The cab pulled into the parking lot of the Charlestown Navy Yard. I gave the driver a tip so big, I left him staring at his palm.

The Navy Yard no longer retained its original function. Shipbuilding had left Boston long ago. The old buildings had gone derelict until someone had the idea of making them residences. Everyone thought the people who moved in were crazy to pay exorbitant prices to live in the middle of a crime-ridden neighborhood. They got the last laugh though. More development had spread around them, and the condos were worth ten times what the original owners had paid for them.

Keeva was nowhere in sight. No one was in the area at all. Across the way, a few cars sat near the edge of the pier. Beyond them, boats of all sizes dotted the harbor. Their slack sails waited in the humidity for a breeze. I moved down the sidewalk to macDuin's unit. The door stood ajar. I didn't need instinct to call up my body shields. The familiar tingle spread over my head and chest. Comforting, but useless. I was tired and had little energy to do them much good.

I slid along the inner wall of the entryway and tilted my head to listen inside. I could see part of the foyer where an area rug lay askew. Without taking my eyes away, I reached down and slipped the dagger from my boot. An open, unattended door is never a good sign.

I tapped the door with my toe, and it fell back against the inside wall. A faint current of air-conditioning radiated against my face. I could see the entire entryway, a mail table with fresh-cut flowers, small oil originals above it, anatne archway to the living room beyond. To the left, stairs led to the second floor. I could hear no signs of movement.

I eased into the entryway. Something glistened on the third step. I didn't need to be a hematologist to recognize fairy blood. As I moved closer, I could see another spot on the railing near the top. I leaned forward and closed the front door. Without knowing who had left the trail of blood, I didn't want any surprises coming in behind me.

I darted a look into the stairwell. The landing was empty. Testing each step for noise, I made my way to the second floor. More bloodstains showed on the walls and floor. In a technical sense, I was contaminating a possible crime scene, so I did my best not to disturb anything. The bedrooms on the second floor were empty. The blood trail continued up.

As I crept up the last flight, the top floor came into view. The stairs led to a room that stretched from the front of the building to the back. Great beams crisscrossed the ceiling. As my eyes came level with the floor, I looked under a couch that had been positioned against the railing. Someone lay on the floor, a man by the look of the bare feet facing me. I could see no one else in the room. Unless someone was lying on the couch, the townhouse was empty except for me and the prone figure.

I walked up the last few steps and almost slipped on a broken ward stone on the floor. I picked up a large chunk of it and recognized it as the same material as the wards from the other murders. Whatever purpose it had served had been destroyed with the stone. Coming around the couch, I stopped in surprise.

MacDuin lay on the floor. He had been stripped naked and pinned to the floor like a butterfly. Ward stones held his wings flat, just like the other victims. His chest had been split from collarbone to abdomen and wrenched open. It had been done with such force that his lungs were splayed to the sides, and the heart appeared to have been torn out instead of cut.

I edged around the body to get a closer look. Too late, I felt a tingle across the nape of my neck. Even as I pulled back, the field of another ward stone grabbed me, and I froze in place. I let out an angry sigh, cursing myself for stupidity. I had taken the lack of any sensation of a ward as a sign that there were none.

The wards on the wings were too small and far away to be the culprits. The ones at the other murder scenes had been keyed to each other to hold the wings back. Even given my recent propensity for walking into traps, I didn't think it was too much to assume these stones were any different, but obviously I was wrong. I tried rolling my eyes to the extreme, but couldn't place the offending stone and only hurt my eyes.

I stared into macDuin's face. He hadn't gone easily. An open cut on his cheekbone looked like the result of a punch. It had probably thrown him into the ward field I was in now, and the rest had been by the book for the murderer.

In the dead silence, a familiar sound caught my ear. French doors at the back of the room led to the balcony. The distinctive hum of fairy wings in motion whirred from the same direction. Most fairies dampened the noise unless they didn't care if someone heard them coming. I let out a sigh of relief when Keeva fluttered into view. She brought herself down onto me balcony with long practiced ease. She reached for the door and paused when she caught sight of me. Her lips compressed into the thin line that I had learned long ago meant annoyed condescension. She opened the door.

"Well, well, well, don't we make a pretty picture?" She held her arms loosely at her sides, waiting for me to respond. XjhTcan't talk?" She paced near the door, making exaggerated thoughtful poses. "Let me see, what could have happened here? Could it be the great Connor Grey is trapped?" She gave me a sideways smirk. I tried to throw as much anger into my eyes as I could under the circumstances.

"Imagine my surprise when I find my dear, beloved boss sliced open and a former, troubled employee poised over him with a dagger. I do wish I had a camera." She stopped moving and faced me again. "You do know how much macDuin would have loved this moment." She leaned forward with just her upper body and peered down at the body. "He doesn't seem to be enjoying it though. Pity."

She looked at me again and shook her head. "I have to hand it to you, Connor. You do know how to be in the right place at the wrong time. MacDuin said you would spoil everything. He wanted to frame you for the other murders, you know. And now here you are, conveniently located next to another body. Maybe I'll pick up on that little aspect of his plan."

She slipped a knife from her belt and hefted it in her hand. Glancing at me once, she paced again without speaking. A bead of sweat slipped down my spine. I watched her move back and forth. She looked down at her knife again. She knew. She knew about Corcan. But macDuin was dead. Someone else had to be controlling Corcan. A new dread gripped me, and I pressed as hard as I could against the ward-spell.

"No," I said. It came out strangled and the spell bore down around me again.

Keeva smiled broadly. "Very impressive. I think it's time to put you out of your misery, don't you?"

She direw the knife. My heart hammered in my chest as I watched the hilt leave her hand. The knife flew at me with nauseating slowness, light catching the blade as it soared across the room. It's been said that me doom of the world can rest on the edge of a knife. For once, I believed it. The knife whistled past my ear and stuck into a beam somewhere above me. A loud report rang out as something fell. I stumbled free and almost landed on macDuin.

I turned in confusion. Another ward lay broken on the floor. I spun back to Keeva. She just stood there with her arms crossed and a smile playing on her lips.

"That… wasn't.. funny!"

She shrugged. "Sorry. I couldn't help myself."

I put my dagger back in its sheath and slipped it into my boot. Given my condition, it wouldn't be much help against Keeva anyway. "What the hell happened here?"

She walked over to macDuin and squatted by his side. "He was like this when I got here. Heart's gone." She stood, wiping her hands on her thighs.

"Why did you let me walk into a trap?"