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“Who will?”
“The asshole from the Guild!”
“Listen to me.” Warm hands framed my face and dark eyes met mine. I felt the usual reassurance Mircea’s presence caused ramp up a few notches, soothing my fears, calming my mind—and depriving me of my edge. “Whatever is going on, it doesn’t succeed,” he assured me. “Nothing of importance happened tonight. My men were told specifically—”
“Nothing did happen,” I said, furious because I no longer was. “But something is happening. And if you don’t listen—”
But Mircea wasn’t. He’d pulled me to my feet as we argued and slipped an arm around my waist. And now he started to push his way through the crowd toward the nearest exit.
And then, just as suddenly, started to back up again.
I found myself walking backward, too, unable to control my body’s movements despite the fact that they were the exact opposite of what I wanted to do. I tried to talk but I couldn’t do that, either, except for some garbled sounds that didn’t make sense. For a moment, I panicked, sure I was possessed again—until I caught sight of the drapes.
A minute before, the dark red damask had been a border of flame around the window, embroidered designs standing out harshly against the rapidly darkening fabric, fat tassels writhing as they were quickly consumed. Now the opposite was true. Clean, whole cloth blossomed out of flames that were shrinking, falling back, forming into a ball that flew through the air back to whoever had cast it.
The fleeing crowd was also moving the wrong way, panicked faces streaming away from me as I jumped on the table, jumped off, hit the floor and then was back on my feet, staring at a wide-eyed mage with champagne on his shirt. And then I was in Mircea’s arms, facing the window as if nothing had ever happened. Because it hadn’t yet.
Time juddered and shook, trembling around me for a long second before reversing again. And this time, I didn’t hesitate. I threw off Mircea’s hold and tackled the mage.
We went down in a thrashing heap, my arms around his waist and then his leg when he tried to shake me off. Smoke bloomed around us, harsh and stinging, as he threw something to the ground. But I held on—until a shiny, booted foot caught me upside the face, sending me reeling. But by then Mircea had him by the collar and jerked him up—
And was blasted through the air as if shot out of a cannon.
I didn’t see Mircea hit the wall, recover and launch himself back at our attacker, because it all happened faster than I could blink. But I did see him freeze in the air, midleap, as time shuddered to a halt. At least it did for me, Mircea and everybody else—except the goddamned mage, who shrugged it off like an old coat and bolted into the crowd.
I started after him, pushing hard against the power freezing me in place, but it felt like trying to swim in a river of cold molasses. Time swirled sluggishly all around me, weighing my limbs, slowing my breathing, keeping me back. Away from him. Away from her.
Until I pushed, breaking free in a rush that sent me sprawling into the statuelike crowd, disoriented and breathing hard. A woman toppled over, stiff as a board, her red, red lipstick smearing across the shirt of the man beside her. Another woman teetered back and forth on her high heels, but was unable to fall because of the people pressing her hard on all sides.
They were pressing me, too, but that was a good thing, because they were also slowing down the mage. I could see his blond head bobbing through the crowd, shining under the lights. He was easy to spot, being a good three inches taller than most of the guests and the only one moving. But even if I caught him, I couldn’t take down a crazy dark mage on my own.
And Agnes couldn’t help me. I didn’t know what kind of weird shit was going on with time, but I knew this maneuver. Stopping time was the biggest weapon in the Pythia’s arsenal, a trump card. But it was also a one-shot deal. The only time I’d done it—by accident—it had completely wiped me out for the rest of the day.
And I was a lot younger than Agnes.
It frightened the hell out of me, because she knew the cost better than I did. She wouldn’t have used it if the danger to her or her heir wasn’t acute. But it wouldn’t work this time, and might even backfire. Because if the mage could throw it off, he could hunt them while they thought they were safest, and while she was weakened with her power diverted elsewhere.
I had to follow him, and I had to have help.
And there was only one place to get it.
I looked up to where Mircea was still suspended in the air, amber eyes slitted, staring at the place where the mage no longer was. I grabbed the front of his shirt, the only thing I could reach, and gave a pull. And like a big, Mirceashaped balloon, he floated a little closer to the ground. But he was still frozen, still useless.
It hadn’t worked.
I stood there with tears of pure fury burning in my eyes. I hated the fact that I didn’t know how to use my power, that no matter how much I studied, how much I practiced, what I needed was always something I didn’t know how to do. But if I’d done it once, goddamnit, I could do it again. No stupid mage from some squirrelly little cult was going to beat me at my own damn game.
I fisted my hand in Mircea’s shirt, and fisted my power in the current swirling thickly between us. And pulled.
For a long moment, nothing happened. He didn’t even move toward me this time, not an inch. But while he wasn’t moving in space, he was moving through something. Because I could feel the resistance dragging on him, tugging him back, wanting to fix him in place while I was doing my best to yank him out of it.
It was unbelievably difficult, far harder than it had been in my own case. I started to shake, and sweat broke out on my face, and for a second, I almost lost him. It was like time was slippery and he was oiled, and along with the sheer physical strain was the stress of keeping my wobbly grip. But I could feel time peeling away from him, layer after layer, as if he were shedding some kind of strange skin.
And then suddenly I was hitting the floor, with a hundred and eighty pounds of freaked-out vampire on top of me.
Mircea jumped back to his feet and then ducked into a crouch as I lay there, panting and half-sick. God damn, that had sucked. He seemed to think so, too, because he was staring around, minus his usual sangfroid. Mahogany silk whipped around his face as he took in the motionless crowd, the frozen clouds of smoke and a glass that had been caught midfall a few feet away, the contents spilling out like a champagne waterfall.
He put out a tenuous hand and touched it, and then jerked back when it wet his fingers. He looked at me, dark eyes wide. “What did you do?” he asked in wonder.
