“Let’s roll!” Cam shouted, cutting him off.
I frowned at Liam’s words. We’d been through this. I didn’t care about his past, but he kept bringing it up.
Leaning forward, I pressed my lips to his. “I don’t care about your past, okay? Whatever it is, I don’t care.”
I thought my words would have cheered him up, but when I pulled back, they seemed to have only made him more upset. But I couldn’t worry about it now because everyone was pushing past us and walking to their cars. It was time to end this. Get the final crystals and live in Faerie together.
Slipping his hand into mine, I headed for the blue door and Mara’s home.
“Are you crazy?” Mara shrieked when she saw the army of Halflings at her door behind me.
She pulled me inside so we could talk privately. “I cleared it with the Elders,” I said before she could shout more. “Mara, shit’s gotten real now. We need an army to match the one the Winter King has, and Liam is the only one with trained men.”
She fanned herself, seemingly to keep from fainting. “They will put you in cuffs.”
I shook my head. “Indra doesn’t scare me anymore.”
I wanted so badly to tell her of my mother’s journal and all I’d learned, but now wasn’t the time. She looked past me at the waiting men, then sighed. “Well, all right. I guess it’s time to end this war. Let’s bring the rest of the crystals home.”
Reaching out, I gave her a tight hug—and then, on a whim, I decided to just give her the journal. “Read this when I’m gone. I’ve dog-eared the page.”
It would be better that way. I wouldn’t need to explain it, and she could see for herself what my mother had never told her for fear of putting her life in danger.
When her eyes landed on the journal, tears welled up in them. “Where did you…”
I shook my head. “There’s no time. Let’s talk later.”
She wiped her eyes quickly and tucked the journal into her belt. “All right. Let them in.”
One by one, the boys stepped into Mara’s house, looking around anxiously, then at Mara and her golden cuffs.
“They won’t be able to fit in the office,” she said, “so I’ll move the whole house.”
I frowned. “Isn’t that what you do every time?”
She looked confused. “No.”
I would never understand the way this thing worked—I was just grateful it did.
A thought struck me. “Hang on. If the Idaho door is burned down, and the Spokane door is in a public dressing room…”
Mara nodded. “We’ll have to use the dressing room. You and Elle can go through and distract the woman.”
Oh, sure, distract the poor girl while dozens of grown men crawled out of one room! But it was that or drive eight hours. By then, our enemies could have moved or added more men to their security. We needed to do this now.
Mara looked at the men. “Hold on to something sturdy. The ride may be bumpy.”
Five minutes later, there was a pile of Halflings on Mara’s kitchen floor. They hadn’t known what to expect and hadn’t taken her warning seriously. They groaned and grimaced as they rolled off each other.
Kira simply watched everything with wide, terrified eyes. Our poor healer was going into shock.
“What the hell was that?” one of the men asked.
I looked at Liam. He nodded and said, “I’ll explain. You get the shop girl distracted.”
Elle slipped in beside me. “What’s the plan?”
I drummed my fingernails on the leg of my jeans. I hated to do this, but knocking the clerk out would probably be easier and leave less of a mental impact than seeing sixty-something dudes walk out of a portal. But if the store was full of people, then we would need something even bigger.
“I’ll knock her out, and you get anyone in the store out.”
Elle nodded.
Walking to Mara’s back door, I slowly creaked it open.
Fuck.
It was a weekend, and the store was full of people…and there wasn’t one girl at the counter, but two.
“New plan,” I said. “We go back to Seattle and drive here.”
She rolled her eyes. “Screw that. I got this.”
With that, she burst from the dressing room, screaming bloody murder. “There’s a bomb!”
Everyone froze and looked at her.
Oh, my gods. I facepalmed.
“There’s a bomb with a clock countdown thingy!” she cried. “Get out!”
Clock countdown thingy? I should never have let her watch Die Hard on repeat.
I burst from the room, taking her lead. “It’s going to blow!”
Everyone started to run in panic. The two girls at the counter were the first ones to bolt for the door, and everyone else took after them. It was a stampede in which clothes flew everywhere and people trampled their way to the exit, but we got everyone outside.
Elle and I burst from the shop behind them to find everyone staring at us. “Further back!” I shouted. “To the side alley!”
The terrified customers followed our lead. I wasn’t so sure this was a better idea, but it was too late to go back.
Peering over my shoulder, I saw Liam and the boys slip out the shop door one by one. They cut left, away from the store and deeper into the outdoor mall.
Suddenly, a phone was being thrust in my face. One of the shop girls had apparently called 911. “Tell her what the bomb looked like!”
Elle looked at me with wide eyes, and I laughed nervously. “Um…April Fools!”
Then I took off running, hoping Elle was pounding the pavement right behind me.
“Bitches!” I heard a shop girl scream.
Elle snickered beside me as we ran to catch up with the boys. “It’s not April.”
I shot her a side glance. “I panicked! Who the hell screamed bomb, anyway? There were a dozen plan Bs, and you went with bomb!”
She just shrugged. “I panicked, too.”
By the time we got to the alleyway where Liam
