AllFreeNovel
Share Us
We hit the floor, and it hurt, because Pritkin is mostly muscle and he weighs a lot. And because my head clipped the edge of the nightstand on the way down. And because his shields snapped closed so hard and fast that they cut off an inch of my hair. Which promptly fell into my eyes.
But that didn’t seem to matter so much if we were about to be blown to pieces by . . .
By a grenade that was taking its own sweet time, I thought, as seconds ticked by and nothing happened. Except for Pritkin’s heart beating loud in my ear, because I was squashed underneath him, with my head squeezed between his chest and the floor. To the point that I couldn’t . . . hardly . . .
“Air,” I squawked, and Pritkin raised himself up slightly.
And as soon as he did, I realized what was making the objectionable whine.
“The Star is universally considered to be the most beautiful card in the tarot,” a small voice said reproachfully, from above my head. Where it was protruding out of the elusive tarot deck. Which was now sticking out of an impact point on the wall. And squealing as seventy-eight cards simultaneously registered their disapproval at their rough treatment.
Pritkin lifted his head to stare at them. And then he looked back down at me. And then he crawled off a few feet and sat on the carpet, and put his head in his hands.
“Sorry,” I said breathlessly, as the cards continued to mutter to themselves.
Pritkin didn’t say anything.
That was okay. That was good. I needed a moment.
And a bath, I realized, as I lifted an arm to brush the fringe of severed hair out of my eyes. It wasn’t only Pritkin’s boots that were smelling up the place. I sat there, mortified, unable to believe I’d fallen asleep like this. “Is anything going to kill me if I use your bathroom?” I finally asked.
“Knowing you?” Pritkin’s voice was muffled since he hadn’t raised his head.
I frowned. “Is that a yes?”
A couple of fingers came up to massage his temple. “That is a no. Assuming you didn’t bring anything deadly along with you.”
“Just dirt,” I said, realizing the extent of it. I was going to have a hard enough time explaining this without looking like I’d been spelunking in the Bat Cave. “I’m going to get a shower,” I told him.
Pritkin didn’t react to this, so I scampered off to the minuscule bath Dante’s allowed its regular guests, which was about the size of my toilet cubbyhole upstairs.
Shit. Upstairs. Where the younger me was presumably hanging out and doing . . . well, whatever I’d been doing three weeks ago.
That was the first time Pritkin had taken me hiking on some god-awful mountain trail in the foothills of the Rockies. The Corps, the official name for the war mage branch of the Circle, used it as a training ground. It had been a memorable experience, mainly because it had rained the night before, turning the whole mountain into a massive mud pit.
Pritkin had made me run the trail anyway.
Of course.
The only good thing was that I’d twisted an ankle near the end, when I fell over a tree root, and had milked it for three days off the hellish workouts. Judging by the state of his boots, this was the first of those days, since I didn’t think he would leave them sitting around for long in that condition. Meaning that maybe Pritkin wouldn’t be going upstairs, and I wasn’t in as bad a mess as I’d originally thought.
Well, assuming I could come up with a reason for breaking into his room looking like a war refugee. The tee, what parts the bricks hadn’t shredded, was streaked with soot, my jeans looked like I’d been auditioning for a role as a chimney sweep, and my hair—what I had left—was dirty and sleep-matted. Not to mention that I had that pale look I always got when I skipped meals.
A siren I wasn’t.
I scowled at myself, wondering where that thought had come from. But it might not matter. For a guy who was so observant about other things, Pritkin never seemed to notice what I looked like.
Knuckles rapped on the door, loud enough to make me jump. “I’m going out.”
I opened it a crack and stuck my head through, since the rest of me wasn’t decent. “Why?” I asked, worried.
“To get some breakfast. What do you want?”
“How do you know I haven’t eaten already?”
He just looked at me.
“Does it have to be healthy?”
