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And then an answer came, only not from me.It whispered through the swarm, first in tiny echoes from a few throats, almost indiscernible above all the buzz.But it was quickly taken up by more and more, until it screamed through the crowd and was everywhere, and they all shouted with the same voice.

“Cassie Palmer, Artemis’ daughter, Cassie Palmer has returned!Cassie Palmer is among us; she is here among us; come and see.Come andfight!”

The flies scattered in a twinkling of light, zooming home to their masters in faraway Las Vegas, but not far enough.I stood there, flat-footed and dazed, not knowing what to do with the joy of battle still pulsing through my veins at the same time that fear clawed at my belly.Because Icouldn’t fight them all!

I didn’t even know how many there were, but it was a multitude.I suddenly realized that the majority of the greater gods in this part of the world, perhaps in any part, were all there in Vegas.I saw it for an instant, some of my own power having hitched a ride with theirs’, saw streets packed with my kind, saw intelligence gleaming in most of their eyes, saw—

My own death because I couldn’t fight them all!

Not yet.And I would never be able to if they caught me now.I pulled my power around me, all those little bits of my recent opponents still drifting through the air, and prepared to flee.

But not by way of the portal, for the gods could follow that road, could find me again, and I couldn’t risk that.There was only one way to move that even a god couldn’t trace, at least not these, and perhaps not any now.For my mother was dead, and so were all the rest who had once used that path save one, and she was useless, locked down, and a prisoner of the gods.ButIcould—

“Cassie.”

The word was quiet, less a shout than a whisper, but it cut through the madness.It sliced through the distant clamor of the gods, now streaming this way over the desert.It overrode the cries of the little people scattered around, who were yelling at each other things that didn’t matter and that I didn’t care about.It ripped through the cry of my mind, thehurry, hurry, hurry, screaming in my veins because this one—

I did care about.

I looked down to see him standing there, alone and unarmed.The blond head was shining in the glow of all the power spilling around me, but he didn’t flinch.He didn’t even seem to notice as he held out a hand, palm up, and waited.

As if he expected me to take it.

I was the size of a tree, having grown in the battle to fit my power.I was a giant now, barely fitting under what was left of the high, arched roof.I was agoddess, and he was a mouse, and yet he wanted...

Absurd!I did not have time for this!I had to get away while I still could before the others arrived and—

The dark-haired man was there now, too, also unflinching, even though I could literally crush either of them under my heel!He was also holding out a hand, and the sheer audacity held me there for an instant, staring down at them in bafflement.The rest were still screaming, still running about, still acting as if their world was ending when that had already happened, but these two...

Stayed in place, holding out their hands and saying nothing to try to sway me one way or the other.

For what was there to say?I thought as a sudden cascade of memories hit me.

Mircea laughing as he spun me around a ballroom in old Venice, a place we were definitely not supposed to be.“One dance before we go,Dulcea?a.It is a shame to waste the night!”

Pritkin, using the demonic powers he hated to sprout wings to catch me as I fell through the darkness, his strong arms grabbing me seconds before a grisly death.And the two of us spiraling up into the heavens instead, into beauty and moonlight and safety once more.

Mircea, fangs out and eyes glowing bright, leading his men on a harrowing assault on Aeslinn’s court, never hesitating because he knew I would have his back, just as he’d had mine when the three of us argued about whether we could take the city.He’d never doubted me, no, not for a second—

Pritkin telling Jonas he quit because he chose me over the Corps he loved—

I tried to stop it, but there were too many of them, and they just kept coming.

Mircea, naming me his Second when I wasn’t even vampire, trusting me with his life and, more importantly, with his family—

Pritkin, touching my foot on a balcony, telling me I was the strongest person he knew—

I staggered, confused and frightened, and yet that emotion was already receding as fast as it had come.Something else was rising to take its place, something clawing its way up from the heart of me, something that should have been weak and cowardly andhuman, but that was facing me down anyway.That was making meremember.

Mircea’s footprints, glowing brightly against the soil of an alien world, leading me on a path out of Aeslinn’s hideous camp while Pritkin’s power vaporized the fey hunting me left and right.

The three of us, coming together in a dance as old as time, hands sliding, lips merging, bodies sighing, to harness the power of a god to fight back against the All-Father himself—

I gasped, suddenly coming back to myself, and realized that I had shrank down to normal size only when their hands finally grasped mine.No one said anything even then, but I didn’t need it.We’d had our problems, yes, and might again before this was through, but we’d been each other’s refuge, our rock in a churning sea, the bedrock of our sanity when our world literally crumbled around us.

And while I still couldn’t think straight, I clung to that.I knew their touch, their names, their minds like I knew my own.We were one, and they were coming with me—

“Cassie.”It was the brunette this time, his mental gifts causing a raft of other faces to flash in front of my eyes, so many that I couldn’t focus on them all.Too many.