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Not that I had to do much. Louis-Cesare had almost freed himself already, and jumped into the seat beside me as soon as I got close enough. I didn’t have to stop or even pause as a result, just took off in a new direction, trying to get as far from the fight as possible before—
That, I thought, as a tentacle caught us a massive blow.
It was the biggest one of them all, which had been wrapped around the devil’s arm this whole time. But he was being targeted by the mages now, maybe because he was in better shape than his beleaguered, half blind, and battered opponent, allowing the tentacle to spring free. And the squid’s full strength to hit us broadside.
Louis-Cesare grabbed me as our vehicle went flying in a great inverted parabola, high over the city. He held on as it broke in two, falling away as we reached the apex of the arc. He stared at me, his face terrible for a long instant.
And then we fell.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Dorina, Faerie
Ray was up before I was the next morning. In fact, I wasn’t entirely certain that he had been to sleep at all. Because he had made something.
“Is it . . . a raft?” I asked, sitting up.
He was standing down by the water, with the hem of his tunic wet and his hair damp and sticking out everywhere, as if he had shaken it to dry. He put his hands on his hips. “Why you gotta sound like that?”
I yawned. “Like what?”
“Like you’re not sure if that’s the right word.”
In truth, I wasn’t. The item was floating—for the moment—but I did not know how much longer that would hold true. He appeared to have used the fey rope to tie together a great mass of driftwood, but not to lie it flat, as you might expect. Instead, it was literally a pile of sticks that I assumed we were meant to straddle, as that appeared to be the only option.
“It is a very nice raft,” I lied, because he had probably worked hard on it.
“It’s a piece of crap,” Ray said grinning, instantly changing his demeanor. “But there’s a method to the madness.”
I blinked, trying to keep up with what I assumed was another joke. Humor was difficult. But he seemed to find the situation amusing, and was now patting the raft fondly.
“This baby is gonna get us so far away from here, that the damned Svarestri will never find us.”
I looked at it again. I decided to attempt some humor. “Do you wish to bet on that?”
Ray frowned and sloshed up the bank. “I know it don’t look like much, but you gotta understand how things work here.”
“All right.” I did not try humor again. I did not think I had gotten it right.
“The forests are impassable—at least to us. They’re right out.” He picked through our supplies and handed me the fey version of trail mix.
“Thank you.”
“The roads are no better,” he added, sitting beside me. “The Svarestri are hunting you, so they’re probably watching ‘em all. Plus, there could be bandits and God knows what lurking around, ‘cause I don’t even know where the hell we are. Judging by the whole ancient demigoddess visit/river flowing over nothing thing, I’d guess somewhere along the border of Nimue’s lands. But that don’t narrow it down much.”
“The river was . . . enchanting,” I said, remembering.
He snorted. “Yeah, that’s one way of putting it.”
I cocked my head. “How would you put it?”
“That it’s enchanted. It ain’t about being pretty. It acts like fortress walls, all around her realm. From what I hear, if anybody tries to invade, she just—” he made a strange sort of jerking gesture.
“She does what?” I asked, because I hadn’t understood that.
“Pulls the rug out from under ‘em, or in this case, the river. She’s said to be able to do almost anything with it: make it flood and wash their whole army away; make it seep evil smells that confuse man and beast alike, until they drown in only a few feet of water; use it to carry illusions of massive armies that don’t exist; or cause it to vanish completely, dropping th
e invaders hundreds of feet onto all those waiting stalagmites . . .”
