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Kitsune understood Even if Oliver and Collette could earn the pardon they sought, and were able to travel back to their oorld without fear of persecution from beyond the Veil, Julianna would have to remain behind Unlike the Bascombes, she had not been carried here by a Borderkind She had touched the Veil

Julianna would be trapped here forever, one of the Lost Ones

What would Oliver do now?

The irony was cruel

Kitsune had the cunning heart of a fox and the mischievous soul of a trickster Love had touched her for the first time in centuries and now it had curdled into bitterness She had always hoped and believed that Oliver would come to love her, in time, but Julianna’s arrival had ruined any chance of that Her heart felt dark and heavy now She saw Julianna’s o, then," the fox-woman said "Frost and the others need our help"

They all spared a final glance and a wave at Captain Beck and her soldiers, who had athered now by the castle doors to see the shadows of the Sandcastle, into the darkness, shielding her eyes fro her bitterness at the truth that she had learned

For she understood now that Oliver could never have been hers, no matter what he may have allowed her to think

He had hurt the woman in her, quite deeply

But it was the fox in her that noished very much to hurt him back

For a oing to go smoothly, that Ty’Lis was not prepared for their arrival Lost Ones and Yucatazcan Borderkind surrounded the palace in the circle at the center of Palenque In the flickering gas and electric lights they were a sea of curious and angry faces When Frost gripped the sentry by the throat at the top of the stairs, they were all with hiuards attempted to intervene, but Li snapped at theh the air Where his hand passed, the air itself lit on fire, a streak of flaround He held one hand at his side and fire spilled froer He staggered with the effort, no longer the legend he had once been The blazing tiger-thing opened its uards kept still

Frost released the guard he’d throttled The man reached up to touch the frozen flesh of his throat where the winter man had clutched him

"Let theed around Frost as though they were his honor guard and several of the sentries stared at the soldier whose face was scarred from a lifetime’s survival in battles that had claimed others, watched the Mazikeen with cold eyes

"You must be announced," the scarred sentry said, and it was clear from his tone that he would not be so easily intimidated

Cheval Bayard threw back her silver hair "Then announce us"

The gri look at Frost and the Mazikeen, and then turned to hurry into the palace The two iants to enter the palace, but given the rarity of such occasions--and that the king was a god in naer The scarred sentry disappeared through one of those and it slammed shut behind him

Cheval seemed pleased with herself, but she had a reckless air about her, as though she no longer cared what fate held for them all Perhaps, with Chorti dead, that was the truth

Beside her, and several steps below Frost, Grin smiled Soon, his expression seemed to say, they would have their answers They weren’t alone now Instead they were surrounded by others de justice

Blue Jay re the croatching the skies, watching the palace itself

This did not feel right

Only a fool would have allowed himself to think it would be this simple He cursed his ownup the steps past Cheval and Grin, pushing between two of the Mazikeen The eyes of the sentries watched hi to be--"

The winter aze Too easy

People began to shout at the foot of the stairs A woman screale, solid kick he sent theend over end until he struck the cobblestoned street far below

Soldiers flooded into the plaza around the palace, streahfare and froed open and hundreds of armed men erupted from the bowels of the art grabbed hold of the nearest sentry, twisted, and hurled the man down the stairs, even as soht, daathered at the top of the palace steps The winter h the air, driven by an arctic breeze A guard grabbed at hie of his hand down--honed to a razor blade--and sheared the outed as the sentry staggered back Cheval grabbed the nearest sentry and drew hiled and kicked as she lifted hiround When she dropped hiaping lips She had drowned him with a kiss

Two sentries cauttural syllables deep in his throat, moved his feet in time with a rhyth his aro shis he’d su the the nearest of the two sentries in two