“That doesn’t matter,” she said. “But I can’t just realize my true self, or whatever it is, can I? I mean, it took Aunt Sophie years to get to that point.”

  “She didn’t have a dragon,” Archer said. “I told you that when we first met, remember? That dragons were there to help the Hugtandalfer become more. I’l help you, Briony. You just have to say yes.”

  Briony didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

  Chapter 20

  Archer took Briony’s hands, moving her away from Kevin slightly. Briony couldn’t help looking back at the wounded werewolf as he did so. She was so proud of him, loved him so much. He had come for her across worlds, and despite the feelings that stil flickered in her for Fal on, that meant so much.

  Al the more reason to do this, then.

  “What do I have to do?” Briony asked.

  Archer moved her hands to his neck. “Hold on. I need to transform.”

  “In here?” Briony looked around at the mil ing vampires, and then up at the ceiling. Not that far up, though. “Archer, there isn’t room. You can’t transform here. You need more space.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Archer said. “Just worry about your own transformation.”

  “How do we do it?” Briony asked. So far, Archer hadn’t said anything other than that he could do it. He certainly hadn’t explained how.

  “Dragons move magic about, Briony,”

  Archer said. “How else do you think we can open gates? Al I need to do is pul in enough magic, and since I’m your dragon, you can take it right into yourself.”

  “And how do I do that?”

  “Cal to it, Briony. Just cal to it, and it wil come. Now, hold on.”

  Archer transformed, scales and powerful muscles appearing under Briony’s fingers as his dragon form appeared, leaving her to cling on for dear life. She was right, too. There wasn’t enough room for a dragon in the room, not even one like Archer who wasn’t ful grown yet.

  Then Archer kicked out at one of the castle wal s, and there was suddenly a lot more room.

  Stones fel away, leaving an opening through which Archer jumped, his wings opening in flight.

  For a moment, Briony thought that he had tricked her. Thought that this was a ruse to get her safely away from the battle now that Kevin was too badly hurt to let them win it. In that moment, Briony hated Archer for abandoning Kevin like that. It was only when Briony realized that they weren’t going anywhere that she calmed down a little.

  Archer’s wings beat furiously, almost hummingbird fast, as the great creature hung in the air before the exposed room. Briony could feel his skin tingling, almost as if there were electricity running beneath it. Only it wasn’t electricity, she realized. It was magic. Raw, untamed magic.

  Briony put both her palms to Archer’s scales. What had he said? That she had to claim it?

  Wel , she could do that.

  “I accept it,” Briony yel ed above the rush of the wind. “I accept it al . Whatever this means, I take it.

  I am the daughter of King Waltham, and this is mine to take. Whatever power he has to wield against these dark ones, whatever power there is to heal, I accept it.”

  Power shot into Briony like a lance. It was hot and cold, dark and light, al at the same time. It was possibility in its purest form, and it was so much more than that. It was fire, streaming through every cel as it changed her, and yet it didn’t hurt. It was magic.

  Purely, simply magic, pouring into Briony, flowing through her until she was sure that she glowing with it.

  Was this what it had been like for Aunt Sophie? Had she felt this moment, when everything was so perfect? Or did Briony get something more from it because her dragon was pushing the power into her, forcing the change faster than it might have happened otherwise? Briony simply didn’t know.

  It didn’t matter. What mattered was that she could feel herself changing, moment by moment. Her Hugtandalfer fangs were out, while her whole body felt different. Lighter somehow. More in tune with the world around it. Briony could see some of the combatants in the room below staring up at her. Did the process look that spectacular from the outside?

  Archer flew in to set Briony down in the room, transforming once more so that he could rejoin the fight and knocking a pair of vampires back with a jumping kick that kept them wel away from Briony.

  Vigor, meanwhile, had paused in the middle of an intricate passage of swordplay, locking blades with one of the older vampires while he stared at Briony.

  “So it’s true,” Vigor said quietly, “You are King Waltham’s daughter. You are one of us.”

  He shoved the vampire he was fighting

  back and beheaded it, but Briony wasn’t paying him any attention… her mind clearly focused on one thing.

  Her eyes were fixed firmly on Kevin, who lay there, stil in his wolf form, on the floor. Briony knew what she had to do. She knelt by Kevin and pushed the faintest pulse of power into him, as gently as breathing.

  The effect was quick and there was no longer a wolf there. Instead, Kevin lay on his front in human form, looking around at Briony weakly. He smiled, just barely.

  “I always knew you were special.”

  “Shh,” Briony said, wrapping her arms around him, feeling the love that she felt for him.

  Except that it wasn’t just love. It was the magic too, pulsing just beneath the surface with every thought Briony had of how much she cared about Kevin. Was that what magic was? Love? Briony wanted to think so in that moment as she held Kevin to her and let the warmth of intertwined love and power wrap around them.

  That wasn’t just a figure of speech. Light extended from Briony, pushing out in a half sphere that cocooned her and Kevin. One of the vampires touched it and jerked back, burned by it. The power wasn’t there to burn, though. It was there to heal.

  Briony pressed her hands to the wound on Kevin’s shoulder, one on top of the other. His skin felt cool to the touch now, but almost as soon as Briony noticed it, warmth started to pour into him. She paid attention to the edges of the wound, and they started to close up, healing with tremendous speed. The wound faded from a gash to a scrape, and then to a mere pink line on the skin. A second after that, and there was no sign that Kevin had ever been injured.

  Briony bent to kiss Kevin, knowing now that she loved him. They had both been transformed by their journey to Palisor, him becoming what was needed to defeat vampires, her coming into her Hugtandalfer heritage, yet they were both, in so many ways, exactly the same people. Briony was stil herself, even if she was a princess now, and she stil loved Kevin as much as she ever had back in Wicked.

  Even a trip to a strange and impossible world couldn’t change that.

  It seemed that Kevin felt the same, because he turned over as Briony went to kiss him, wrapping his arms around her and drawing her into a kiss of his own. It started out gently, but Briony could feel the need there, and soon, it was as passionate a kiss as she had ever had from Kevin. For the seconds it took, Briony felt like there wasn’t anything in the world except the two of them, safe inside the bubble of Briony’s newfound magic. She was so happy just to be back in Kevin’s arms once more that Briony wished the whole world around them would just go away, leaving this moment to the two of them.

  But it wouldn’t. Even as Briony and Kevin broke from that first kiss, Briony caught sight of Archer and Fletcher fighting back to back against more vampires, while Vigor swung his sword in diagonal cuts that served as attacks and parries at the same time. They fought with a strange lack of noise now, as though they knew that the fight was too serious to waste energy shouting on, while the vampires attacked with the eerie, almost spider-like quiet of their kind. As much as Briony wanted to shut out the world in those moments, she knew that she had to help, and that Kevin remained their most dangerous weapon against the creatures.

  She stood, clutching her stake, and attacked, Kevin at her side. Between them, they cut a renewed swathe through the vampires, hardly having to stop. Briony actual y found it easy, darting between the creatures and avoiding their blows while Kevin snapped at them and forced them to dodge back. Had the transformation done something to improve her reflexes, as wel as giving her the means to save Kevin?

  Briony didn’t know, but she did know that, even with whatever had happened to her, there were stil too many vampires to fight. Kevin was a powerful threat, but he seemed sluggish, so soon after being healed, and the vampires knew now that they needed to avoid him. How long would it be before another of their number snuck in close to strike at him?

  Even Vigor didn’t seem to be doing as wel as he had. Marcus had joined the fight in earnest, and now the Prince and the master vampire fought blade to blade with truly frightening speed and skil . Vigor was good, there was no doubting that, but Marcus had centuries of experience and ferocity on his side. Not to mention a whole host of other vampires, whom Archer and Fletcher were having to keep at bay while Vigor fought.

  How long could they hope to last like that, when for every vampire they kil ed, another two arrived to take its place? Briony didn’t know, but as she staked another, barely avoiding a lunge of its fangs, she suspected that it couldn’t be long.

  Then though, Briony spotted something.

  The door to the room was open, and through it slipped two familiar shapes: Aunt Sophie and King Waltham.

  They moved around to the rear of the vampires, obviously seeking the optimum spot from which to strike. Briony’s heart rose to see Aunt Sophie there, because there was almost no one she would rather have at her side in a fight.

  She was slightly more worried to see the King, given how unwel he was. Surely a battlefield wasn’t the right place for someone who had barely been able to get out of bed just a few hours ago?

  Even so, Briony couldn’t help feeling a wave of joy at his presence too. He had come for her. As sick as he was, she was his daughter, and he was not going to leave her in the hands of vampires. Who could ask for more than that?

  Briony nodded to herself. Her now dead

  parents back in Wicked stil mattered a great deal to her, but she was Hugtandalfer now, and there was no denying that King Waltham was her father. More than that, Briony wouldn’t want to deny it. She had a father prepared to take on vampires for her, and she was proud of him.

  Chapter 21

  Aunt Sophie and King Waltham let out a battle cry as they attacked the vampires from behind, charging into them and taking advantage of the shock to kil with silvered swords. Aunt Sophie cut down a line of vampires in front of her in a single swooping run along it, before looking down at them as they fel and burned.

  “These aren’t Palisor vampires,” she said as she moved closer to Briony. “The gate has opened?”

  Briony kil ed a vampire of her own and nodded. She could imagine how Aunt Sophie would feel about that. More than any of them, she seemed to have the Hugtandalfer instincts to protect the gate, so if it had opened, she had failed. Though, judging by the way Aunt Sophie lashed out at the surrounding vampires, she was determined to make up for it.

  For a moment, Aunt Sophie paused,

  looking around the crowd of attacking vampires, and Briony saw her eyes lock onto one of their number in particular. Pietre. But then, it was always Pietre for Aunt Sophie, wasn’t it?

  Aunt Sophie charged forward, her blade

  clashing against the one that had stabbed into Kevin.

  Briony did her best to keep up, determined to keep the rest of the vampires off her great-aunt while she finally, finally dealt with Wicked’s master vampire. A growl from beside her told Briony that Kevin had fol owed too.

  “Sophie,” Pietre said, and for once his voice didn’t hold that habitual y mocking note of his,

  “you’re as young as the day we first met.” He parried another attack, and then reached out to try to touch Aunt Sophie, but she stepped back. “You look just like you did when we fel in love, my darling.”

  “I. Am. Not. Your. Darling!” Each word was punctuated by a fresh slash from Aunt Sophie’s sword.

  Pietre parried them al . “You taught me to do this. Remember, Sophie?”

  Kevin started forward towards the vampire, but Briony held him back, pointing him towards another group of the creatures. This was something Aunt Sophie needed to do alone.

  “No,” the newly young Hugtandalfer woman said, shaking her head. “You can’t be here. Not after everything I’ve been through to keep your kind out.

  “How did you even get through?”

  “You’re angry with me, Sophie?” Pietre asked, stil just parrying. Aunt Sophie was intent on her attack now, to such an extent that Briony had to step around her, knocking away a vampire who would have struck her from the side otherwise.

  “Of course I’m angry with you. You’ve kil ed hundreds of people. You kil ed my husband.”

  “He didn’t deserve you!” Pietre got himself back under control, stepping out of the way of a thrust.

  “You’re angry with me? I should be furious with you.

  You’ve been holding out on me, Sophie. You knew about Palisor, and how I wanted to come here so badly, but you never let me get near.”

  Briony staked the vampire who had

  attacked Aunt Sophie. In the meantime, her great aunt sent a furious combination of thrusts Pietre’s way.

  “You just wanted to destroy Palisor and then Wicked,” Sophie said. “You just wanted what you always wanted. Power.”

  “Not for power,” Pietre insisted, locking swords with Aunt Sophie so that she could not strike him. “For us! How could I become the man you wanted me to be without Palisor? How could I be anything other than a monster? How could I be the real me?”

  “I found out who the real Pietre was years ago,”

  Sophie said. “It was never about us, Pietre. Just you.

  Always just you. You kil ed Pete, you kil ed my niece and her husband, but not before you had turned them.

  You turned George, kept Wicked in terror of you. You did that, Pietre. Just you. You’l never be the man I want.”

  She shoved Pietre back then, aiming a thrust at his heart, but Pietre spun aside, dropping his sword as he trapped Aunt Sophie’s sword arm and grabbed her hair, wrenching her neck tight. Briony, engaged as she was trying to fight off the surrounding vampires, couldn’t do anything but watch as Pietre pul ed Aunt Sophie’s neck taut, his mouth heading for it.

  It touched her neck in a delicate kiss.

  “I have done some real y bad things, Sophie,”

  Pietre said, “but what I have done, I have done as a vampire. Because I was a vampire. The darkness was too much for me. Yet here… here I can be more. I need the light of Palisor, the peace. That’s why I wanted to get here so badly. I would do anything for it.”

  “You think that a trip to Palisor is enough?” Aunt Sophie demanded, shoving Pietre back.

  Pietre nodded. “I have heard that vampires here lose their need for blood. With that comes control.”

  “You mean you stil haven’t figured out how to control your bloodlust after al these years?” That voice came from the door, traveling to where Briony stood, Kevin beside her, fighting back the vampires as best she could. It was the one voice she hadn’t thought to hear in this place. Not in a mil ion years. But there he was. Fal on.

  Even Kevin looked happy to see him there, while Aunt Sophie actual y smiled. It seemed that Briony’s great aunt had taken a liking to the young vampire, though Briony found herself hoping that it wasn’t the same kind of liking that she had apparently taken to Vigor. Then Briony saw the look in Fal on’s eyes and reprimanded herself for that hint of jealousy.

  Love for her shone in Fal on’s eyes, clear even over the rest of the battle. Though there didn’t actual y seem to be much of a battle left. Few vampires remained now.

  Fal on nearly flew over to Briony in his haste to get to her, to hold her in his arms. Briony could hardly wait either. But a strong figure moved between them, blocking the potential reunion. Briony looked up and saw King Waltham, her father, standing with sword in hand.

  “You’re not going anywhere near my daughter, vampire.”

  “Father,” Briony hadn’t cal ed him that before, and the word made King Waltham look around. “It’s al right.”

  Fal on nodded. “I’m from Wicked, sir, and I love Briony. I mean her no harm. I came looking for her.

  She and I are together.”

  King Waltham looked skeptical y from Briony to Fal on and back again. “Together?”

  “Romantical y, Father.”

  A booming laugh sounded around them then, while the sound of sarcastic applause cut through it, coming from above the three of them. Briony looked up, just in time for Marcus to flip down from the ceiling, landing before them, a sword in each hand.

  “A hugtandalf and a vampire in love with one another? That’s one of the most ludicrous things I have ever heard. You might as wel have the wolf fal ing in love with the sheep.”

  Briony slipped around King Waltham, putting a hand on Fal on’s shoulder. “Whether you believe it or not, our kind can live with and love your kind, Marcus.”

  The leader of Palisor’s vampires laughed again. “That probably explains why the ones from your world are so weak. I thought it was just their age, but this foolishness is like a disease. Stil , at least they are plentiful enough. Al the ones you have kil ed here, and I can simply acquire more for when I want to wreak havoc in this world and in yours.”

  King Waltham stepped forward, pushing Briony back and raising his sword. “You wil not have the chance, vampire.”

  “Oh, I think I wil .” Marcus raised his own blade, and they clashed.

  Even in those first seconds, Briony saw what a great swordsman her father must have been in his youth. As good as Vigor, if not better. King Waltham moved with the uncanny grace of the Hugtandalfer folk, and the sword seemed like a simple extension of his arm. He made movements so smal that they hardly made sense to Briony, but she got the impression that each one was a tiny adjustment designed to gain some advantage over his foe.