Free All That Glows by Ryan Graudin Page A

carefully. Her silence is more important than her banishment. And I’ll have to take care of the humans’ memories as well.
    “You’ll leave this pub,” I hiss. “You will speak of this to no one.”
    Her eyes become little more than black lines. My fingers tighten.
    “Cyspe.” The binding spell twists out of me, sliding through her tightly shut lips and dissolving on her tongue. She won’t breathe a word of what she’s seen here. She can’t.
    Before I can let go of her throat, the Banshee shrinks into a taut furry thing that slips and slides through my fingers. I crouch, my hands still curled as I watch the weasel slink in and out of the grove of feet. In a flash, she’s gone.
    Richard and his friends are recovering, along with the rest of the pub’s stunned patrons. Groans and curses rise behind me like a tidal wave, swelling and growing into full-blown panic. I have to take care of it fast.
    “Forgietath.” My magic mists over the pub like rain, snatching memories of the last few minutes into irretrievable nothingness. Only Richard’s head is immune. He needs to remember this, to know the danger he’s in every time he hits the pubs.
    I have no more fight left in me. Not with the sickness battering my gut. At least I don’t have to worry about Green Women. They give the Banshees a wide berth, out of mutual dislike. It’s the other Banshees and the Black Dogs I have to worry about. Their voices can reach so many dark places in the night.
    I return to the table slowly, trying to reconcile the reeling in my head, my stomach. It wasn’t this bad last time, at the Darkroom. I thought Breena said it would get better. . . . This—the lightning lancing through my gut, tearing blades through my veins—this is agony.
    I have to get out of here.
    It’s as if Richard already knows. He’s out of his chair, waiting for me. The tabletop is all chaos in front of him, dripping alcohol and broken glass. His friends are taking it in—this loose end I don’t have the energy to fix.
    “What the bloody hell happened?” Corkscrew Curls is the first to recover. His hands shake as he reaches out to pick up the largest piece of glass. It’s no bigger than his thumbnail.
    The prince looks at his friends, their explicit surprise. The rest of the pub dances on to the same song that was rattling the speakers before the Banshee arrived.
    “They don’t know?” he asks as soon as I get close to him.
    I shake my head and almost fall into the chair.
    Richard reaches out, bracing my shoulders with his hands. The touch steadies me, keeps my head from swirling like a leaf caught in crosswinds. “Are you . . . are you okay?”
    I shake my head again. “Too much,” I manage, before the threat of vomiting forces me to close my lips.
    He understands. The pub, the drinks, the mortals and their machines. All pressing down on me, threatening to crush.
    “Let’s get out of here,” he says.
    The tree is the first thing I see when I lurch out of the pub. It sits on the other side of the street, past a barricade of beetle-black cabs and Mini Coopers. From the gnarled lengths of its branches and the way it sits alone, I see it’s quite old. The city has grown around it, the sidewalk and curb parting to give it a rare patch of earth to feed from.
    I only get halfway across the road before the sickness gets the better of me. Sparkling water and bile coat the asphalt under my feet. There’s the squeal of brakes and headlamps bright in my face. Someone yells, their anger punctuated by a car horn.
    “Lay off it!” I hear the prince yelling, somewhere above me.
    An arm loops around my shoulders, lifting and guiding me out of the vehicle’s path. We’re on the sidewalk again, only this time there’s something for me to cling to. The tree’s bark is rugged and rust red: relief under my fingers. I lean into it.
    The change is instant. Energy, slow and hearty, pumps into my body. I no longer feel drained, beyond helpless, but I’m