguing.’

‘Selkie’s Pearls.’

For a second, my heart froze. ‘Selkie’s Pearls,’ I repeated.

‘Suggestive, hm?’

‘Highly.’

‘That’s it,’ Tai said. ‘That’s a clear link. Those fuckers are in on it.’

‘Far be it from me to be the person advising caution,’ Daix began. Then she paused. ‘Nah, fuck it, you’re right. Take them down, Tai.’

‘Right, I’ll have to be the person advising caution then,’ I said, with a calmness I didn’t at all feel. My heart was hammering and I felt sick. Selkie’s Pearls. ‘The Quinn-Diamhors aren’t people we can accuse without proof, and no, a highly suggestive name for their new club doesn’t count.’

Tai was looking at me. ‘You okay?’

I inclined my head, not wanting to get into how much less than okay I suddenly felt, or why. My own pearls, draped in their customary spot around my left wrist, felt suddenly heavy as lead.

‘Two of your models,’ said Tai. ‘My roommate. Brianne Lamarre luring girls to Eventide with your gowns. And Selkie’s Pearls. Is it me, or is all this starting to seem rather personal?’

‘Completely,’ said Daix, with relish. ‘Ladies, we appear to be facing a vendetta.’

‘Who the fuck did we piss off that much?’ said Tai.

‘Tai? Darling? Everyone.’

‘Thanks for that.’

‘We’re — going to have to go to this club,’ I said, forcing the words out. I had some horrible feelings about what we were likely to find there, but no matter. I’d have to face it. ‘Where is it?’

Daix named a street I wasn’t familiar with, but Tai frowned. ‘That’s not far from the Thames Barrier Park,’ she said.

‘Where Narasel’s body was found,’ I said, nodding.

‘Shit.’

‘It’s also in Faerd’s territory,’ I said. ‘I wonder that he didn’t know about it?’

‘Might not have heard,’ said Tai. ‘There’s no obvious link to the waters.’ She spoke rapidly, abstractedly; I could feel the tension in her. ‘We’re going. Now.’

‘We’re not prepared—’ I began.

‘Mea could be there.’

‘Right. Daix, can you—’

Tai cut me off. ‘Daix, be there in ten minutes or you get to haul our lifeless corpses out of the river.’

‘That’s what I call leadership,’ said Daix, and hung up.

I handed the phone back to Tai. ‘It’s two in the morning, we are dressed in evening wear, and we are unarmed.’

Tai folded her arms and stared at me.

‘All right, not entirely unarmed.’ I could feel the comforting weight of the knife-sheath strapped to my thigh.

‘Yeah, also?’ she said. ‘We have me.’

Tai, with her bejewelled fists and her siren songs. ‘It isn’t always enough,’ I said. ‘It can’t always be enough.’

‘It will be today,’ said Tai. ‘Besides, when isn’t Daix dying to set someone on fire?’

It was still risky. I didn’t like it, but I could argue with Tai’s logic only so far. Mearil might be there. So might Melly. And if we could eliminate the place right now, we could ensure Cellann’s safety, and that of every other selkie in London.

Tai stood in silence, watching me decide.

I stepped out of my heels and slung the straps around one wrist. ‘You going to run in those?’

Tai grinned, and kicked off her borrowed shoes. ‘Race you,’ she said. ‘Loser has to fight in this shit.’ She waved her four-inch, spike-heeled shoes at me.

‘Challenge accepted,’ I said, took a deep breath, and ran.

Selkie’s Pearls. The name shone down upon me from its position of honour over the door of the new club, lit up in ocean-blue. Seeing it there stopped me cold. I did not want to know what awaited us inside.

We’d run part of the way, then found a taxi to bring us almost to the doorstep. Now we stood, Tai and I, side by side, taking stock of the challenge.

The club looked innocuous enough. If it used to be a dive, it wasn’t now, though it presented a modest appearance compared to Eventide. The frontage was relatively narrow, but the building rose a few storeys high. The windows were smoke-tinted, and curiously shiny; nothing could be seen through them of whatever might be occurring inside. The architectural equivalent of talking to a person wearing mirror shades, I supposed. Faintly unsettling.

Well insulated, too, for not a hint of music could be heard. Not even when the door opened, and somebody came out. Human, by appearance: a young blonde, very drunk. She might be human, though she was more likely fae, and heavily glamoured.

‘I knew it was possible to get heels more outrageous than yours,’ Tai muttered. ‘I didn’t know it was possible to walk in them.’

‘It isn’t,’ I answered.

Tai’s head tilted, watching the hapless club patron’s progress down the street in silent consideration. ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘It isn’t.’

‘Well,’ I said.

‘Well.’ Tai squared her shoulders. ‘I’ll go first.’

She sauntered off. Nobody was on the door, by the look of it: no bouncers, no guard. Nothing. That was unusual.

Fae-owned and fae-patroned establishments tend to have measures in place to deter any humans that might wander in. Selkie’s Pearls, like Eventide, was drenched top-to-bottom in gramarye. Anyone non-fae walking by would probably see an apartment building instead of a club, or perhaps an office block. That’s customary. Once in a while, though, you get a human with enough fae blood — or enough of a way with gramarye, by whatever means — to see through the disguise, and that’s when you need your bouncers.

Selkie’s Pearls had nothing.

‘Unusual,’ said Tai, reaching for the door.

She never touched the door’s handle. She did not need to. ‘Thetai Sarra Antha,’ announced a smoky voice from somewhere indeterminate, and the door swung open.

Tai halted. ‘What.’

Two steps caught me up with her. ‘Fionn of Cuath-Tor,’ said the same voice.

The door remained open.

‘Fi,’ said Tai, glancing down.

‘Yes?’

‘Your pearls are… doing something.’

I lifted my wrist. My bracelet of lustrous, moon-pale pearls was glowing. This is not so very out of the ordinary for them; they do glow, once in a while. But it’s a clear glow, like starlight on the water, and it happens when I am using them for something.

I wasn’t using them now, and this glow was faintly sea-green.

‘Selkie’s Pearls,’ said Tai.

‘Not liking this.’

‘Hey,’ said Tai, stepping forward. ‘It’s not boring.’ She vanished through the doors — vanished indeed, for a haze of pearly light waited beyond, curiously opaque; I couldn’t see what had become of Tai after she passed through it.

I thought, with a moment’s wistful longing, of last week, when the greatest worry on my mind was the upcoming show. How trivial it suddenly appeared.

I walked forward.

The light felt cool, which of course it should not. Light shouldn’t feel anything, so it might rather be termed a mist; only there was no moisture in it. Whatever it was, it washed gently over my skin, leaving me feeling curiously cleansed.

Tai waited for me in a cool hallway, white-walled, its floor covered with a mosaic tile patterned with roiling ocean waves. A mother-of-pearl fountain occupied the centre of the floor, filling the otherwise silent space with the soft sound of trickling water.

‘What kind of a club is this, again?’ I asked.

‘At this point, fuck knows,’ said Tai, heading for the nearest door. ‘Let’s find out.’

This door opened for her, too, though without announcing her name. I followed her into a much larger room, every feature of which echoed the sea-theme of the hallway; but before we had taken more than two steps, the smoky voice spoke again.

‘Daix de Montfort.’

‘Bitches didn’t wait for me?’ snarled Daix. I turned to see her marching through the pale curtain of mist like it was nothing. She paused for three seconds to observe the fountain and the mosaic, then turned her glare on me.

‘You were late,’ I said.

‘Seriously?’ said Daix. ‘Two minutes late and you ditch me? So much for being a team.’

‘We aren’t a team,’ said Tai. ‘We stopped being a team eighty years ago. Get in here.’

Daix stamped past me. She’d omitted to dress for the occasion — whatever that might be — and wore dark jeans and a hoodie, with the hood pulled up to cover her platinum-blonde hair. I might have termed it stealth attire, save that she’d chosen to wear a set of Demonia boots with electric-pink platform heels. The enhanced stomping effect clearly pleased her, for she made the most of it as she strode past me.

‘What is this crap,’ she said, surveying the room.

It dripped luxury, for one thing. More tile mosaic covered the floor, and spread up the walls; gilded here and there in silver and gold, it dazzled the eye. There were fountains; there were pools of cool, serene water in dreamy colours; there was a bar, pearl-painted and shimmering, and well stocked with bottled liquors, all of them clear, or in shades of green or blue.

‘Forget what it is,’ said Tai. ‘Why is it empty? Didn’t you say this place re-opened weeks ago?’

‘So claimed my sources,’ said Daix, advancing into the room.

Tai went forward, too. I hung back near the door. The pearls on my wrist were still glowing, and they’d grown noticeably cool against my skin, as though I had dipped them in ice-water.

When I moved, the calm waters in the nearest pool rippled.

Interesting.

I took a few steps nearer, and the ripples increased, turned into waves to greet me.

‘While I’m at it,’ I heard Daix saying, ‘how the fuck does it know who we are?’

‘That would be the part I like least,’ Tai agreed.

‘Does any of this scream “bad news” to you at all?’

‘Loudly.’

‘Tai,’ I called. ‘Daix.’

Their voices halted abruptly. I heard the click of Tai’s heels and the stamp-stamp of Daix’s boots as they approached.

Both sets of footsteps came to a sudden stop a few feet from me. ‘The fuck?’ said Tai.

I’d stationed myself in between three of the pools. Then, I’d dropped pretty much all of the gramarye that hid who I was. All trace of humanity was gone from me: I stood wreathed in sea-mists, the tang of salt in the air and my hair heavy with pearls.

The waters had responded with — rapture, somewhere between joy and greed; hunger, perhaps. The pools roiled with waves, waist-high; when I walked, the water formed for me a glimmering train, frothing with sea-spray and awash with colour.

‘Oookay,’ said Daix.

‘Uh, Fi?’ said Tai. ‘You all right there?’

‘Fine,’ I said.

‘Uh huh.’

‘I mean, I feel… amazing.’

That silenced them. I felt the weight of their joint attention on me: Tai’s assessing, Daix’s suspicious.

‘Fi,’ said Tai after a moment. ‘You’re enjoying this way too much.’

‘I know.’

‘Screw that,’ said Daix. ‘It’s enjoying you way too much.’

She was right. The waters and I, we understood each other.

I never wanted to leave.

I was up to my thighs in water before Tai got to me. ‘Nope,’ she said, grabbing me in a painful grip. She hauled me bodily out of the pool and I am ashamed to say I fought her every step of the way.

We stood together on the edge, dripping and dazed.

‘What the hell,’ said Tai.

When I looked round, I saw Daix standing up to her waist in one of the other pools. Arms folded, jaw set, she was staring at me. ‘I don’t see what the fuss is about,’ she said.

‘It’s like… paradise,’ I said, my gaze drifting back to those clear, still waters. ‘Perfect. Everything about it is perfect.’

‘It’s cold,’ said Daix, and waded out again.

‘Isn’t it lovely?’ I said dreamily.

Tai looked at me, her fingers twitching.

‘Don’t slap me,’ I said. ‘I’m lucid.’

‘You sure about that?’ Tai took hold of my arm — more gently this time — and pulled me a step or two farther away from the water.

‘Not entirely,’ I admitted.

‘Okay. So we’re in a club that’s empty when it shouldn’t be, it somehow knows our names, and there’s a pool of water with a crush on you.’ Tai raised a brow. ‘Did I miss anything?’

I shivered, cold now that I’d left the water behind. ‘Don’t… don’t let me drink any of it.’

‘Were you planning to?’

‘Yes,’ I said tightly.

‘Right,’ said Tai, and towed me back towards the door. ‘How much do you trust me?’

I focused on her face, but with some difficulty. All I wanted was the water. ‘What?’

‘Would you trust me with your life?’

‘What? Why?’

‘How about a limb?’

‘Could you get to the point?’

Tai took my wrist, and stripped the bracelet of pearls from it. ‘I’ll keep these safe,’ she promised, quickly stashing them out of sight in a pocket somewhere.

I almost punched her. ‘Tai, you can’t—’

‘I can.’

‘I can’t—’

‘You can, and you will. This combination of things is giving me a seriously bad feeling, and I’ve learned to pay close attention to those.’

I would have remonstrated further — going without those pearls is easier than going without my left arm, if not by much — but something else caught my attention. ‘Where’s Daix?’

‘What.’ Tai’s head whipped around. ‘She was just here—’ Her hand closed around my wrist in a vice-like grip, hauling me mercilessly after her. ‘Daix!’ she yelled.

Daix answered, but not before I’d detected sounds of a scuffle. ‘Back here!’ she shouted.

Tai adjusted her trajectory, heading for the sound of Daix’s voice. We ran past the glorious pools — I had time only for a brief glance of painful regret before they were out of sight. At the back of the room, past the bar, there yawned an open door, and beyond the door we found Daix.

Tai stopped dead on the threshold, so suddenly I collided with her back. ‘What?’ I said. When she didn’t move, I unceremoniously shoved her out of the way.

The chamber behind the bar looked nothing like the sea-themed glory we’d just left. Some kind of intimate lounge area, I judged, with low sofas and chairs arranged around a glass table. Everything was black lacquer, polished wood and bronze fittings, and everything was Art Deco; the room could have come straight out of the 1930s. Or someone’s studied idea of what the 1930s looked like.

Daix was there, clinging to the back of a tall figure clad in dark, nondescript attire. A fair tackle: she had both hands wrapped tightly around the man’s throat, and judging from the expression on her enchanting face she’d throttle the life out of him without a second thought.

‘What—is—this—’ she was saying, face darkened with rage. ‘Did you do this?’

‘It’s not—me,’ gasped the man she was gamely trying to kill, clawing at the hands around his throat. He spared no attention for me, and no wonder, because this was Phélan and he’d only ever had eyes for Tai.

She stood like a rock. I didn’t dare look at her face. I’ve seen that heart break before; I didn’t want to watch it happen again.

‘Phélan?’ she said at last, and faintly.

‘Tai,’ he choked. ‘Good to—see you.’

‘You’re behind this?’ Tai’s voice grew stronger by the word; it never did take her long to get a grip on herself.

Daix had throttled him past the power of speech; he could only look at Tai, and I thought I read a negative there.

I felt it when Tai snapped. ‘You—fucking—shit,’ she gasped.

‘Moment,’ I said. Phélan was barely fighting Daix; why wasn’t he trying harder? ‘Tai, hold it together. Daix, could you maybe not—’

Too late. Where the hell Daix had conjured a knife from without releasing her hold on Phélan’s neck, I have no idea, but suddenly the gleam of naked metal caught my eye.

And Phélan acted at last. The knife was gone from Daix’s fingers in a trice; but rather than turn it on Daix, or on either of us, Phélan dropped it.

‘No you fucking don’t,’ growled Daix. Tendrils of fire laced her fingers, and spread — and Daix lit up like a torch.

Phélan screamed.

Tai shouted something. I didn’t hear what; all my attention was on the waters I’d left behind moments earlier. It waited for me there, so close, so receptive. I called to it, and it answered.

A deluge of damping water surged through the door, drenching Tai and me, aiming for Daix and Phélan.

But as quick as I had been, Tai was faster. Before the waters had travelled half the distance, Tai had opened her painted lips and voiced a shriek. Less siren-song, more ban sith howl; she screamed in three voices at once, a trio of discordant parts in a cacophonic wail that raised every hair on my body.

Daix stopped dead. So did Phélan. The flames around them vanished in a puff of smoke, seconds before the wall of my waters hit them both.

Phélan fell, and Daix with him.

And Tai was on her knees beside them, heedless of the water soaking through her gown. She stared dead into Phélan’s eyes, and spoke. ‘Did. You. Do. This?’ Every word hit him like a bullet; he visibly flinched.

‘No,’ he gasped, a syllable raw with pain.

Tai let him go. I knew the moment she took her song off him, for he came to life again in an instant, and hurled Daix away from him. Daix hadn’t had time to do much damage, but she’d achieved some: his throat was striped with livid red burns.

I expected him to bomb right out of there, but he didn’t. He retreated a safe distance from Daix (if there is such a thing) and stood, chest heaving, dark eyes roiling with anger.

Tai picked herself up off the floor, and stared the sluagh down.

‘Lovely,’ growled Daix. ‘We’re really getting the whole gang back together.’