“Is Dóchas Sidhe, which means she could do the same ‘track me by my magic’ routine that we’ve been doing with her. She can’t find her home. She can’t go back to where she belongs. But my home? There’s nothing stopping her from going there.” She had left me broken and writhing on the basement floor; she had no reason to think I was a threat to her, or even that I would be able to figure out where she had gone.
By taking my home, after she had subdued me, she had put herself into the best position possible. It was too bad for her that I wasn’t actually dead.
“Oak and ash,” murmured Simon. This time, he was the one who sped up, and we half walked, half ran the rest of the way along the street to my front gate, where as expected, the candle flame leaped upward, telling us that we were close.
Simon blew it out and snapped his fingers. The don’t-look-here dissolved. I gave him a curious look, and he shook his head.
“She knew I was there, in the basement,” he said. “She may not be able to recognize me, but she isn’t blind to my presence. If we enter under an enchantment and she detects the magic, she’ll assume we’ve come to hurt her, and she’ll react accordingly. I don’t mean to offend, October, but in your current condition, I don’t think you can fight her off.”
“You’d be surprised,” I said. August had been fast and furious, but she hadn’t been trained. Every swing was supported by as much weight and momentum as she could put behind it. That made her a merciless opponent, sure. It didn’t make her unbeatable.
My teacher had been a man named Devin, and he’d trained me on the assumption that I was always going to be a changeling, mostly mortal, hampered by the reflexes of my own body. He’d taught me how to take and throw a punch. Most importantly, he’d taught me how to incapacitate my opponent. August had been able to get the drop on me in the basement, because I hadn’t expected her to attack, and because she’d had magic.
Well, she’d done all the damage she was going to do. No one was turning me wholly human against my will, and I wasn’t planning to let her touch my skin again. If she still felt like playing punchy games, she could find out what it felt like to have her teeth loosened.
“Come on,” I said, and started up the path toward my front door, digging the keys from my jeans as I walked. My wards would have long since burned away, undone by the passage of successive dawns. A pang of concern hit as I remembered Quentin mentioning that he was going to feed the cats. Had we left enough kibble?
Even with May staying at Shadowed Hills to anchor the blood trace, Raj would have come by the house to check on them. They were his subjects, and he was determined to show he would be a good King when his time came—even if that time was coming too fast for any of us to be comfortable. They’d be fine. They had to be.
And all of this was me refusing to think about the possibility that any of them had been in the house when my sister decided to make it her own. I knew that. I focused on the inconsequential anyway.
The doorknob turned as I was unlocking it. The door swung open, and there was August, draped in the glittering shine of a human disguise, dressed in one of my tank tops and a pair of May’s sweat pants. That made sense. August was thinner than I was, and none of my jeans had drawstrings.
Her face darkened at the sight of me, and she moved to slam the door. I stuck my foot into the opening before she could, effectively jamming it open.
“This is my house,” I said. “Punching me in the face doesn’t make it yours. If anything, it makes me less inclined to invite you over.”
August’s eyes widened before narrowing in sudden anger. She lunged forward, grabbing for my arm. That seemed to be her go-to move. When in doubt, attempt to hurt the person you’re fighting on a cellular level, one that they can’t fight against, but can only endure.
Not this time. When her hand closed, my arm wasn’t there. Instead, my shoulder was lowered and I was charging forward, bull in a china shop, crashing into her and carrying her backward into the hall. She couldn’t hurt me if she couldn’t touch my skin. I knew enough about our shared magical talents to know that, and right now, even if she could somehow focus after that impact, she didn’t have access to any skin. She had leather jacket and the heavy, too-dark fall of my hair, and if I was right, she wouldn’t know what to do without a better weapon than her magic. She was too specialized.
August’s back slammed into the wall with a concussive bang, sending several framed pictures crashing down. Glass shattered. I pulled back just enough to let her feet drop flat to the floor before I slammed into her again, harder this time, not concerned about hurting her. I knew how fast she healed. I was more concerned about incapacitating her long enough for me to get the duct tape and tie her hands.
Amandine had tried to turn me human when I was a child, and she had failed. Part of it was that she hadn’t wanted to hurt her baby, but part of it was also that I had fought back as long as it was possible for me to do so. My own magic was still alive and kicking, however human I might be, and it wasn’t going to go gently into that good night. Even if August got her hands on me again, I was pretty sure she couldn’t turn me wholly human without my consent.
That didn’t mean I wanted to test the theory. Call me weird, but letting other people try to mess with the balance of my blood for fun is not my idea of a good time.
August groaned, stunned by the impact. I stepped back and brought my elbow up at the same time, intent on catching her in the throat. She dodged to the side. I hit the wall instead. The pain was a great bolt moving through my arm. Nothing felt broken, and so I went for my backup plan, grabbing her by the hair and using it as leverage for slamming her head into the wall.
August shrieked. Behind me, I heard the door close and the latch click home. Most of my focus was on my sister and the need to keep her from touching me. I slammed her head against the wall again.
Bringing her hand up, she raked her fingernails across my cheek, drawing blood without actually touching her skin to mine. She looked a little startled when she realized that. I slammed her head into the wall again.
“Could you, perhaps, not break her?” asked Simon behind me.
“We’re sturdy!” I snarled, and went for a fourth slam.
August yanked her hair out of my hand, stumbling away. She stopped several feet down the hall. “Stop it,” she commanded, in a voice that was probably meant to be regal, but came off more as scared. “I demand you stop it.”
“You started it,” I reminded her.
There was a moment—one beautiful, shining moment—where I thought she might see sense and stop attacking me. We could talk this over like reasonable people. I might not even need to borrow Arden’s hope chest if I could convince August to lend me the necessary power to let me rebalance my blood. Quentin was probably asleep in his room, and if he wasn’t, if she’d enchanted him and stuffed him into a closet, I could wake him up. It was going to be okay.