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was Fae—not human, not a man—and on some deeply personal level, didn’t “count.”
    “I’m fine,” Elada said again, as they rolled over the bridge across the Fort Point Channel.
    “You will be fine, with some rest, after I’ve had another pass over those ribs,” said Miach.
    “Then I’ll go after the girl,” said Elada.
    Miach shook his head and found Elada’s eyes with his in the rearview mirror. “Liam and Nial can fetch Sorcha Kavanaugh. Her iron harp won’t have any effect on them.”
    Miach was right. Sorcha’s iron harp couldn’t harm Liam and Nial. They were half-bloods, and their human heritage made them immune to the crippling power of iron. But Sorcha Kavanaugh was terrified of the Fae, and if her harp wouldn’t work, she might resort to something that would. Stone song.
    And Liam and Nial would die.
    “You can’t send Liam and Nial,” said Elada.
    “Why not?” asked his oldest friend, whom just a few minutes ago he had planned to deceive. But not at the cost of the boys’ lives.
    “Because she’s frightened, and untrained, and if the harp doesn’t work on Liam and Nial, she may lash out in a different way.”
    A beat. Then Miach asked, “How?”
    “It’s only a guess on my part,” said Elada, hedging.
    “But an educated guess, no doubt, old friend. What is it you suspect?”
    “I’ll tell you when I’m certain.”
    And not before. Because if he was right, it would be her death sentence. He suspected that she was the deadliest of Druids. He suspected Sorcha Kavanaugh was a stone singer.
    • • •
    She ran. She didn’t know how long the Fae would stay down. And she didn’t want a repeat of the thing that had happened the last time one of them had attacked her. The thing she couldn’t control, the thing she still saw in nightmares. Especially since this Fae hadn’t seemed quite so alien, quite so inhuman.
    He’d been civil, actually. Of course she had told him upfront that she was wearing cold iron, so perhaps he hadn’t bothered with the Fae mind games. But her attacker in New York had progressed quickly from ensnaring her to imprisoning her and using physical violence to keep her in line, and this Fae hadn’t.
    Not even when she’d struck that first note in the alley. They moved fast. He probably could have snapped her neck before she’d completed that shattering chord, and he hadn’t.
    Of course, refraining from physical violence didn’t make the Fae a nice guy. None of the Fae, as far as she knew, had anything like a human conscience. Not according to Gran and not according to the old men who had taught her to sing. And certainly not according to her experience with Keiran.
    So as soon as he’d gone down, she’d run. There had been a second when she’d stopped, less than a block away, stricken with conscience. What if she’d killed him? What if he’d been telling the truth, and there were good Fae, or at least less-evil Fae, and they genuinely wanted to help her, could teach her how to control the voice?
    Then reason and her survival instinct had reasserted themselves. It didn’t matter if there were good Fae or less-bad Fae. After Keiran, she wanted no Fae in her life at all.
    She ran. She had her T pass and her keys in her pocket, along with some cash. She never carried much more. There was a case for her harp languishing back at the Black Rose, but she had another at the house.
    Fortunately Faneuil Hall was crowded with tourists, the weather still warm enough for outside tables at the restaurants and couples strolling from shop to shop. She was able to disappear quickly into that press. Her modest height, for once, was an advantage. Even so, she couldn’t stop looking over her shoulder as the crowd thinned. Part of her hoped to see Elada following her. At least that way she could be sure he wasn’t dead.
    And part of her dreaded seeing that gold-shot, dirty blond head above the crowd.
    When she reached North Street, she paused. Congress Street was