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It would make it so much easier killing every fucking one.

Aimee was in over her head.

She’d gathered all these people, and they kept looking to her for a plan. She just hadn’t figured out what it was yet.

It had started like something out of one of her nightmares. The harpies descended over the city. People panicked, scattering in every direction. Before she knew it, before she’d even given it a second thought, she’d become their guide.

She knew glamours, and she knew how to use them to hide. How many nights had she hidden her mother and brother when Arys Thorne went into another rage? How many shadowy corners had she taken refuge in at court, listening to gossip and conversation no one ever meant to be overhead?

Taking shelter inside a grocery, she’d woven glamours to disguise the storefront, taking the busted door and the shattered display window and creating the illusion of a plain brick wall. Their scent was masked, erased as thoroughly as she could manage.

And, of course, there were the glamours to lead others to her.

Crouched inside the splintered doorframe, the ground beneath her teal slippers scattered with glass, she had a good view of the street through the rippling barrier of her magic. The primary panic was over. Now there were just the stragglers.

They would come running down the street, sprinting for the next bit of cover one block over, and that’s when Aimee caught them with flocks of birds made of water. A little bit of gentleness and beauty within the chaos that seemed to whisper,Come with me…Then her birds would lead them back to the store, to shelter, sneaking them beneath the watchful eyes of the harpies that still circled overhead.

She had almost 30 people now, most of them wounded. In the backroom, Aiden worked to get as many as he could back on their feet. They couldn’t stay here. They had no weapons, no defenses, and she could only hold the glamour for so long. Eventually, they would have to run, though to where…

Well, that was the part she was still working on.

Leaning around the window frame, the glamour stretched across her face like a film. Aimee scanned the street. There were bodies everywhere, though fewer harpies now, thank the Shards for small mercies. Most, she’d already managed to lead away. An ill-formed illusion, barely a shadow, was all it took to grab their attention and make them give chase.

Perhaps if she could find one or two more water mages to help provide cover for the entire crowd, they could make it to the Swap.

A horrible screech pulled her attention to the left side of the street. In the distance, maybe a block away, a group of harpies lumbered around the corner. Five of them—all tall, gangly, and rotting. The largest led from the center of the pack. Evenbeneath the mangled slab of meat that had once been its face, its eyes were keen.

Heart pounding, Aimee checked the glamour, made sure it was holding, signaling to the people around her to be still, to hush.

The harpies moved forward, examining the bodies on the street and signaling to each other with grunts and growls. But these weren’t animals. Not in the way Aimee remembered. The beast at the Aion Gate—she’d seen a sort of predatory intelligence in its eyes, but this… This was systematic.Organized. They moved from body to body, checking for something. Looking for it in each face and failing to find it.

Once the street was cleared, they checked the buildings, nudging open doors and disappearing inside. Aimee’s body shook, sweat dripping down her temple as one of them lumbered past the glamoured storefront and into the shop next door.

She breathed a sigh of relief, then turned to scan the street again, one hand bracing against the ruined window frame.

She froze.

The alpha loomed just feet away, its colossal bulk swallowing the light. It was looking at her. Like it couldseeher.

She forced herself to keep still, lungs burning as she struggled to keep her breath silent.

The glamour was holding. It was perfect. Aimee checked it again and again.

But the beast gave a long sniff—and her heart sank.

She’d gotten it wrong. The scent was off or maybe there was a flicker?

The alpha approached the window, stopping just short of the glamour disguising it. Every breath it took was a rattling hiss, the sound low and menacing. This close, she could see the crystal pulsing violet in its chest. Beneath mangled flesh and exposed ribs, she counted every beat.

Aimee took a cautious step back. Glass crunched beneath her slippers.

The harpy’s head cocked, listening. It gave another sniff, then a peck, jumping back, wings flaring, when its nose passed through empty space.

One squawk summoned the others. They prowled closer, joining it at the window.

Behind her, children whimpered. People were trembling, hands clamped tight over their mouths to stifle their screams.

“I’m sorry,” Aimee whispered. She’d gathered them here, and now they were all going to die.