It happened the moment Jac decided to take a swing at Ubika. She flexed—and felt her magic leave. That hum that had made Puissance feel all but alive a moment before died, and she became nothing more than a hunk of metal on the end of a stick. Just dead weight. Jac fumbled Puissance, nearly dropping the hammer at the sudden lack of support from her magic.

The bottom dropped out of Jac’s stomach. No.

Slowly, the grin dripped off Ubika’s face and his nostrils flared as he sniffed the air. Those black eyes narrowed at her as he straightened out of his eager crouch and into a bored slouch.

Nausea burst in Jac’s gut and a cold sweat broke out over her skin despite the warm night, made warmer by the fires burning up and down the road.

She glanced around to see the whole Mother-damn city staring at her.

Belle, Ubika, all the guards, the civilians, even Z and her entourage had chosen that moment to finally show up, jostling the guards as they shoved their way onto the scene. They all bore witness to Jac’s utter powerlessness.

Desperate, Jac tried to call up her magic again, tried to force it into practice. But it was like she’d forgotten how. No, it was like she’d never known how in the first place. Like she’d always been weak, she’d just tricked everyone into believing she wasn’t. Everyone including herself.

Ubika clicked his gray tongue, then began to pop and crack as he shifted back into his normal form, his teeth readjusting in his mouth, the fin-blades retreating back into his arms, his claws disappearing into his fingers. “Disappointing.”

No.

Jac smashed her eyes closed and flexed, trying again to use her practice. No. And again. But it was useless.

Once again, she was small and helpless and everyone knew.

“I was wrong.” Ubika gave her a final glance before he turned and said over his shoulder, “You’re not worth killing.”

Puissance fell to the cobblestone with an enormous clang! He was right. She was worthless. She started to sink to her knees—

“Take that back.”

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Jac’s gaze snapped up. Ubika stood, still as a statue. And on his back, hissing with a cold fury in his left ear and pressing one of her wicked, curved knives just under his jaw, was Belle, her swirling tattoos shining from within her peplos. Below Ubika’s jaw, a spot of blood bubbled from the tip of her crescent moon blade.

That grin split Ubika’s face once more, even though the movement drove the knife in deeper. He didn’t seem to mind.

“Nyx!” Z finally talked her way through the circle of guards, but Belle ignored her.

“Apologize,” Belle said, her words taking on that twisted tone of the language of monsters, and that pressure pulsed off her again, filling the air. That formless magic. That was power. “There’s no one I’d name Stronger than her.”

Jac’s insides twisted, affection and shame boiling together, bubbling in her eyes. Jac was supposed to be the one protecting Belle.

“I hold no respect for borrowed power,” Ubika purred.

“I said,” Belle pressed the knife ever so slightly deeper and blood wept steadily down his neck, “apologize.”

“Nyx.” Gently, Z rested her hand on Belle’s, the one gripping the knife, and said, “Think, Nyx. If you kill him, think what the queen will do.”

Mother Light, it was true. If Belle hurt Ubika while defending Jac, the queen would be furious. At best, Mama B would be tortured and it would all be because Jac was so fucking useless.

Jac forced herself to straighten and hauled Puissance up. The hammer felt so clumsy in her hands, but she could still lift it. That was more than most.

Making her voice steady and firm, Jac said, “Let Sharkboy go, Belle. I need nothing from him, least of all an apology.”

Slowly, slowly, Z pried Belle off Ubika, but she kept that crescent blade clenched in her hand even as she settled back onto her feet. Ubika faced Belle, wearing that amused look again.

He opened his many-toothed mouth to say something, but was interrupted by—

“Alesha!”

Everyone looked around at the small, cloaked figure that ran into the fray, slipping between armored bodies, headed for one young guard in particular who had gone rigid.

Everyone except Belle, whose attention had snagged on something off in the shadows to the left.

“You owe me for Roya!” The cloaked figure shouted. “This giant is trying to—”

Jac wasn’t sure which was the sight that pulled the figure up short, made them skid to a horrified stop. If it was her, standing there with the hammer, Belle clenching her knife, Ubika drenched in blood and—yeah, it was probably Ubika.

“Oh, fuck no.” The figure backtracked quickly, bumping into a guard in their haste. “Not him. I’ll take the giant over him.”

But before the little figure could rush away, a golden gauntlet closed on their elbow, and a brash voice called, “Well, well. I’m far from surprised to find my favorite street mutt is involved in this chaos.”