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“I led . . .” If possible, he looked even more outraged than usual. “You kidnapped me—”
“A trap that almost got me killed!”
“I didn’t know what Rian was going to do!”
“So you say. But there’s nothing but your word for it, is there? Help me now and I’ll vouch for you with Mircea.”
“You—Dios!” he spat. Followed by a lot of things in Spanish that probably weren’t complimentary as we came as close to the floor as we were going to get.
And then he jumped. But I didn’t get a chance to see how or where he landed. Because without his extra weight, the yo-yo effect became more like a slingshot.
The ride up was a terrifying blur, the jump from my perch onto Pritkin’s rug was worse, and then I was screaming and Pritkin was cursing and Rosier was stabbing—a guard and not me, for a wonder—and I was shifting—
And going nowhere.
“Get him out of here!” Rosier growled, grabbing my arm. “Do it now!”
I stared at him, desperately trying over and over to do just that. But all I felt was the metaphysical equivalent of grinding gears. Hauling four people through three worlds had left me as dry as the sand that had finally tapered off, after depositing a few dozen more guards on the rooftops of the fake ghost town around us. Rosier must have managed to pick up every damned one off the hillside as he passed, and we couldn’t fight them all.
A view he seemed to share. “If you’ve cost me my son, girl—”
“Stiff-necked pride did that years ago,” Pritkin said, knocking his father’s hand away. “Yours and mine. This is not her fight!”
“She’s made it hers! She insists on making it hers!” Rosier snarled, and the hand was back, this time around my throat. A pair of green eyes, so like his son’s but so different, burned into mine. “Shift him now!”
But I couldn’t shift him, couldn’t access my power at all, and there was no time for recovery. Because the Allû had decided that the knife-throwing act they were doing wasn’t working, and had started throwing themselves instead. One flipped off a roof to the right, bounced off Caleb’s rug, and then used the momentum to keep right on going, through the air and straight across the drag to a building on the other side.
And in his wake, he left a bloody line across Pritkin’s stomach, where his sword would have gutted him if war mage reflexes were a little less sharp.
But that wouldn’t help for long. More than a dozen guards were massing along the roofline, about to overwhelm us with numbers. And it was too late for anything but screaming as they jumped—
And went flying backward, like a bomb had been set off in front of them.
Pritkin’s and Rosier’s voices had risen together in a spell that not only saved us, but cleared the other rug, as well. Caleb had hit the carpet at the last second, and now stared up, looking both surprised and vastly relieved. He’d been battling two of the creatures alone, and it hadn’t been going great.
But then, neither was this. Because they’d be back. And I didn’t think we’d last long with the air full of deadly blades kamikazied straight to their target by a bunch of immortal warriors.
And I guessed Rosier didn’t, either.
Some of the Allû were still falling when he muttered something low and harsh and vicious, with enough power behind it to make the hairs on my neck stand up.
But that would have been fine; that would have been awesome.
If it had actually done anything.
“Was that supposed to help?” I asked as Rosier and Pritkin stared at each other blankly.
And then Rosier tried again, and this time, the power of his words prickled across my skin almost painfully. And kept right on prickling until Pritkin shot out a hand and grabbed his father’s arm. “They aren’t coming!”
“They have to,” Rosier said, looking almost comically indignant. “I’m a member of the council!”
“The same one that’s preventing you from shifting back to court?” Pritkin asked acidly.
“Tha
t’s not them; it’s her,” Rosier said, gesturing at me. “She wants to force my hand—”
“Are you mad? She doesn’t have that kind of power!”
