“Cleo!” Val protested.

The Sphynx dropped through the table like the wood had turned to water. Val dove to look under it, but there was no sign of her. As usual, Cleo was gone.

Silence reigned in Genevieve, as thick and choking as poison fog. Val gritted her teeth against it as she turned the Mustang into the garage.

When the wheels stopped, Tetra kicked the passenger door open. Genevieve slammed it shut again, knocking the faerie’s head on the window, and Tetra bellowed in anger.

“Don’t kick my car,” Val barked.

“Oh, so you can talk.” Tetra shoved the door open. “That’s a surprise. Not so surprising for you to dish out orders.”

Val wanted to yell at her to shut up. She barely succeeded in biting back the words.

“Have you decided my fate yet?” Tetra sniped.

Val glared at her. “No.”

“Great. For all I know, I’ll be in the prison realm by Tuesday,” the faerie growled.

Val rolled her eyes. “You’re being dramatic.”

“I’m being dramatic?” Tetra yelled. “I’m not the one who’s acting like a pouty kid!”

Val sprang out of Genevieve and slammed the door. The Mustang honked reproachfully.

“Sorry, Gennie.” Val inhaled, filling her lungs for a good yell. “Tetra, you’re the one who screwed up your chance at freedom!”

“That was my chance?” Tetra bared her teeth in rage, but her eyes glittered with tears. “I only get one, huh?”

“Don’t start that bullshit. You’re already on your second chance, and you know it,” Val barked.

“You’re not sure I deserve a third.” Tetra blinked rapidly. “Is that it?”

“I’m not sure if anyone else will survive a third!” Val thundered.

The tears spilled over. Tetra stormed up the stairs.

“I’m not done!” Val roared.

Tetra flipped both middle fingers at her liege as she ran upstairs. “Screw you!”

The slamming door reverberated through the garage. Val whirled and punched the wall, instantly regretting it when her fist made a six-inch crater in the solid stone.

“Merlin’s root canal!” she bellowed as the house shuddered.

Genevieve honked.

“Sorry, Gennie.” Val exhaled slowly. “This sucks.”

She patted Genevieve’s roof and stomped into the house. The dog bounded up to her, barking merrily, and danced around her in a circle.

“Nice that someone is glad to see me,” she muttered.

She let him out to pee and dug around the fridge for leftovers, but for the first time in living memory, Val wasn’t hungry. The long day of guarding Blair and Yuka at the brewery had left her joints aching, yet she was too keyed up to sleep.

Val texted the security company guarding the brewery—all was well—and stood in the kitchen glaring at a bowl of leftover pasta.

“Screw this,” she announced. She tossed the pasta into the dog’s empty bowl and stormed into her smithy. There, she could lose herself in the glow of metal and the song of her ringing hammer.

Paws clattered on the stairs. Val looked up from her workbench as the dog half-trotted, half-fell down the steps, his broken leg sticking out in its thick cast.

“Dude!” she protested. “What are you doing?”

The dog untangled himself from a messy heap on the floor and barked cheerfully. He scampered to her and laid his head in her lap.

“Idiot.” Val rubbed his ears. “You could’ve hurt yourself.”

The dog sniffed her amulet, which pulsed on her chest with rising heat.

“Yeah, it does that when I’m working, but the magical parts are almost over. I’m nearly done.” Val picked up her phone. “What time is it?”

It was after midnight. No wonder the dog had come to find her.

“I’ll feed you in a minute,” Val promised. “Almost done.”

The dog flopped into his bed under the workbench with a happy sigh, and Val wondered if he’d eaten the pasta. It probably wouldn’t kill him.

She returned her attention to the metal on the table. The fine sheets she’d beaten into a set of interlocking fins looked like copper on the outside, but they crackled with magic each time she touched them.

“The copper’s just a protective layer to keep the faerie dust from decomposing in the air,” Val explained to the dog. “The real magic is inside.”

She’d invented the blend of iron and faerie dust after fighting alongside Sinatria.

“It needs a cool name, don’t you think?” Val fitted the metal sheets together one by one, using pins, her hammer, and magic. “Faerie dust and iron. Iron dust? Faerie iron? No, not right.”

She hammered the last plate into place and held up the half-finished shield. Its lack of weight was incredible, considering its size. The round shield covered most of her torso.

“Iron’s chemical symbol is Fe,” she murmured. “There’s got to be a play on words in there.”

She closed her eyes, reaching for her magic power, and the amulet hummed against her skin. Its warmth spread into her blood like gasoline catching fire. Val couldn’t tell if it was the amulet or her heart beating so quickly, but she leaned into the rapid pulses.

Bigger on the inside. It was a simple, commonplace charm, but Val had never seen it used this way.

She wrapped her hands around the boss at the shield’s center that contained the central pivot to which she’d attached all the plates and concentrated. Both the iron and the faerie dust reacted to her magic’s presence.