“Look out!” Bis shouted, leaping for him.

A blast of honey-smelling air hit them. Tumbling into the air, Jenks felt his heart pound, but he fought with his instinct, folding his wings against him and tightening into a ball as he flew out of control. Holy crap, he was heading right for the trees!

“Gotcha!” came Bis’s faint exhalation, and the wind shifted as the gargoyle caught him, pulling him close.

Jenks’s eyes opened to see the world dip and swoop. In Bis’s other hand were Vincet and Vi. Vincet looked terrified, but Vi’s expression held a shocking amount of hatred. It was Sylvan. That’s why Daryl had appeared! The stupid dryad. Couldn’t he have waited a few more minutes?

With a sharp drop and a wrench that hurt Jenks’s neck, Bis dropped to the ground beside the sidewalk next to a large rock. The wind died. Daryl was coughing with her hand to her chest, shaking as she tried to catch her breath in the pollution-stained air.

Jenks unwedged himself from Bis’s grip and flitted down to feel small beside him. Taking to the air was too chancy, and he could hit the statue from here.

“Why didn’t you shoot it!” Vincet yelled at him, angry as he struggled with Vi, they, too, firmly on the earth.

Where the hell is Jumoke! Jenks thought, still not sure what end was up yet.

“I warned you,” Daryl wheezed, pulling herself straight again. She wiped her mouth, then hesitated, shocked at the sheen of blood glinting in the lamplight. Gathering her resolve, she hid it, shouting, “You will die before I allow Sylvan to perpetrate his abuse on another!”

“You’re a whiny little nymph!” Vi shouted as she struggled to be free. “The gods are dead, and actors play their rules! You’re alone! Give up! The world’s too ugly for your kind!”

“That’s the trouble with you dryads. You talk too much,” Daryl said. Eyes narrowed, she raised her sword. The nearby light flickered and went out. The one behind it went black, too, and like dominos, the townhouses across the park went dark. A distant chorus of complaint rose, joined by the beeping of smoke detectors.

Bis shifted his wings, his back to the rock. “I got a bad feeling about this!” he squeaked.

“Hey! Golden girl!” Ivy shouted from behind them, and Jenks rose up, wings flashing red when he saw the silver dusting of Jumoke with her. “Pick on someone your own size!” she added as she strode forward, boots clacking aggressively.

“Dad!” Jumoke exclaimed as he darted to him.

“Where have you been?” Jenks shouted, his relief coming out as anger. “We can’t blow up the statue without that pot!”

Jumoke’s wings drooped as he landed beside him, pot hugged to his middle. “I’m sorry. I was getting Ivy. I saw Daryl, and I just…” The boy’s face screwed up. “I’m sorry, Dad. I shouldn’t have left.”

“Blow it up!” Vincet exclaimed, jerking when Vi got her arm free and smacked his face. He caught her wrist, and Sylvan howled. The white-hot dust spilling from Vi was turning the moss black, burned.

“Let me out!” she said, her childlike voice sounding wrong. “Before that bitch stops you!”

“Ivy’s in the way,” Jenks said tightly. Giving both Jumoke and Vincet a look to stay grounded, Jenks darted after her, coming to a halt at her shoulder as his partner stopped eight feet back from Daryl. The spicy scent of vampire spun through him, seeming to shift his own dust a darker tint. Ivy was pissed. Hell, even her aura was sparkling.

Seeing them together, Daryl dropped her sword, flushed as she looked at Ivy’s tight clothes and anger. “You’re aligned with the pixy? Who are you? A goddess?”

“Ooo! Ooo!” Jenks said, looping the bow over his shoulder so he could have both hands free for his own sword. “I’ve heard this one before. Just say yes, Ivy.”

Ivy was eyeing Daryl with the same evaluation. “Worse,” she said softly, and Jenks shuddered. “I’m heir to madness. Vessel of perversion. Your nightmare should you cross me.”

Daryl’s chin lifted, trembling. “Indeed. We might be sisters then, for I’m the same.”

Ivy hunched slightly, eyeing the woman almost hungrily. “You hurt my friends.” A long hand went out, beckoning. Her lips drew back in a horrible smile, and she let her small but sharp canines show. “Can you hurt me?”

The nymph blinked as the moonlight hit them, then she tightened her sword grip.

The air seemed to hesitate, and when Bis’s nails scraped, Ivy jerked, jumping at her.

Jenks shot straight up, yelling, “Get her away from the statue so I can blow it up!”

“You can’t!” Daryl cried out, moving impossibly fast as she dodged out of Ivy’s attack. Her sword was swinging toward Ivy’s back, and Jenks yelled a warning.

Ivy dropped. Daryl’s sword point missed, but just. Rolling backward, Ivy tried to knock Daryl down, but the nymph jumped straight up. Ivy was standing when she landed, and the two women hesitated, looking at each other in surprise and what might be respect.

“Blow it up, Jenks!” Ivy called out. “I’ll get out of the way!”

Jenks’s mouth dropped open. Holy shit. Ivy didn’t know if she could take her or not.

Darting back to the rock for protection, he sheathed his sword and pulled an arrow from his quiver. “Everyone get behind the rock!” he shouted. “Jumoke, the firepot!”

Leathery wings shaking, Bis scrambled behind the rock. Vincet fought his child as he dragged her to safety, the freedom-hungry dryad screaming. Vi was only a year old. Her tiny body couldn’t take this. She was dusting heavily, glowing like a demon as the energy of the ley line ran through her. Vincet’s own tears turned to dust as he fought to keep her from attacking Daryl—but he looked up at Jenks with hope.

“Here, Dad!” Jumoke shouted, taking off the lid. The scraping of the lid was loud, and Jenks buried the tip of the arrow in it. Immediately the wad of dandelion fluff ignited. Matalina was the real archer, he thought as he took aim and the arrow arched away. Fortunately, all he had do to was hit the statue. “Fire in the hold!” he shouted. “Everyone down!”

“No!” Daryl screamed, stretching her hand out. A flash of wind came at him, and he went tumbling backward, but a pained cry echoed, and the force immediately died.

When he found air again under his wings, his arrow was lost and the statue untouched. Daryl was writhing on the cement, downed by Ivy in the instant the nymph lost her concentration. Ivy herself looked winded, holding her arm where the nymph’s sword had scored on her.

“Rhenoranian, help me!” Daryl said, coughing as she got to her knees, undeterred.

Expression pinched, Ivy strode forward, but Daryl groaned, kneeling as she shoved the air at her with both hands.

“Watch out!” Bis cried as Ivy was flung back to land in the flower bed beside Sylvan’s statue as if having been pulled by a string. Frustrated, Jenks lowered his next arrow, not yet lit.

“Let me be your strength, Rhenoranian!” Daryl said, staggering to her feet. “Let me be your vessel!” She turned to Jenks, and his wings went cold. “Let me be your vengeance!”

Worried, Jenks darted up, then down. He couldn’t see the ley line she was pulling on, but the force of it made his wings tingle. Daryl pointed at him with a new confidence, and then Ivy’s scream echoed against the dark windows across the street. Motions blurring, the battle began again. Twelve feet up, Jenks watched, useless bow in hand and knowing he wouldn’t be able to shoot until Ivy downed the nymph. Daryl kept pushing Ivy back to the statue.

Moving faster than seemed possible, Daryl ducked Ivy’s crescent kick, only to fall when Ivy continued the spin and knocked her feet out from under her.

The nymph hit the ground, coughing. Ivy jumped into the air, elbow poised and clearly ready to slam it into Daryl’s throat as she fell to hit the dirt beside her.

Daryl saw it coming and pulled her sword up to protect her throat. Ivy screamed, knowing she couldn’t move enough to avoid being cut. The blade nicked Daryl’s face, too, upon impact, but it protected her throat. Ivy was hurt more.