"I don't bluff if I can help it. I'm not too good at it."

"So you really could die. Your godmother is right, you know. You are mad as a hatter. Nutty as a fruitcake."

"Crazy like a fox," I said. "All right. Bob, wake up." I shook the skull, and its empty eye sockets kindled with orange-red lights, somehow too far back inside them.

"Harry?" Bob said, surprised. "You're alive."

"For a while," I said. I explained to him how we'd gotten me away from my godmother.

"Wow," Bob said. "You're dying. What a great plan."

I grimaced. "The hospital should be able to take care of it."

"Sure, sure. In some places, the survival rate is as high as fifty percent, in the case of amantin poisoning."

"I took extract of milk thistle," I said, a little defensive.

Bob coughed, delicately. "I hope you got the dosage right, or it could do more harm than good. Now, if you'd come to me about this to begin with—"

"Harry," Michael said, sharply. "Look."

I turned to look at my godmother, who had ridden a little way off and sat still upon her dark steed. She raised in her hand something dark and gleaming, maybe a knife. She waved it to the four corners, north, west, south, east. She said something in a twisting, slippery tongue, and the trees began to moan as the wind rose, washing through them. Power washed out from the sidhe sorceress, from the dark knife in her hand, and raised the hairs on my arms, the nape of my neck.

"Wizard!" she called to me. "You have made bargain with me tonight. I will not seek you. But you have made no such bargain with others." She threw back her head in a long, loud cry, somehow terrifying and beautiful at once. It echoed over the rolling land, and then was answered. More sounds came drifting back, high-pitched howls, whistling shrieks, and deep, throaty coughing roars.

"Many there are who owe me," Lea sneered. "I will not be cheated of you. You have had the potion. You would not have placed your life in such jeopardy without a cure to hand. I will raise no hand against you—but they will bring you to me. One way or another, Harry Dresden, you will be mine this night."

The wind continued to rise, and overhead sudden clouds began to blot out the stars. The howls and calls came closer, carried on the rising wind.

"Shit," I said. "Bob, we have to get out of here. Now."

"It's still a pretty good walk to the spot you showed me on the map," Bob said. "A mile, maybe two, in subjective terms."

"Two miles," Michael noted, clinically. "I can't run that far. Not with my ribs like they are."

"And I can't carry you," Thomas said. "I'm amazing and studly, but I have limits. Let's go, Harry. It's just me and you."

My mind raced, and I struggled to put together a plan. Michael couldn't keep up. He had managed the sprint before, but his face looked a little greyish, now, and he carried himself stiffly, as though in pain. I trusted Michael. I trusted him at my side, and at my back. I trusted him to be able to take care of himself.

But alone, against a wrathful faerie posse, how would he do? I couldn't be sure—even with the sword, he was still a man. He could still lose his life. And I didn't want another life on my conscience.

I glanced over at Thomas. The handsome vampire managed to wear my castoff clothes and make them look like some kind of fashion statement. Slouch nouveau. He returned my glance with a perfect, shining smile, and I thought about what he had said, about what a good liar he was. Thomas had sided with me. Mostly. He'd been friendly enough. He even, apparently, had every reason to want to help me and work with me to get Justine back.

Unless he was lying to me. Unless she hadn't been taken at all.

I couldn't trust him.

"The two of you are staying here," I said. "Hold the bridge. You won't have to do it for long. Just slow them down. Make them go around."

"Oooo," Bob said. "Good plan. That should make it a real pain for them, Harry. I mean, until they kill Michael and Thomas and come after you. But that could take minutes! Hours, even!"

I glanced at the skull, and then at Michael. He shot Thomas a look, and then nodded to me.

"If there's trouble, you'll need me to protect you," Thomas objected.

"I can watch out for myself," I told him. "Look, this whole plan is based on surprise and speed and quiet. I can be quiet better alone. If it turns out that fighting has to be done, one or two people wouldn't make a difference. If we have to fight, this whole thing is over."

Thomas grimaced. "So you want us to stay here and die for you, is that it?"

I glared. "Hold the bridge until I can make it out of the Nevernever. After that, they shouldn't have any reason to come after you."

The wind rose to a howl, and shapes began to crest the top of the hill with the dolmens, dark things, moving swift and close to the ground.

"Harry, go," Michael said. He took Amoracchius into his hands. "Don't worry. We'll keep them off of your back."

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather I come with you?" Thomas asked, and took a step toward me. The shining steel of Michael's sword abruptly dropped in front of Thomas, the sharp edge of it pressing against his belly.

"I'm sure I'd rather not leave him alone with you, vampire," Michael said, his tone polite. "Do I make myself clear?"

"As water," Thomas said, sourly. He glanced at me and said, "You'd better not leave her there, Dresden. Or get killed."

"I won't," I said. "Especially that second part."

And then the first monstrous thing, like a mountain lion made all of shadows, bounded past Lea, and a set of dark talons flashed toward me. Thomas shoved me out of the way of the strike, crying out as the thing tore into his arm. Michael shouted in Latin, and his sword flared into argent light, cutting the vaguely cat-like beast and dropping it into two squirming, struggling halves to the floor of the bridge.

"Go!" Michael roared. "God go with you!"

I ran.

The sounds of fighting died behind me, until I could only hear my own laboring breaths. The Nevernever changed, from sculpted, faerie-tale wilderness to dark, close forest, with cobwebs hanging down across a narrow trail through glowering trees. Eyes flashed in the shadows, things that never quite could be clearly seen, and I stumbled on.

"There!" Bob called. His orange eyelights swung to shine upon the split trunk of a dead, hollow tree. "Open a way there, and it will take us through!"

I grunted, and came to a halt, gasping. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, yes!" Bob said. "Hurry! Some of the awnsidhe will be here at any moment!"

I cast a fearful glance behind me, and then started gathering in my will. It hurt to do. I felt so weak. The poison in my belly hadn't started tearing my body apart yet, but I almost thought that I could feel it stirring, moving, licking its chops and eyeing my organs with malevolent glee. I shoved all of that out of my thoughts, and forced myself to breathe steadily, to gather in my strength and reach out to part the curtain between worlds.

"Uh, Harry," Bob said suddenly. "Wait a minute."

Behind me, something broke a branch. There was a swift, rushing sound, of something moving toward me. I ignored it and reached out a hand, sinking my fingers into the friable border substance of the Nevernever.

"Harry!" Bob said. "I really think you should hear this!"

"Not now," I muttered.

The rushing noise grew closer, the rattle of undergrowth shunted aside by something large. Behind me, a warbling bellow shook the ground. Holy brillig and slithy toves, Batman.

"Aparturum!" I shouted, thrusting out with my will and opening a way. The rent in reality shone with dim light.

I threw myself forward into it, willing the way closed behind me. Something snagged at one corner of my leather duster, but with a jerk I was free of it and through.