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"Followthe parapet, doinding flight of derelict steps and across the courtyard to another ruined building He ducks inside, and we all follow Everyone is wearing training gear

I’own

With a sword

Inside, Noah leans close "You scared the hell out of me, Poe," he says I look at him, and his familiar mercury eyes, very different froood look at both, coain"

"It’s here so wind It’s whistling and whining through the cracks and holes of the old kirkstand in "Sydney?"

"There!" she yells, and Darius moves to where she points To a recessed altar in the stone

"Ah I see you’ve found it for us," a voice calls out "Perfect"

My words, Riley Use theuage I stare at the re up the words Athios placed in ue So painful, and nausea stirs in my stomach and my knees weaken Still, I say them, just as Athios had said theazes fixed, wide, andfrightened They aren’tstill as death But their

Shit

A thunderous sound kicks up, and I realize it’s not thunder but voices Deep, grulance out over the field and see a s toward us

Tristan de Barre Gawan of Conwyk

And about fifteen big-ass guys dressed in full chain-mail armor

With swords

"Sydney! Riley!" Jake calls out, and I turn and catch the first Jodís head of the evening He’d lunged so fast that I almost missed it

"Riley, help Sydney!" Noah yells

"Not until they get up here!" I say, inclining ht Hard And soh for Sydney and I to ease in behind Darius Lucian and Ginger transfor a Jodís’ head off is the sa it off with a sword, but it looks like it has the same effect Lucian, an enormous black wolf, rips the head off a Jodís with his jaws and spits it out, and the white, gross, screa pile of pus ensues

That’d be a yes, then

The roar of warriors alh of Tristan, in full steel chain- his sword like it was another of his own appendages, to turn to help Sydney To h halfway out "Alot it��"

"Riley!"

I turn just as one of the Fallen lunges at ave to me Why he didn’t use his willy-nilly powers on h and sith all ht toward his head

I watch it roll for a few feet before it disintegrates into a pile of ash

Like the rest of his body

When I land, Sydney has the Seiagh in her hand My insides shake as I hear her incite soe sounds a lot like the one spoken by Athios

In the next instant, Sydney retrieves a silver dirk froh’s center With a shout, Sydney drops the old tome The ancient voluain to harel

The storh the ruins now are the sound of steel against steel, steel against rubbery gross neck, and the thuds of heads hitting the stone floor When Sydney and I run from the kirk, the scene in the courtyard and in the ruins is like a scene fro until the last Jodís falls

But there is still one Fallen left, and he’s standing in the center of the courtyard surrounded by Jake, Gabriel, Darius, the lupines, Noah, and the warriors I knohat the Fallen are capable of, so I use what control IDarius recites a verse in his own language, then lops off the Fallen’s head in one swing It’s the end of the battle Tristan, Gawan, and their , but all alive Not one innocent life lost

Piles of dead Jodís are everywhere

"Da off his hel dark hair is plastered to his head, and brilliant blue eyes gaze at me with a twinkle "Youwith the blade"

"And in a ball gown, no less," Gawan says, joining him He, unlike the others, wears no heler-than-life "Fine fighting, lass"

Just his ink s alone would scare off uys," I say, and wipe reat teachers"