Of Love and War: a Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance: Pandemonium College Knights, #4

1

FRANKIE

We’re running for our lives through Pandemonium College.

Inasmuch, this is nothing unusual. Just your average Wednesday. Since word got to Heaven and the Four Houses that I’m the White Queen Witch’s daughter, and not only that, I seem to wield an unholy power over life and death, quite a few people have been after me.

These were mercenary supernaturals, sleepers here at the College paid in favors to hunt me down and kill me, and not to forget the five boys at my side—who refused to kill me.

But now we are not only still trapped inside the magical, invisible dome of the College, we have four angels coming after us, great wings beating, screeching shrilly enough to make my head hurt. I’m sure somewhere glass is shattering with the supersonic frequencies.

Four angels with spears of divine flame and the faces of animals, bronze hooves, and crowns of white light.

And a fifth angel, an archangel, directing them.

Raziel.

He said he came to take me to Heaven, though he’d rather kill me, and he obviously hasn’t changed his mind about that.

Thankfully, Kass and Ryu have a hold on us and we’re moving as fast as a thought, streaking through the College grounds. Our surroundings are a blur. We zig and zag, we zip and zap. Bile rises in my throat.

This way! Ryu cuts to the right, and we all swerve. Ryu has his arms around Asa and Rook, Kass has his arms around me and Tir. We’re a twin storm cloud, traveling at the speed of sound, traversing the College so fast clouds of dust follow us.

The beating of hooves and the flapping of giant wings hound us, always too close behind, as we cut corners and rush between buildings, passing under trees and between bushes.

Frightened birds flutter and take flight into the sky.

Have we lost them? Tir’s face is not fully human—Fae-like—yet. His eyes are all black, his skin too white, the edges of his pale hair tipped with darkness as it flies about his face, though there is no sign of his black horns.

Lost them? Kass snorts, taking a corner so fast he knocks Tir into a wall. We have to break out of this goddamn College. Open that dome.

Ryu has stopped and is glancing around, Asa and Rook glaring at our surroundings. We seem to be standing in the shadow of the arena.

If you think I’m not trying… Asa grinds his teeth. Raziel’s Protocol is broken, the dome he let me built is gone. This one is… different.

Azrael’s Protocol, Ryu hazards. And here I thought angels had no free will.

Says who? Asa demands.

The old texts?

We have to hide, I say. In a small, narrow place where the angels can’t reach us.

You say it as if they’re cats and we’re the fucking lab mice inside a maze, Ryu snaps. These are magical beings.

And so are we.

For now, Asa says, and I frown, but have no time to ponder his words as we set off again, whooshing after Ryu, Kass’s arms solid around us.

Where are we going?

Ask Ryu!

Funny. He’s a blur ahead of us.

And the angels swoop down, making me shriek, fire lashing from their spears. It’s not only their faces that aren’t human-like. Their bodies seem to have turned beastly as well, claws and hooves and tails sweeping over us.

Kass whisks us to one side just as Ryu hauls his cargo to the other. Splitting the angels’ focus.

No idea if that helps.

Raziel streaks toward us, and Rook sends a blast of fire upward that seems to shock the archangel into changing the course of his flight.

Shrivel up and die, butterfly! Rook roars.

I throw an incredulous look his way. He didn’t just say that.

Kass stops. He’s panting. Even vampires can tire, I think. But then I realize the angels haven’t come back. Are they regrouping? Resting? Taking a break to sing some hymns?

We need a place where we’re temporarily safe to sit down and think how to defeat them, get rid of them," Ryu says as he and the others stride over to us.

I’m pretty sure that’s heresy, I mutter.

They’re monsters about to gobble us up.

Or just kill us dead. That’s what Raziel wants.

Whatever. Kass scowls. The end result will be the same.

What about underground, a basement? Ryu comes and slides a muscular arm around me. I lean into his strength, his scent of male musk and that sharp animal tang of shifters.

That will trap us like mice in a maze, indeed. Tir tsks. We need a place we can easily escape from.

And then ward the Hell out of it.

Literally, Rook smirks.

So what the fuck do we do now? Kass folds his arms over his chest, black hair falling into gray eyes. "Minchia. This situation has gone to shit."

You could say that again. Like, what the fuck, man. Tir runs his hands through his hair. The black is receding from his eyes but his fingertips are tipped with it. I was so ready to portal us to Faerie.

Where was that place we saw through the portal? I whisper. It looked… pretty. With a castle and a forest.

Now isn’t the time for chitchat, but I need a moment to catch my breath, both physically and mentally, and seeing as nobody is yet gearing up to start running again, they probably need it, too.

Everyone turns to stare at Tir, as if they, too, are wondering.

It’s a place near my hometown, Tir says, looking away. We should get going. We’ve lingered enough.

True.

We should ask for help, Ryu says.

Help?

We have allies, remember? We’re not alone in this anymore. The shifters, the demons… and the Fae are now under Tir’s leadership. Surely they’ll help us fight the angels.

Things have changed again. Tir sounds dubious. But I’ll see what I can do. Let’s go find Cirdan.

And we’re whisked away again, Ryu holding me this time together with Tir, Kass hauling along Rook and Asa.

I want to hear more about Tir’s life, before and after he joined the Wild Hunt, and about Faerie in general. Of all the worlds that are linked to the human one, it has fascinated me the most. Could be the fairytales Grandad would sometimes tell me when I was little, so full of the trickster race. Could be Uncle Sindri being the most mischievous and secretive of my uncles.

Could simply be this man, Tir, who gave me my first smile in this College and who’s as lethal as he is elegant, as powerful as he is gentle.

No, I’m not playing favorites. It’s his homeland that has me more intrigued than Hell or Heaven, the forests Ryu ran in as a fox, and the Italian mafia Kass was raised in. And that glimpse… that was a tease.

I’ve never been outside of a city, except for the occasional excursion when I was little. I’ve been cooped up in the concrete jungle since Granddad took me to live with him. Through the portal, all was green and pretty and that castle definitely smacked of fairytales.

I think of my book, now gone, the Jungle Book where the feral child is living with all the wild animals, not interested in venturing into the human world, and I wonder if that’s why I identify with that boy so much.

It’s not that I don’t want to live in the human world. It’s, in fact, what I desire the most.

But it’s the fear of losing what humanity I have, of not being able to go back to that gilded, innocent childhood I lived that makes me keep looking for the fairytale. And the fairytale is the cage that might protect my mind from breaking…

2

FRANKIE

The Fae are gathered by the lake in the College Park, where Jatri and Sebastian bullied us, gave us those pills, and tried to force Kass to bite me.

It’s afternoon and classes are over, except for PE and art. The campus is relatively empty but here and there students walk, shooting us quizzical looks. We must look bedraggled and exhausted. I, for one, am dragging my steps now that Ryu has put me down.

My thoughts are sluggish, as is my body. I’m still drained from bringing Asa back to life. If it wasn’t for Ryu and Kass lugging us around like dead weight… I don’t want to think about what would have happened.

What the angels would have done to us.

The angels’ silence and absence worry me. Better to have your enemy within sight. I have to fight the urge to keep looking over my shoulder. Surely the angels wouldn’t attack us here, among all the students, right?

And why not? a voice in my head whispers. As if they care about appearances? As if they even understand why it would traumatize people? No, that’s not why.

Where the fuck are the angels? Rook speaks my thoughts and fears. Anyone else worried about what they’re planning?

Nah, it never crossed my mind, Tir drawls. What do you think?

Where are the fuckers hiding? I think it’s highly suspicious that they gave us a breather and aren’t tearing us to shreds yet.

We all ponder this fact as we slowly make our way to the lake and the Fae gang.

Could they be chasing us for fun? Rook muses. Then he catches our incredulous looks and shrugs his powerful shoulders. What? I’ve seen a lot of weird things over the centuries and angels are the most unhinged douchebags you’ve ever seen.

I got the impression they were really trying to get us, I whisper.

No shit. Kass inspects his arm where I see a blackened patch. That fire sure burns.

Kass, are you okay?

Dandy. He twists to look at his back. A little singed. Now I’m smoking hot.

I choke on a laugh and cough.

Ryu guffaws.

Asa reaches my side and I slip my hand in his. How are you doing?

I’m the one who should be asking you that. Now my worry about the angels takes a back seat compared to my worry about him. He looks… haggard.

"I’m fine, Musen," he whispers.

"Okay, fess up: what’s a musen?"

He blinks but doesn’t reply, and the Fae sitting on the lakeshore are already on their feet, a few coming to intercept us. Cirdan is standing, too, but doesn’t move from the spot.

Tir steps before us, greeting the Fae with a curt nod, then walks down the shore to Cirdan, Jatri’s second in command.

Now Tir’s second, since he took leadership of the Fae gang.

It still feels unreal to recall that battle in the auditorium that had taken the life of the leader of the College Fae. And other students’ as well, of course, but Jatri had been a bit of a celebrity.

His funeral hasn’t yet been held.

I have placed in jeopardy the lives of everyone within the walls and wards of this College just by coming here. Including my five Wonderboys.

Though, to be fair, they’d signed their contracts willingly once upon a time, hoping to gain something from them.

That was before they had decided to break their promises to their handlers and Houses and side with me.

Tirius. Cirdan gives a small, stiff bow from the shoulders. He’s dressed in a flamboyant long shirt cinched at the waist like a medieval tunic, and yellow pants.

So unlike Tir’s usual attire of soft T-shirts and jeans, a legacy from his past on the streets. He had said that, I realize, but never explained when that had been. Hadn’t his family sold him to the Wild Hunt? Had the Wild Hunt lived in a city for a while?

We need your help, Tir says, skipping to the heart of the matter. You said you were our ally. So help us. We need a safe place. A hidden place, so warded we can have a night’s peace.

Cirdan folds his arms over his chest. What’s the meaning of this? We have been waiting for you to lead us, not to come looking for protection. Who’s after you? Has there been another attack?

You could say that. We have five angels on our tails.

Five angels? Cirdan barks out a laugh. "Angels? There are no angels in the College, except for Asa⁠—"

Now there are five more and they aren’t happy.

"Are you fucking with me, kerel? Cirdan glances past Tir at us and what he sees on our faces must be convincing because he scowls. Dammit. He rubs his knuckles over his mouth. Dammit, Tirius. When we agreed to side with you in this conflict, Heaven wasn’t directly involved."

Does that change anything?

What do you think? It’s one thing to go against one’s elders, one’s House, and another to go against the higher powers.

But the dome closed again over the angels, Tir says. We’re all trapped here. What if Heaven didn’t mean for its crazed minions to kill Frankie and wreak havoc on the College?

Are you saying these are rogue angels? Or that the dome somehow drove them out of their minds?

Tir shrugs. Who can tell?

I hold my breath. He’s right, who’s to tell? We certainly don’t know, or does Tir have an idea he hasn’t yet shared with us?

And who’s to tell whether Tir is bluffing or telling the truth? He has trouble lying, but twisting the truth is a Fae specialty.

After a long pause during which I give in and twist around to check our surroundings and the sky in case the angels are making a comeback, Cirdan sighs.

Fine. He nods at a couple of his Fae. Come on. Let’s hide you. And then you tell me everything you know.

The place Cirdan leads us to is an abandoned building out in the park. The roof seems way too low, but as two Fae wrestle the double doors open, I see a ramp leading down into the ground. It’s a semi-basement.

As we enter, I realize it has a sloped roof and a floor made of some kind of plaster. It looks ancient. Bats flap as we venture further inside. Mice squeak as we go down the ramp, fleeing from us.

Awesome.

And spiders. There are bound to be spiders, because fuck my life.

Rook lifts his hand and a fire blasts into life on his palm, illuminating the place and his handsome face. More piles of moldy mats and ancient equipment meet my eyes.

At least we have something to sleep on.

I walk over to Rook and he lifts an arm, settling it over my shoulders as we survey our hidey-hole.

What is this place? I whisper.

You can’t say we don’t take you to nice places, Rook says with a wink. Oh, I know just the thing to make this spot cozy. A sofa, a few flowers, and Bob’s your man.

There used to be an ice hockey ring out here, Cirdan says from the entrance.

For real? Rook’s dark brows arch. The flames dance in his blue eyes. Fascinating.

And this was the storage room. Now the ring is overgrown with vegetation. Only the stadium and the arena are still in use.

You make it sound like this College has been here forever, I say.

At least a few hundred years, Cirdan says. It has existed even before the Coalescence.

That was the event that changed the world—the diminishing of the witches and the ancient elemental magic which led to the dominance of demonblood, a more male, demonic magic, strong but more controllable. It allowed the magical races to emerge into the light and make agreements with humanity, leading to a real cohabitation.

And clashes, supernatural mafias, and often a crash of the technology, but hey, it made the world more interesting.

My world.

And I’m at the very heart of his new clash that’s pitting magical beings against one another and the divine.

So tell us, Tirius. Cirdan leans against the open doors. Of course he’d ask Tir who has trouble lying. Why are the angels here? And how did the dome open and close again before any of us—before the Four Houses—even noticed and rushed to grab her?

Only an angel could open and close the dome again. Tir has walked further into the vast space, his voice echoing a little, his hair like a pale halo around his head.

A nifty reply, avoiding most of the questions.

And these five angels you mentioned?

They slipped through.

Has something changed? Does Heaven want you dead?

No, of course not.

Hm. He frowns at us. Fine. And who are these angels?

Archangel Raziel and four of his minions. Said with disdain. Tir examines his nails as if he’s thinking of trying a manicure. Sadly, they neglected to offer their names. I should ask, so I know what to write on their graves.

He looks way too relaxed. I know that posture. He’s putting up a façade of nonchalance.

If you’re so confident about beating them, Cirdan says, why are you here, asking for my help?

Tir finally turns back around. Are you on our side, Cirdan, or not? Make up your mind. He takes a step toward the door. Do you want to test our mettle? Our powers? Do you want to see what Frankie can do to draw Heaven’s attention?

I shiver.

A hush falls over us.

Of course not, Cirdan says smoothly. We trust you. We chose you, after all, to replace Jatri. You’re the strongest among us.

Tir holds the Fae’s gaze, then dips his chin in acknowledgment of Cirdan ceding ground.

What happened to his body? I ask as the Fae start to pull back. To Jatri’s body?

My question hovers in the air.

Cirdan frowns. What do you care? He bullied you.

Judging people’s fates isn’t up to me, I say with a shrug. He was very young. He might have become a better man over time, given the chance.

Cirdan eyes me, narrowing his brows. You’re the first person to say anything like that about him.

Anything that stupid, another Fae sneers.

You’re not what I expected, Frankie, Cirdan says, sending the Fae who spoke a withering look.

Join the club, Rook mutters.

My cheeks are heating. I’m not sure whether he’s complimenting or berating me, and I don’t care. Shouldn’t care. My opinion. My business.

We’ll leave you to rest. Cirdan gestures at his gang to move as he heads back out. I’ll send someone over later with food and water. The secret password is Dimwits.

Charming, Ryu says.

Once an asshole, always an asshole, Kass mutters. And I’m not talking about Jatri, although that whole not speaking ill of the dead doesn’t sit well with me. He was a bully and a motherfucking jerk.

I can still hear you! Cirdan calls from behind the closing doors.

It’s not a secret, Kass says.

Kass, I say, hush.

He gives me a sharp grin.

Put all the wards you can on the door, Tir calls out to the departing Fae, and we will do the same inside. We need to buy ourselves some time, figure a way out of this.

Somehow.

3

ROOK

I bet Cirdan is going to call his contact in the House of Earth right away, Tir grouses, find out what is going on.

We should do the same, I say.

Are you insane? We disobeyed direct orders.

And punishment will come. But meanwhile, what if we can find out what is going on? Why Raziel came as if of his own will, seemingly for his own ends? Does Heaven even know what he’s doing? And who are the ugly fuckers he brought along?

Yeah, those are the questions we need to discuss. First, though, we need demonblood for the wards. Rook, get your ass over here. Kass bites into his wrist and snarls with his blood-stained mouth, fangs glinting crimson, red running down his chin. His eyes darken. Hurry up.

I blink as Ryu lines up with him, grinning a savage, sharp-toothed smile before biting into his own wrist. Let’s ward the shit out of his place. We’re getting pretty damn good at it, aren’t we?

I glance at Asa who is sitting on an empty crate, head bowed. Frankie has gone to him, talking to him in hushed tones. If I focus, I can eavesdrop easily, but… I hesitate. For the first time in my life, I actually fucking care about what these people might think of me.

Because I love them.

The actual situation, though, is a fucking mess. Lucifer’s blue balls, I can’t believe a fucking archangel is after us, and that we’re imprisoned together with him and his ass-lickers in this mousetrap.

Not that ass-licking is bad.

And now I get hard, staring at Kass. You can’t blame me. I’m an incubus surrounded by the most beautiful group in creation, not to mention all this adrenaline is doing its job, making my heart pound and my blood rush faster in my veins.

In my cock.

Rook. Tir. Kass’s gaze has gone red. His head is slightly bowed, black hair falling into his eyes, square jaw clenched, his blood dripping from his wrist to the floor. Come on.

Right on.

Tir watches me from under pale lashes as he makes his way to the door and follows suit, biting into his wrist. Ryu and Kass are already painting wards on the closed double doors, chanting the spells under their breaths.

Demonblood is our safest bet against the angels. Angelblood is akin to demonblood, a different strain, and therefore best repelled through it.

Or so we have all been taught. I wonder how much fucking good it will do against the damn archangel and his weirdo angel flunkeys.

I don’t like angels. Asa excepted of course, because that fucker got under my skin, but yeah, after spending centuries battling the cherubs and getting to know them for the sly, sadistic bastards they are, it’s hard for me to warm up to them.

Maybe my fire can warm us all up. Burn up to the sky.

Grunting as I offer my blood to the altar of wards, mixing it with that of the others, I take in their faces. Frankie’s small bright face bent close to Asa’s pale, angular one, their pale locks tangling together. Kassander has a wildness in his expression—maybe the scent of blood makes him high? Who the fuck knows with vampires?—and Ryu is tense, probably not so used to demonblood spells after all the time he spent as a fox. As for Tir, he looks lost in thought, his bloodied hand resting on the metal door.

My lovers. My friends. My… mates? What are we, this weird motley crew of beings, thrown together by chance and dark pasts, by hope that keeps getting dashed and yet never winks out? What…?

Oh shit, the spell. The wards. Why am I so distracted?

Guys, I bark. Focus.

Tir jerks guiltily and I’m kinda sorry I surprised him.

We need to get moving. Besides, whatever he was thinking, judging from the look he had on his face, couldn’t have been so good.

Whispering the ancient words under my breath, I smear my blood on the doors, then start walking around the perimeter of the storeroom, marking the peeling walls, the others following me.

The storeroom is big, and it’s only the four of us warding it. Asa has no demonblood and Frankie doesn’t know the spells. Not to mention, they both look beat. I’d rather not ask them to bleed for this cause.

Worry returns to tighten my chest, but I do my best to ignore it, together with the lust and affection for all these people who managed to worm their way into my black heart. I fling my blood at the walls, drawing the old symbols, blocking entrance to anyone who might decide to intrude.

I pause in my warding to shake my fist at Heaven.

Just because it feels good and necessary.

If you’re all done, Asa says, his voice carrying through the empty, echoing space, laced with exhaustion, we need to discuss strategy.

Pressing my lips into the thinnest fucking line, I draw two more symbols and nod at my found family. I think we’re good for now. Assuming Raziel doesn’t have anything new under his snow-white, lacy sleeve. So go on, General, tell us your thoughts on your winged colleagues. I love me some water cooler gossip.

Rook…

I glance at Tir. That’s the expression, right? Water cooler gossip? I brushed up my slang before coming up here.

Tir shakes his head, his mouth tilting in a faint smile and it makes me want to put my arms around him. You’re doing okay, I guess.

Pull up a crate, Asa says.

Dammit, the cherub sounds even better at ease in modern language than I am, I mutter. What gives, right?

That’s the thing… Asa says slowly as we gather around him and Frankie. I don’t know if I’m an angel. If I ever was.

Okay, what in the actual fuckity fuck?

Before Raziel arrived here, Asa says, before he ended me and Frankie brought me back, he told me that I’m a mortal. I died and I was recruited by Heaven for this mission. My goal was never to return to Heaven… it was to ascend for the first time.

"Nani?" Ryu blinks. He’s sat on an upturned old red bucket, the hue echoing his flaming hair and his hands covered in blood.

Frankie nods. Raziel said Asa is a mortal.

She knew this? Frankie, you knew this?

I found him, remember? I heard Asa refusing to end me… I might have listened in for a minute before Raziel brought in his assassin. I didn’t expect Raziel to kill Asa.

Who did? I mutter.

But the fact he could send a man to kill Asa so easily… I think it confirms that this is true.

Wait… wait. Ryu is shaking his head, red hair flying. This makes absolutely no sense, Asa. You have angelic powers. I’ve seen them. You have the Glory.

Borrowed, Asa says gravely, for this mission, it would seem.

No, you still have them. I saw you fight against the angels. If your powers had an expiration date, then why are they still present?

True. Now Asa is frowning. I thought Raziel would have stripped them off me when he killed me. Or at the very least, when he found me still breathing. It makes no sense why he’d leave me with any sort of magic if his plan was to remove me from this game.

Yeah, Ryu is right, something isn’t adding up here. I drag a metal crate to the circle we’ve formed and park my ass on it. It feels good to stretch my long legs in front of me. My boots are scuffed and splashed with blood, my black pants torn at the hem and filthy. I stink. My dreams when it came to this mission all sank—only to be replaced by new ones.

Would they float, though? Would we be able to survive and stay together? That didn’t look in any way certain, and yet I’d learned from a very young age to take what I can, live in the moment. I had also learned not to engage my heart.

Like the fool I am, I tossed all those hard-won lessons out the window the moment I landed here and met these sexy, gorgeous, very annoying and impossibly likable people around me.

Let’s focus on the most urgent matters here, Kass says. He chose to remain standing, propping a hip against one of the metal pillars holding the roof up.

The rogue angels, I whisper, with the faces of animals and claws of beasts. Four like the elements, Earth, Fire, Water, and Air. Like us. The four fixed signs of the zodiac.

Maybe you’re on to something there, Tir mutters. But angels aren’t elemental.

That’s debatable, Kass says. Like all of us magical beings, they are probably a mixture of powers. Ancient gods adopted into the pantheon, fallen angels turning into demons, angels mating with humans to produce half-angels… I doubt Heaven has managed to remain pure after all the millennia, at least the lower Heavens.

There are nine types of angels, Asa says. Seraphs, Cherubs, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels, and Angels.

And fallen angels, I mutter, eyeing him because his surname is Nephal, as in Nephilim, the fallen ones, and that has yet to be explained.

If those angels are Virtues, Asa goes on, then they have elemental magic, but Raziel…

Archangels are a different kettle of fish, Ryu mutters. A rabid one.

How to defend yourself against rabid angels, Tir grins.

An archangel and a demon walk into a bar, I say, and they both demand a strong draught. The bartender slams their drinks in front of them. The demon downs his in one gulp and burps with satisfaction, while the archangel…

The archangel what? Ryu demands.

How should I know? Ask Raziel. I chuckle, immensely pleased with myself for putting that outraged look on the fox’s face.

Boys, Frankie says, her voice low, but it cuts through our merriment.

Fuck.

No rest for the wicked, I say. Sorry, Darling. Go on, Cherub. Tell us your thoughts about these four sexy beasts.

You’re saying they may be Virtues, Kass says. A rare sort of angel.

Perhaps. Then there’s the matter of the winged beasts of the Apocalypse, Asa says. The beasts guarding the high. Four beasts full of eyes. And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, the third had the face of a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. It’s not clear what they are.

How is this helping anyway? I scrub my hands over my face. Weariness is dragging me down. I’ve had to spend quite a bit of blood for the wards, and my wrist is still sluggishly bleeding. Maybe I should ask Kass to lick the wound and seal it. Or just lick me everywhere.

Mind out of the gutter, Rook.

Sigh.

Those virtuous… beasts, I say. How do we kill them?

We will need angelic weapons.

Asa has an angelic sword. How can we make more angelic weapons?

Do you see a forge anywhere?

Not like that, you idiot. Can we imbue our weapons with angelic magic? Can Asa or Frankie do that? Maybe Asa can douse our weapons in his angelic seed.

Ryu leans over and cuffs me on the back of the head. Sex-crazed demon.

Unfair. You guys are just too virginal.

Kass chokes and starts coughing.

I don’t know how to create angelic weapons, Frankie whispers and her somber face brings me back to earth with a thump. Asa?

I’m not aware that I can, he says quietly. Besides which… I don’t know if killing angels is a good idea.

I beg your pardon?

"Angels don’t have free will. Each angel is an aspect of God entrusted with a single purpose. Kill one or change their