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gift: to see the fate of her children and to know what she must do to save them. I doubted that was her only gift, but if she looked ahead, she’d know I meant business.
    “Make the new deal,” I said. “This is the only time I’ll offer it.”
    She opened her eyes. With a vicious sneer on her lips, she snarled an unbinding in Ancient and the throb on my arm immediately went away. Before I could react, she grabbed my arm again in the same spot. “I bind you, Claire of Fallen, Queen of the fourth realm, to protect my children from death at your hands or by any means which you knowingly can prevent.”
    Oh, holy hell. The pain hurt before, but this time it traveled through my arm to my core with what felt like a jolt that went directly to the fourth realm. “Stop,” I yelled, ripping my arm from her grasp. “That isn’t what we agreed to.”
    “You wanted out of the other deal. You agreed not to harm my children—I can’t have you circumventing that with a command to one of your underlings. This is how it must be.”
    I hadn’t actually thought about that. And what underlings did I have? I was just hoping to have Death’s threat neutralized. The way it stood, I just couldn’t knowingly let someone kill them. Unfortunately, that meant Death would be able to trigger Gizelle’s curse to cause my death unless I could stop him by giving him the torque of time. So I was just as screwed on that front, but any random thing that killed them, including Mab, wouldn’t be on my head.
    Pissed, I turned to leave.
    “Do you wish for an update, my queen?” she asked coyly.
    Thanos . I spun back around to face her. “Yes.”
    “He is safe and unharmed.”
    “Does he speak of me?” I asked.
    She shook her head, “No. He appears to have no memory of events.”
    “Mab,” I spat, knowing she had to be the one to take his memory. That was if I believed Gizelle.
    Gizelle shrugged. “Perhaps.”
    I turned away, blinking back a few tears.
    I’d saved Thanos from a command Raven had given him five hundred years ago. She’d told him to serve the Fall Queen, but of course the Fall Queen, Jayne, was dead and her last known location was the fourth realm. I found Thanos alone in a desolate and deserted realm, where he’d been trapped since Raven’s curse. He’d bound us together, entwining our souls. We’d been mates for a time. To gain my freedom and save him from ultimate heartbreak at his mother’s hands, I released him from our bond and agreed not to claim Thanos for my realm—something Mab would never let happen. I truly believe she’d kill him before letting me have him.
    At least he was safe, but I hoped Gizelle was lying. He’d said he’d never forget me. I wanted that to be true.
    I motioned for Sorrel. “Let’s go.”
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 4
     
     
    My arm throbbed as we parked the car in front of the Wild Hare Bar & Grill. I took in the street. There were plenty of businesses open, but not all the same ones from last summer when I stopped by the Wild Hare to find Ronin, Mab’s bounty hunter at the time, and the one I’d bound myself to in Purgatory to break the pledge I’d made to Mace last spring.
    Scanning the area with my senses, I didn’t get an overwhelming impression of the fallen. If these new businesses were part of the displaced residents’ issues as the big three implied, then why weren’t these shops being run by the fallen? Unlike the area near the blacksmith’s shop, there were at least open shops to investigate here.
    As I looked closer, I noticed that more were closed than I’d first thought. Was someone—or something—running the pagans, druids, and demons out of downtown?
    “Why are so many places closed?” I asked Sorrel.
    He looked around, as if for the first time. He shrugged and shook his head. “I didn’t realize there was an issue, but now that you mention it—”
    Sorrel’s words were cut off by a loud crash. A pagan the size of a refrigerator had