Stone crunched.

“Oh, dear,” Deborah whispered.

Earth elementals move slowly. That’s what Lily had been told. And the giant one had seemed to be especially slow. Managing that much bulk wouldn’t be easy, especially if you didn’t practice having a physical form very often. But it turned out that elementals could move fast—when they really, really wanted to.

The coils wrapped around the smallest one loosened and the head—if that was a head—whipped around and around, unwrapping itself enough to lunge at the third elemental like a striking snake. Its jaws opened. And kept opening.

Yeah, that was definitely the head. Eyeless and blind, and not that much like an earthworm after all. Not when most of that head became a gaping, tooth-lined maw. Rows of teeth, like a shark’s—not huge teeth, not for the size of that mouth, but there were a lot of them. It caught the other elemental’s head in its jaws . . . and crunched.

The captive elemental shook. Its body began to crack, like rock struck by a hammer. Cracks, fissures, opened up in it—then all at once it exploded into dust, dust that hung in the air in a huge, dirty cloud.

Twenty or thirty tiny figures dressed all in brown raced out of the dusty cloud, little legs pumping. Brownies could move amazingly fast. “Lily, Lily!” yelled the one in the lead. “Rule’s hurt! Cullen’s hurt! Everyone’s in trouble! Do you have the nasty thing?”

“I—yes!” she called back. “But—”

“You have to break it!” Harry screamed. “Make it not-be! You have to do it now!”

“I can’t—it takes mage fire to—”

“No!” He was still yelling at the top of his little lungs even as he came to a stop in front of her. “Give it to it! Hurry!”

Do what?

“To the Great It!” He pointed at the enormous elemental, which seemed to be considering renewing its attack on the other one. But that one was beginning to subside. To sink back into the earth. Slowly, but it was on its way out of here.

“Are you nuts? You want me to feed an enraged giant elemental a colossal amount of death magic?”

He rolled his eyes. “Stupid! Earth doesn’t cleanse as quick as fire, but it cleanses. Hurry!”

Deborah spoke in her husky, damaged voice. “It’s too angry. I can feel how it rages . . . it will kill anything, anyone, that comes near.”

Lily had promised Rule she wouldn’t die. But if the only way to save Rule was to break a promise—

“Never mind. You’re too big and slow, anyway.”

“I—hey!” she cried.

The chain she’d been gripping dangled loose. The amulet wasn’t on it anymore.

And a whole troop of brownies were running away—and they were amazingly fast. Running straight toward a giant, enraged earth elemental.

“Lily?” Deborah said. “Who were we just talking to?”

Lily turned her head, incredulous. “You didn’t see them?”

“See who? I heard someone, but I didn’t see a thing.”

“Brownies,” Lily said numbly as she turned back to watch the timid little brownies charge a creature as long as a football field. “A whole troop of brownies.”

They pelted straight for it. It noticed them—apparently it didn’t need eyes all that much—and swung its head around, opening those jaws once more, lowering its head to the ground. They split into two streams, one group veering to each side of that enormous head—and scrambled up onto it.

The head reared up. And up. They clung to it—its surface wasn’t smooth, after all, being full of stones and sticks and the occasional body part—and they were little and light. They clambered around on its head, then formed a chain, a brownie ladder. The ones at the top of the beast’s head somehow anchored themselves so others could dangle, hands gripping hands or feet, some upside down, some rightside up, all assembling themselves so quickly it was like magic.

Maybe it was magic—of a different sort. One that called for skill, not power.

One brownie climbed down that living ladder . . . which dangled right over the great elemental’s mouth.

That mouth opened wide and wider, a horrible, gaping maw. The elemental flung its head once as if it was nodding emphatically—and the chain of brownies swept out, then in. Right into its mouth. Which closed—but brownies spurted out even as it did. With delicious, desperate speed they shot out, slipped out like watermelon seeds, and scampered down stony, segmented sides. Down and down and . . .

The elemental stopped moving.

“Oh,” Deborah murmured. “Ohh . . . that tasted nasty, but it feels so full now. Content.”

Escape artists, Lily thought. That’s what Rule had called them. Brownies valued nothing so much as a great escape—and oh, what an escape that had been!

Slowly the elemental began to subside. The stony mass lost its shape gradually, even gracefully, clods of dirt, rocks, and sticks breaking loose to fall to the ground as it sank itself back into the earth.

It was gone.

Lily looked toward the east end of what used to be the National Mall. There were a few patches of grass left, but no people. They’d fled or been killed.

Except at the far end. Where the fighting had stopped.

She shivered. He was alive, she knew he was alive, but how badly hurt? How many others were dead? She glanced at Deborah, at Scott so still on the ground. “Take care of him,” she pleaded. And set off at a run yet again.

RULE lay flat on the ground, his eyes closed. He felt her coming. At last. At last.

Cullen was loosening the tourniquet he’d tied high on Rule’s left leg. “Bleeding’s stopped,” he announced with satisfaction. “Or almost. It’s a godawful mess, but you aren’t bleeding anymore.”

Good. He’d lost so much blood he couldn’t sit up. Best if he held on to what was left.

“I wish I knew what was happening inside . . . but if the artery’s stopped bleeding, you’ll be healing up whatever was causing the internal bleeding pretty quick now, if you haven’t already.”

“Don’t . . . mention the ... internal bleeding to her.” Gods, but talking hurt.

Cullen snorted. “She’ll cripple me good if I lie. But if it doesn’t come up . . .”

Rule nodded slightly. That was good enough.

I’ll live if you will, she’d said. He’d done his best, but for a while it had seemed he’d default on his end of the bargain.

She was nearly here . . .

And then she was. “Rule.” She took his hand. Warmth and ease spread through him in a sigh of contentment. “You’re a mess.” Her laugh was shaky. “A really bloody mess. Can you see at all?”

“One eye is just swollen shut. The other . . .” He stopped to gather enough energy to finish. “That one will have to regrow.”

“I guess you didn’t see the brownies, then.”

Brownies? Not since Harry’s troop stood on the edges of the crowd, letting themselves be seen for once, yelling at everyone to “run this way!” Brownies were good at giving warnings, after all. And they’d helped, directing people where to go...

“They’re heroes. The most incredible heroes. I’ll tell you about it in a minute.” The sound of Lily’s voice suggested she’d turned her head. “His leg?”

Cullen answered. “Broken. The femoral artery got ripped open, but the bleeding’s stopped.”

He heard her swallow.

Cullen’s voice went soft, as it so rarely did. “He’ll be okay, Lily. Not able to do much, not for a while, even with his super-duper speedy healing. But he’ll be okay.”