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Now I remember. This is the female Puck had anecdotally mentioned when taking my place to stand guard outside The Mer Cascades. She’s the filly with a fondness for Juniper, a tenacious interest in humans, and a penchant for not doing what she’s told.

The filly’s defiance nudges the corner of my mouth. “Your courage won’t be wasted. Returning to your kin is the best way to fight with us. Save your strength for the day you grow taller than me, and the wild will be grateful.”

“You sound like Cypress.”

“Is that supposed to be an insult?”

“And now you sound like Puck.”

I don’t need vision to know the spitfire’s nose is crinkling. “The humans once took our youth,” I remind her. “I was among them. Who will protect the young centaurs if you do not?”

Hesitation. Chagrin. Obstinacy. “I’m not falling for that, Sire.”

Nor do we have precious minutes to waste. My baritone slithers from my lips. “Iron fire leaks into your pores with the potency of venom. It weakens you like prey crushed in the vice grip of a cobra. And once it’s done sucking the magic from your blood, it feasts on your cartilage until you’re nothing but a husk.”

Silence. Her breathing splits like a twig.

Like I said. I have no special place in my soul for coddling. This filly has gotten the point.

I nick my chin toward the woodland. “You will do as you’re told. Or I shall pin your hooves to the ground with the daggers concealed under my robe.”

An audible gulp. “Yes, Sire.”

There is no need to confirm her departure. My limbs snap into movement. I pivot and strike through The Colony of Fireflies.

At the path’s end, the darkness shifts behind my eyes. It thickens into three distinct shades of black—a hawthorn, oak, and ash tree. The great sentinels rise from the earth, marking where the landscapes converge.

Here, the foulness of burning iron magnifies. All is quiet, despite the compression of bodies scattered along the border.

My eyes stumble across a halo of teal light. Cove stands on The Triad’s threshold, her spear angled and ready. Starlight and shadows swirl around her. She glances my way, her gaze eviscerating the distance between us.

For a moment, we lock and hold.

Traces of white hair ripple from the margins, signifying Lark’s presence beside Cove. And the click of a bolt being fed into a crossbow descends from the oak tree’s branches. Because she cannot risk getting any closer, Juniper is stationed overhead and leveling a crossbow from one of the boughs. The leaves will shroud her, along with a scattered group of woodland archers, while offering them a clear prospect from which to fire.

“About time, luv.” Puck’s drawl resounds from several feet away, his voice accompanied by the strain of a nocked longbow. He’s kneeling on the ground, under the oak’s branches where Juniper squats, with his weapon poised. He has spoken without removing his attention from the borderline between Faerie and the mortal realm.

I huff. “I see you could not keep Juniper from the battle.”

“Don’t rub it in,” the satyr gripes. “I might have threatened to haul the huntress over my shoulder and chain her in The Herd of Deer. One, she never does what I ask. Two, between her and her sisters, my woman knows how to bust through locks. So guess how long the argument lasted?”

Before or after they had pre-war sex? I would say not long.

In any case, the embryo is cocooned by the Evermore Blossom extract I’d given Juniper. Nothing can happen to their child.

And like her sisters, Juniper has a right to defend this crusade. Puck knows this, otherwise he would have made good on his threat to keep her out of the conflict.

The oak will shield Juniper, enabling her to fight from a distance. As an extra precaution, Lark’s nightingale chirps overhead. Should any weapons fly in Juniper’s direction, the bird can shift, pluck her from the branch within milliseconds, and catapult her to safety.

Unlike I had assumed, the mortals haven’t breached Faerie yet. But they’re about to try.

“Tell me,” I say.

“One hundred leagues ahead,” Puck briefs me. “Half on foot, the other on horseback. It’s more than the village. Cerulean circled with the mountain Fae and counted a thousand strong, which means the humans asked for aid outside of their town.”

“And they received it?” I balk.

“Come on. We’re not dealing with the Unseelie Court. Mortals from different territories do help each other out, just like Solitaries.”