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She wiggled the toes of her now bare foot, making the ladder in one silk stocking creep up a little higher. “I was called away in the middle of a dinner party.”
“You could have brought a bodyguard with you.”
“Yes, that’s all this fiasco needs! Another mage. Probably go off half cocked and blow up the whole complex, saving the Guild the trouble!”
“And maybe saving your life!”
She leaned her head wearily back against the column. “I can do that for myself.”
I crossed my arms but said nothing. Her breathing was still heavy and her color wasn’t good, but I was in no position to give a lecture. She wasn’t the only one who had left a partner behind.
Pritkin hated my trips through time for the same reason I did—the conviction that, sooner or later, I was going to screw up something we couldn’t fix. I’d decided to save myself some grief and just not mention this to him, but it was a decision I was starting to regret. He carried enough firepower for three people, if those people happened to be Rambo. He’d have come in pretty handy right about now.
After a minute, Agnes struggled back to her feet. She stood with one hand braced against the column, her head bowed, her forehead knotted in pain. “Can you make it back to your time?” I asked. “Because if not, I can—”
“I have a job to do,” she repeated, straightening. Her slight shoulders squared. “We need more light.”
“We need to get out of here!”
“Then go. Nobody’s stopping you.” I stared at her for a moment, really tempted, before cursing and scurrying back for the lantern. For a wonder, nobody shot at me.
It had a ring welded into the top, so I grabbed a long stick from one of the piles of firewood that crunched underfoot and hooked the light on the end of it. After opening the door as wide as it would go, I poked the contraption out into the room while remaining behind the column with Agnes. I’d been hoping to illuminate a crumpled body on the floor. Instead, the warm golden glow fell across dozens of casks and barrels.
Some of them were almost buried under the mounds of wood and coal that nearly filled the room. But a few were stacked nearby, as if the camouflage attempt had gotten to be too much work. Or maybe the problem was that these barrels were leaking.
The nearest one had a crack as large as my finger in the side. The floor around it was covered in tiny grains that sparkled in the light like black diamond dust. My hand shook as I realized what they were, and a couple sparks spilled from the open side of the lantern. I had time to think, Oh, shit, before flames leapt up from the floor and ran straight toward the heap of barrels.
I dove for Agnes and we hit the floor together as a wave of force swept over us. A roar of sound deafened me, fire bloomed behind me and a wash of heat flooded the air. Dead, I thought in a rush of nausea.
And then nothing.
After a stunned moment, I opened my eyes to see a room filled with what looked like red and gold glitter. It took me a second to recognize it as flaming bits of wood and powder thrown off by the explosion, frozen in the air like confetti on the Fourth of July. A small piece was resting beside my cheek and it was hot. I knocked
it away, and it moved a few inches before stopping, hanging suspended and molten as a tiny sun.
“You know, you’re a real pain in the ass,” Agnes mumbled. I belatedly realized that I’d squashed her face against the floor.
“Sorry. I—”
“Get off me.”
I rolled to the side and stopped, blinking. A couple feet away was a freeze-frame out of hell. A ball of fire hung in space, surrounded by burning bits of wood that had once formed the sides of a barrel. Sparks were everywhere, turning the dull old stones around us bloodred and highlighting the pissy look on Agnes’ face.
“What happened?”
“What does it look like?” she snapped. “You almost blew us up!”
“You didn’t tell me there was gunpowder in here!”
“There was gunpowder out there!” She waved an arm wildly in the direction of the other room. “And someone threw a barrel at us from in here! What the hell do you want, a diagram?”
“I want to know what’s going on,” I said heatedly. “All I know is that I followed you into a cellar—”
“Which you had no business doing.”
“—and now some crazy man is trying to kill us!”
“At the rate we’re going, he won’t have to,” Agnes said, staggering back to her feet. Her hair had come loose from its once neat chignon and floated down over her temples and cheeks. It moved delicately with her breath, giving away how fast her heart beat. She put a hand to her head. “I’m going to feel like hell tomorrow.”
