The small army of fire giants outside, I suspected. “You have more honor than this. Why so desperate?”

“You will find out. Now, come.” He extended his hand to me.

I couldn’t go with him. I couldn’t not go with him. True, I wasn’t responsible for the actions of my enemies, but…

Right now would be a very good time for backup to show up. I didn’t care what kind of backup.

But if I went with him…

He lifted his hand to show what was happening outside. That they’d grabbed a bunch of people.

Then I realized Clara was one of them. And she was up to something. On her own, though, I doubted she could cast a spell powerful enough to do anything but get herself killed.

Then she flickered. Well, at least she could do that. It didn’t matter. I’d placed an obligation on myself to protect these people.

Help, I thought, hoping it was loud enough for somebody to hear. I was dangerously close to panicking.

I could see the cops showing up. They weren’t sure what was going on. They were more people to get killed.

“I’m not going to give you much longer.”

“If I go with you, then the war will start and all of these people are dead anyway.”

Come on. Somebody had to be aware of what was going on.

“But you will…”

“No. I am not responsible for your foolish choices. A king does not start a war.”

“A king does what he has to to stay…”

“…alive?” So, he was under threat. He thought that in addition to ensuring his victory I could stabilize his position.

It was not my task to kill him. “You think I care about whether you live or die? Because I don’t.”

“And if whoever…”

“I’ll cross the bridge of your replacement being worse than this when I come to it.” Maybe he would back down.

In truth, I knew I was stalling.

One of the fire giants grabbed a girl. She screamed.

How was he…no, he was probably instructing them the same way I was calling for help, desperate.

I felt, then, the sense of raven’s wings.