He grimaced, blinked, and turned in my direction, just as I’d hoped he would. Kincaid’s eyes widened when he spotted me. I slid my knife back up my sleeve and held my finger up to my lips. Then I pointed at the giant and made a slashing motion across my throat with my finger, trying to let him know what my plan was. My crude signals must have worked because Kincaid nodded back and started sidling in the giant’s direction, careful not to draw attention to himself. Kincaid wasn’t my friend—not exactly—but I wasn’t leaving him to Salina’s wrath. If nothing else, I could at least get him away from the fountains as quickly as possible.
“I’m sure you’re all wondering why I’ve asked you here tonight,” Salina’s voice floated over to me. “You’ve probably guessed by now that dinner will not be served.”
She laughed at her bad joke, but no one else joined in. I peered around the side of the Ice bar. Salina still stood by the mermaid fountain, addressing the crowd of angry, frightened people in front of her.
“Many of you here tonight may remember my father, Benedict. Many of you probably remember the last dinner party he gave.”
Salina’s eyes went from face to face, daring people to meet her cold gaze. Most of the guests stared back at her with blank expressions, not understanding what she was getting at, but a few shifted on their feet and dropped their eyes from hers.
“Of course, the real reason you probably remember that dinner is because that’s the night my father died—the night he was murdered by Mab Monroe right on the very ground you stand on now. Many of you were here then. You saw exactly what Mab did to my father—and not one of you lifted a finger to help him or to try and stop her. Not a single one of you.”
Murmurs of unease rippled through the crowd. I wasn’t the only one who could hear the crazy loud and clear in Salina’s voice now.
“Of course, Mab is dead,” she continued. “But the rest of you aren’t.”
More than a few folks sucked in breaths at the threat in her words.
Jonah McAllister pushed through the crowd until he was standing in front of Salina. The lawyer gave her an icy glare. “This is madness. Let us go, Salina. You can’t possibly hope to get away with whatever it is you have planned. You don’t know who you are dealing with.”
“No, Jonah,” she said. “You don’t know who you are dealing with. But believe me when I tell you that you are about to find out.”
She stared at the lawyer. McAllister opened his mouth to argue with her but then thought better of it and clamped his lips shut. Whatever he saw in Salina’s face made him he realize that she was too committed to her plan to abandon it now—just like her father had been all those years ago.
“My father was known for his Ice magic,” Salina said. “But I have a slightly different power—water.”
Hoarse gasps of unease rippled through the crowd. People stared at the pretty fountains they’d been admiring earlier, awareness, horror, and fear filling their faces. They’d walked right into Salina’s trap without even realizing it, and now there was no way out.
Again I hesitated. It would be easy—so damn easy—to let Salina kill the lot of them. It would solve so many of my problems, not to mention make Ashland a little safer for everyone. But, once again, I couldn’t condone mass murder, especially when some of the people here tonight were innocents, just regular men and women waiting and bartending and trying to make a few bucks to support their families. I couldn’t leave them to Salina’s mercy—or lack of it. It would go against everything Fletcher had ever taught me about being an assassin—and a halfway decent person too.
“The reason I invited you here tonight was to remember my father.” Salina’s voice was as calm as ever, which made her words that much more chilling. “To honor him—and to watch you all die screaming, just like he did.”
That was my cue if ever there was one. Still holding my silverstone staff, I surged to my feet and sprinted to the giant closest to me. He saw me out of the corner of his eye and frowned, as if he couldn’t believe I would actually run toward him while he was holding a gun on the crowd. He swung his weapon around to me, and I reached for my Stone magic, using it to harden my skin.
Crack! Crack!
The crowd screamed at the gunshots, and many folks ducked down and started shoving each other, scrambling to put their neighbors between themselves and this new danger.
The giant got off two shots at me. One was off the mark and plowed into the bar, shattering part of the elemental Ice, while the other hit my shoulder and bounced off my hardened skin. Cursing, the giant started to pull the trigger a third time, but Kincaid snuck up behind him and chopped the gun out of his hand.
My turn. I brought the staff up and around, slamming it into the side of the giant’s head. He staggered back. I palmed a knife, followed him, and shoved the blade deep into his chest, sliding it in between his ribs and slicing it into his heart. The giant screamed, but I was already pushing him out of the way and stepping over to Kincaid.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Kincaid said, grinning.
“Uh-huh. Now shut your mouth and start running.”
I tucked the bloody knife back up my sleeve, grabbed the woman closest to me, and shoved her toward Kincaid and the opening I’d just created in Salina’s trap.
“Move! Move! Move!” I screamed at the people in front of me. “Run! Now, while you still can!”
For a moment, there was shocked silence; then folks began to stampede in my direction. I leapt up onto the rim of the closest fountain so I wouldn’t get dragged down to the ground and trampled. Looking over the crowd to where Salina was standing in front of the mermaid fountain, I could only hope I’d bought everyone enough time to get out of her watery web of death.
But it was already too late—Salina’s eyes began to glow, and I knew she was reaching for her magic.
Normally, I would have enjoyed being so close to such beautiful fountains. I would have been happy to relax, sit on one of the rims, and listen to the water merrily gurgle away while a bit of cool, refreshing spray wafted over me.
Not tonight.
The water that had been bubbling so peacefully in the fountains took on a harsher, more ominous sound. It surged out of the metal sculptures with all the force of a fire hose pointed at the crowd—seven of them, one from each fountain.
People screamed as the water slammed into them, and the jets of it were so powerful they knocked over tables, chairs, and everything else in their paths. In a second, everyone was soaked to the skin, which was just what Salina wanted. People fell to the ground, which had already turned to mud, and they wrestled with each other, trying to get on their feet or crawl over the tops of their enemies to safety. Others weren’t so lucky. They were picked up by waves of water, dumped into the bottoms of the fountains, and held there, only to surface when they were good and dead. Salina wasn’t using her magic to dehydrate anyone. No, tonight, she was intent on drowning everyone she saw.
“Salina! No! Stop!” I heard Owen yell. “Don’t do this!”
Owen pushed his way through the crowd until he was standing before the elemental. He held out a hand, pleading with her. She looked at him. Her face softened, and I could see all the love she had for him, all the love she’d always had for him, crazy and twisted as it was. For a moment, I thought she might actually reconsider, that she might actually stand down and give up her deadly plan. But then her eyes found mine, and her face hardened once more.