Free All That Glows by Ryan Graudin

under no obligation there.”
    “Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no.” Fear becomes everything on Richard’s face as he realizes exactly what’s unfolding in front of him. “Ed, you really don’t want to get involved with that . . .”
    “Too proud to share, Your Majesty?” Edmund is all sneer in the pub’s dim lights. He takes ahold of the Banshee’s hand and pulls her down to him. “Take a seat, doll.”
    I keep my attention focused entirely on the Banshee. She’s hungry but not starving: average strength. As long as it’s just her, I think I can manage. “Back off, Bean-shìdh.”
    The soul feeder assesses me as well, picking apart my strengths and weaknesses as I sit in the chair, gripping the arm of a tipsy monarch. His muscles are all hardness under my fingers, sculpted by adrenaline and fear.
    The Banshee is right. I don’t have a responsibility to protect Edmund. The oath I swore under Queen Mab on the day of the treaty was to guard those with royal blood. I can leave now with Richard and pretend this never happened. The Banshee will slip away with Edmund into some dark corner, take him by the collar, pull him down, get her lips to his ear. Then she’ll scream. Tomorrow Edmund Williams the fifth will be just another listing in the obituaries. Death by alcohol poisoning, his soul mortared and pestled to sate the Banshee’s hunger.
    But, no matter how slimy and base he might be, Edmund is still a friend of Richard’s. His life has value. I should try my hardest to save it.
    The soul feeder smiles at me, stepping back behind Edmund. Her hand is on his other shoulder now, prepared to fling him forward in case I aim any harmful spell her way.
    “I’m serious, Ed,” the prince finds his voice again. “She’s a soul eater. . . . I mean, feeder. Thing!”
    The Banshee’s blackened eyes spark with understanding. “He knows? You broke the Frithemaeg taboo?”
    Now there’s no question. I have to take care of her.
    Edmund is squirming out of her grasp, trying to get a closer look at the creature behind him. It’s in this moment, when she’s busy tightening her fingers into the socialite’s shoulders, that I strike.
    Since she’s placed Edmund in front of her as a shield, I have to go up. I lunge to the top of the table in a single movement, ignoring the stress on my humanoid muscles and how much I want to vomit. My mind is bent on magic—only dimly aware of the scattering remains of beer glasses and sloshed whiskey.
    My first spell misses, grazing only centimeters above Edmund’s hairline and ending in an explosion of light on the wood paneling behind him. Seeing that her human shield has no effect, the Banshee lets out a long, heart-crushing wail. It’s not a death scream . . . that fatal blow she administers to each of her victims. The empty pints at my feet shatter with the sound, carpeting the table in glass. The magic in her scream fills my eyes with sparks. My ears feel like they’ve been stuffed full of cotton, heavy and useless.
    But that doesn’t mean I can’t speak. I braid the spell together with my tongue, sending it out into the bright, speckled dark of my vision. “Átemian!”
    The wailing stops and my senses resurrect to their old, keen selves. The mortals are hunched over at my feet, their hands crumpled over their ears in agonized angles. Only Edmund and Richard are looking up, taking in the events with dazed eyes.
    The Banshee clutches her throat, trying to coax back the voice I stole.
    I leap again, over Edmund’s head and onto my opponent. We fall to the floor; a tangle of turquoise, red, and black. Up this close, her face looks like death—so white and chilled, like a body tucked away in a crypt. I see the knowledge playing out in her eyes. The realization that I’m stronger. That she’s lost.
    My hands envelope hers, crush over her larynx. My energies are fading fast, sapped between the tangled electronics of the pub and our fight. I have to choose my next few spells