Through the smoke and flames, Brody and the fourth giant raised their guns again and finally started firing at me, but I took hold of the railing, swung my legs up and over it, and leaped off the balcony. On the way down, I grabbed hold of my Stone magic, turning my body into a hard, impenetrable—and heavy—shell.

   Crash!

   I did the perfect swan dive right on top of the two of them, sending all three of us crashing to the floor. Brody cursed and quickly scrambled up and back out of my reach, but the other man’s head snapped against the floor, stunning him, and I took advantage, palming a knife and cutting his throat. He died with a bloody gurgle.

   “You bitch!” Brody snarled.

   He raised his gun and started firing at me again, even as he backed toward the doors. I kept my grip on my Stone magic, and the bullets harmlessly ping-ping-pinged off my body and rattled into the walls, wrecking even more of the saloon. I tightened my grip on my knife, got to my feet, and started forward, but Brody decided not to stick around to meet the same fate as his buddies. He fired off a few more shots, then ran out the double doors.

   This time, I chased him.

   At least, I tried to.

   I headed for the saloon doors, but a blast of fire made me stop short. The saloon was more of a tinderbox than I’d thought, and the flames from my Molotov cocktails had already spread throughout the first floor. Thick black smoke boiled up into the air, making it hard to breathe, and the heat licked at my skin, eager to burn right through all my Stone magic. I had to get out of here, or the smoke and flames would quickly overcome me.

   Coughing all the while, I headed toward the saloon doors again, but another explosion ripped through that area, and the flames started burning there even brighter and hotter than before. Since I couldn’t get out through the double doors now, and the flames had already blocked the rear ones behind me, I went for the only other exit. I used my Stone magic to make my skin even harder and dove headfirst through the plate-glass window that lined the front of the saloon.

   Crash!

   I flew through the glass, which busted with a roar, and hit the wooden sidewalk outside. My momentum propelled me forward, and I rolled off the sidewalk, hit one of the water troughs, bounced off it, and ended up sprawled at an awkward angle in the dirt street. To add insult to injury, I hit the trough hard enough to rock the water inside, making a wave of it spill out over the top and cascade all over me, soaking me to the bone. In an instant, I was bitterly cold, despite the growing heat from the saloon fire. The shocking chill also made me lose my grip on my Stone magic. Sputtering, I staggered up and onto my feet, my knife still in my hand, swiping the wet, loose strands of hair back from my face. Brody was still out here, and I wouldn’t put it past him to double back and attack me if he thought that he finally had the advantage—

   The giant’s fist cracked into the side of my face.

   The blow sent me stumbling back, and I ended up sitting ass-down in the water trough, just like all the cowboys so comically had during the park’s high-noon show yesterday.

   “Fuck taking you alive,” Brody growled, raising his gun.

   Before he could pull the trigger, I whipped up my hand and sent a spray of Ice daggers shooting out at him. The giant growled and turned to the side, ducking most of the blast. For such a big guy, he was quick, much quicker than me, especially when I was so waterlogged.

   I tried to climb out of the trough so that I could stab him with my knife, but Brody finally wised up and quit trying to shoot me. He dropped his gun and surged forward, wrapping his hands around my throat. Given his bigger frame and far heavier weight, he easily shoved me back down into the trough, well under the water. My wrist banged against the side of the wood, and my knife slipped from my fingers and disappeared into the water. Without a weapon in my hand, all he had to do was hold me under long enough for me to pass out. Then he could either fish me out and take me to Tucker or drown me like he really wanted to.

   I was betting on that second option.

   I kicked and bucked and thrashed and heaved, but I was no match for Brody’s superior strength, and I was too far down in the water to fight back. The only part of him that I could even reach were his hands and arms, and I couldn’t do enough damage to any of those to kill him before he suffocated me.

   So I quit thrashing, since all that was doing was wasting precious air and energy, and thought about how I could escape from the giant. Or at least get out of the water long enough to take a breath.

   My Stone magic might save me from bullets, but it wouldn’t do me any good in this situation, so I focused on my Ice power. I’d used up most of it freezing the giants in the street earlier, but I still had the reserves stored in my spider rune ring and matching necklace. But just freezing the water in the trough wouldn’t do me any good, since I would still suffocate without any air, so I focused on the only other thing I could do with my Ice magic.

   Break the wood around me.

   No wood meant no trough and no container to hold all the frigid water. So I dropped my hands from Brody’s, no longer trying to pry his fingers off my neck. Instead, I held my hands out wide so that I was touching both sides of the trough at once, my spider rune scars mashed up against the cold, slimy wood. Then I let loose with my Ice magic.

   Even with the magic stored in my ring and pendant, it was still hard, especially since more and more white, gray, and black spots began to swim in front of my eyes. But I focused and managed to blast the wood on either side of me. The second I thought that it was frozen enough, I sent out another blast of Ice magic, cracking away all those cold crystals.

   Come on, I thought. Break, damn you, break!

   But the wood was old, tough, and weathered, and it didn’t want to bend, much less break outright. But I kept blasting it with my Ice magic over and over, and I finally forced a few cracks into the boards. At least, I thought I did. I couldn’t see what I was doing since Brody was still holding me underwater, choking the life out of me. But I reached and clawed and scraped up all the Ice magic in my spider rune ring and pendant, blasting it outward through my hands, forcing it into the wood over and over—