Wolf, my spirit guardian, appeared beside me, her dark hackles raised but otherwise calm as she stared at the woman. I let the moment stretch out and then sighed as Wolf looked toward me and cocked her head in a silent question.

I let the woman into my apartment. It was late, cold, and I was tired. I wanted to be inside my wards, on familiar ground where at least I wouldn't have to worry about a sniper or some bullshit like that. Wouldn't be the first time Samir had done something underhanded like that.

I pointed at a kitchen chair and said "Sit."

She sat, her arms wrapping around her body as though inside were colder than out. Looking at her terrified, unhappy face, I almost felt pity for her, but I shoved it aside.

"Why are you still wearing his necklace if you want to get away from him?" I asked.

"I don't know how to take it off," she said, fingering the charm with a shaking hand.

Alek growled. We had taken up triangular positions, Wolf's large form to my right and Alek to my left, both where I could see them without having to take my eyes off the woman.

"That's strike one," I said. "Lie to me again and I'll let him serve me your heart for dinner."

"All right," she whispered. "He'll know when I take it off."

That was true. I didn't even need Alek's nod to confirm it. The charm tied her to Samir; it was a promise inside a delicate spell. He and I had worn matching ones, our love made into filigree metal and sealed with power and blood. I felt a twinge that I worried might be jealousy, and angrily shoved the feeling away.

"Where is Samir?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said.

Alek gave a slight nod. Truth.

"Does he know you are here?"

"I am sure he has guessed," she said.

"He likes to keep an eye on you."

"How?" I asked. It was something I'd been wondering for months now. He seemed to know so much about me that it made me wonder if I'd hidden as well as I'd hoped all these years, or if he'd been busy elsewhere and decided to finally to turn his attention to me.

"I don't know that, either," she said. She glanced at Alek as he narrowed his eyes and nodded. "He doesn't like to tell me things. Knowledge is power, and he prefers all the power be his."

I took a deep breath and forced my hand to unclench from my talisman. I had a d20 imprint on my palm that faded as I stared at it. I knew what she meant all too well. Every instinct in my body was screaming at me to fry her where she stood, that this was another trick. It probably was, but I could have been looking at myself twenty-five years ago. If I had known of a former lover of his, of someone who got away, would I have gone to me for help? I thought perhaps I would have.

"Why come to me?" I asked, pacing the short distance across my kitchen. I let my fingers trail through Wolf's fur, her strength reassuring.

Tess gave me an odd look. She couldn't see the giant black wolflike creature I was petting, so my gesture must have appeared odd. Most of the time I avoid interacting with Wolf in front of people for that reason, but tonight I really didn't give a fuck.

"You got away from him," she said. "He's going to kill me, eat my heart and take my power. It's what he does."

"Yet you swore devotion to him," I said, indicating the heart-shaped lock.

"As did you, once," she said, her full lips pressing together and her chin coming up in a new show of will. In the better lighting inside my apartment, her irises appeared to have deep reddish-brown whorls in them, her eyes taking on the color of firelit brandy. She looked like a perfect damsel in distress, damp ringlets escaping her ponytail, her body not so thin that she didn't have an obviously heaving bosom to complete the picture. She could have given Queen Amidala a lesson in distressed bosom heaving.

I gathered my scattering thoughts.

"Are you here to kill me?" I asked.

"I want free of Samir," she said without hesitation. "I think you have the best chance of anyone of protecting me and killing him."

Alek pressed his lips together and nodded with a grimace. I didn't need him to tell me she spoke the truth, though the confirmation was nice. I could hear her desire in her voice, read it on her terrified but determined face.

I sank my fingers back into Wolf's fur and closed my eyes. I was so damned tired of everything. The wild joy the unicorn's magic had spawned inside me had shined a light into my exhausted heart. I didn't want to run anymore, but the waiting was killing me, bit by bit.

Waiting for Samir to make a move. Waiting for someone else to try to hurt me or the people I loved. Waiting for the right moment, for some day in whatever future I had where I'd somehow trained enough, gotten strong enough, become someone who could stand up to him and say "no more."

I felt like the characters in the second act of my favorite musical, Into the Woods . I wanted to belt out the lyrics to "No More" and crawl under the covers. There was no convenient orchestra for me here, however, and I was pretty sure my audience would ruin the drama of it. No more hiding for me. No more running. No more waiting.

Perhaps Tess was a gift, a tool placed in my hands by fate.

"Fine," I said, opening my eyes to find Tess and Alek watching me, both of their expressions grim and guarded. "You know where Samir lives? Let's go. Tomorrow, you and me. If he's not there, we'll wait for him."

"But…" She stuttered, stopped, then started again, "I don't know where he lives. I mean, I know he has a mansion in a valley, but I couldn't tell you where it is."

"Why not?" I asked. Samir and I had lived in a beautiful house in Detroit after he seduced me away from New York. He'd let me come and go as I pleased, though my freedom had been an illusion, and I hadn't wanted to leave him anyway. Not until the end.

"He always flies me there in a private plane, then a helicopter. Everything is warded and I'm always blindfolded. If I want to leave, I have to go the same way. I don't know if it is even in the States. The landscape is carefully groomed, too many differing plants for it all to be native." She spread her hands. "You hurt him, and now he doesn't trust anyone or anything."

" I hurt him ?" I choked down a bubble of irrational laughter, swallowing it like an unpleasant burp. "He nearly killed me. He…" I stopped, my eyes burning as I blinked back tears. This woman was a stranger; she didn't need to know about my losses. She was dangerous, sincere or not. Having her here was a mistake, for both of us. Especially if she couldn't help me.

"So you can't tell me where he is or where he will be?" I reiterated.

"No," she said. "Though I imagine he'll come for you eventually. He's reluctant to face you. That's why I'm here. You are the only person he seems wary of."

That was mildly comforting. Very mild. Like tepid bathwater mild.

"Take off your charm," I said, forcing away any pity I felt for her. I'd melted mine off, not knowing the trick of opening it. I was curious how she would do it, and I didn't care if Samir knew she had. Let her prove herself if she wanted my help. I wanted to feel her magic, to see it.

She lifted her hand to the necklace and her sleeve slipped back, revealing a silver charm bracelet. Only one charm dangled from it, a cross with a tiny crucified body on it. Her power, when she called it, was cool and crisp to my senses, tasting somewhat like sucking on an ice-cube. She closed her eyes and hummed a soft, clear note. The air around us grew thick and still, as though time itself hung for a moment on that note. With a quick tug, the necklace broke free, sliding through her neck as though the chain or her throat were merely illusion.

It was amazing, and terrifying. Not because she used a lot of magic, because she hadn't. I felt only the merest breath of power, barely more than I had exercised earlier that night when lighting the candles now burned to nubs on my kitchen table. It was her control, her finesse, what she managed to do with so little magic.

I knew in that moment that whoever Tess was, I would be stupid to underestimate her. And more stupid to keep her around. Either she had been sent by Samir to kill or weaken me, or he'd severely misjudged his new apprentice and lover. Maybe both.

And yet I was tempted. She seemed so afraid, so certain he would kill her. Which he would, sooner or later. It was what Samir did, after all. She had knowledge of magic—I felt it, saw it in her economy.

"How old are you?" I asked, unable to keep the awe out of my voice completely.

She looked up at me, surprise flickering in her brandy-colored eyes. She started to turn her head slightly and look at Alek, but seemed to think better of it. "Older than you," she said. "I was born a decade or so before the American Civil War."

"You avoided Samir for more than a century, no?" Alek asked her.

"Yes, but I could not do so forever. He has eyes and ears everywhere. The moment anyone gains enough power to be noticed, to be identified as a sorcerer, he pounces. The pretty ones, the young ones, he keeps as lovers, until he grows bored. And it seems he grows bored more quickly with each passing decade." Her body was tensed, poised for flight.

I got the feeling she hadn't planned on telling me these things, had hoped I would take her at face value. I hadn't been around a hundred and fifty years, but I wasn't exactly born yesterday, either. She was good at deception, and I wondered what I would have done if I hadn't had Alek here to keep her on the truthful path.

"Look," I said. "I can't trust you. You fear me, too. This is a disaster in the making and we both need to just admit it. I believe that you are genuine in your fear of Samir. You don't strike me as a stupid woman and I'm guessing you figured you could pretend you were a naïve young thing for a while until you found a way to bring him down or get away. How am I doing?"

"Better than I expected," she said, the ghost of a smile touching her ruby-red lips.

"I can't help you. I am not sure I would if I could, honestly. I mean, I'll do my damndest to bring down that bastard if he ever deigns to show himself, but having you here is just one more fucking worry I don't need on my plate." I paused as I realized her showing up here and the unicorn getting mauled were probably related. Coincidences? Don't exist on my planet.

"You can help—" she started to say.

I cut her off with a raised hand. "You know anything about evil creatures in the woods killing unicorns?"

"What? Unicorns?" Her confusion seemed genuine and Alek raised an eyebrow at me. "Unicorns aren't real."

"I just patched one up tonight," I said. I still didn't believe in coincidences, but it was clear if the unicorn murders were related to Tess, it wasn't in a way she was actively in on.

"Unicorns are real?" she said.

"Yep," I said. I took a deep breath, marshalling my thoughts. She couldn't tell me where Samir was. She was dangerous in many ways, most of which I probably hadn't even thought through yet, because damnit, I was tired as hell and hadn't had time.

"You can't stay, Tess," I said, trying to be kind. "You need to destroy that charm and then run, far and fast. Don't use your magic. Hopefully Samir will think you came to me and that I'm hiding you. His attention at the least will be divided, right? So you've got a chance. Take it. You need money?" I doubted from her designer clothes that she did, but who knew how controlling Samir had gotten.

"No," she said. "I have money. But I have nowhere to go."

"Neither did I, twenty-five years ago," I said. "I made do. You're a survivor, I bet. You'll be fine. Run, and don't look back."

"I can help you," she said. "You are powerful, right? But I know magic. I've been using it a long time. We can be stronger together than apart. Two against one. Don't send me away, Jade Crow. Please."

I think she would have sunk to her knees if she'd thought it would help, but instead she rose, staring me down eye to eye. She was white, her skin milky pale, and her hair was a deep reddish-brown with a gentle curl to it, but in other ways she and I were mirrors of each other. Nearly the same height, though her heels were giving that illusion, same thin body type. I lacked her generous chest, but we shared high cheekbones, dark eyes, long hair.

I wondered if her desperation and terror had ever been reflected in my eyes. I guessed it probably had, the day I'd shown back up on my adopted family's doorstep. The first time I ran from Samir.

It broke my heart a little to turn and walk away. I opened the kitchen door, letting the cold October night sweep inside.

"I can't help you," I said. "You are a risk I can't afford. Go. Run."

She left without a word, leaving behind a silent room and the faint scent of blackberries.

I closed the door and leaned into it, listening to her footsteps retreat down the stairs. Only after I heard a car engine start and the crunch of tires on gravel did I turn and look at Alek.

"Did I just make a horrible mistake?" I asked.

"Perhaps," he said. "That was cruel."

"Geez, tell me how you really feel and totally don't hold back."

I unzipped my hoodie and hung it beside the door, then walked past Alek and into the bedroom. My limbs and heart felt like lead and I debated crashing without bothering with clothing or shoe removal. Alek had been sleeping over most nights, so we'd made a nest of quilts on the floor. It looked safe and inviting, if empty without a twelve-foot white tiger keeping watch over me.

Said tiger in human form came up behind me and pulled me into his arms. He tucked my head beneath his chin.

"It was cruel," he repeated. "But I understand. She is a dangerous unknown. There is too much at stake here, and we cannot trust her."

"The good of the many over the good of the one," I muttered. I felt shitty anyway. I had told her she was alone, on her own. She wasn't one of us, part of me and mine.

The safe decision, perhaps even the smart one. Definitely not the kind one. It was not what Sophie or Todd or Ji-hoon or Kayla would have done.

And look where it got them, the cold part of my heart whispered. They are dead.

I turned my face into Alek's chest and let my tears soak unnoticed into his shirt.