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I looked back up at the fey. They never showed that nonexpression in the fairy-tale books, even the ones I’d had as a child, which had contained the grimmer version of the Brothers Grimm. They always had the—suitably ugly—villains snarling or glowering or slavering, filled with hate or malice. When the truth was, most of the ones I’d met were like the guy who mugged you in an alley and shot you even though it was too dark to see his face.
Because why take the chance?
As if in answer, another spear flashed into the fey’s hand, but this time, for the first time, it didn’t make me afraid.
It made me furious.
“You want this?” I grabbed the staff out from under the smaller fey’s butt, where it had somehow ended up. And then stood back up and screamed across the void, “You want this?”
“You can’t mean to give it back to them,” Pritkin said, his voice tight. “They’ll kill us anyway—”
“Like hell I’m giving it back!” I yelled, not because I expected pointy ears to hear me. I could barely hear myself over the crash and roar of the falls. But right then I couldn’t seem to do anything else. “I’m thinking maybe I’ll just break it. Is that what we want to have happen here?”
And I guessed not. Because the fey suddenly found something else to do with that energy spear, which melted back into his skin. His eyes met mine across the void, completely expressionless. But then they slowly slid over to the staff.
And, oh yeah. He wanted it all right. He wanted it bad.
So picking us off wasn’t going to work with one of us holding it. Not unless he was willing to lose it, too. And it didn’t look like he was.
“It’s mine now,” I told him. “Consider it compensation for what you assholes have put me through!”
“Ohshit,” Pritkin said urgently, like maybe that wasn’t how you were supposed to talk to mighty fey warriors.
And no, I thought, probably not. And then I thought, fuck the fey. What were they going to do? Kill me twice?
I suddenly felt like laughing. “Everybody wants to kill me!” I told them. “Every-damned-body I know, for years. But, oh, look. Still here! Guess I must be doing something right, huh?”
Pritkin was starting to look concerned, like he thought maybe I’d been hitting the bottle earlier. And it sort of felt like that, too. Giddy and strange and terrified and brazen, all at the same time. A whole crapload of fey warriors had been chasing a powerless Pythia and a not-ready-for-prime-time mage for what, most of an hour? So why weren’t we dead?
“You suck!” I yelled, suddenly laughing, because why the hell not? “I know vampires who would have had me dead and drained and my scalp on their goddamned belt by now, and what are you doing? Nothing. You’re doing nothing! Because you know, don’t you?” I held the precious stick over the edge of the boat, just to watch the fey flinch. “If I let go, think you’ll ever find it again?”
“Oh shit.” Pritkin sounded strangled. “That is priceless. And unique. And completely, completely irreplaceable.”
“Guess that means he just lost, then, doesn’t it?” I said, watching the fey. Whose eyes had never left the stick but whose fist suddenly clenched.
Aaaaaand okay, maybe those ears worked better than I’d thought. Because a whole line of fey suddenly appeared on the rocks, like they’d condensed out of the mist. And then broke, with no command I could hear, half of them staying put so we couldn’t go back the way we’d come, and half moving like lightning for the rocky cliff beside the fall.
Because there was one, black as obsidian and worn mostly smooth from years of rivulets and constant fine spray. It looked like a death trap to me, but the parkour kings seemed to be navigating it like the rock wall at the gym.
The kiddie wall.
And it looked like we had ourselves a race, boys and girls. Which would have been fine, since it beat like hell being barbecued in place. There was just one small problem.
The fey on the waterfall started lobbing spears at us.
Okay, two small problems.
And then we fell.
Pritkin grabbed me, I grabbed the nearest troll, and he grabbed his buddy, who was still caught underneath the slats that formed the seats. Caught, but not liking it, not liking it one bit, and looking like he wanted to be anywhere else but here, which, yeah. And he was thrashing and we were falling and then the fey’s spear flashed by overhead, almost setting my hair on fire.
Well, at least I know how to get down now, I thought insanely, right before we caught again.
The trapped troll froze, halfway through a punch, and looked around, his eyes huge. And then got very, very still, as if he understood
that he’d done something to screw with the spell. But he obviously didn’t know what. And that meant he couldn’t control it, which was a problem since the fey clearly thought we could.
That explained the barrage, which was falling on the far side of us like a glowing cage, to keep us from escaping and to drive us closer to the cliff. They weren’t trying to hit us; they couldn’t afford to hit us. But maybe that wasn’t entirely apparent to someone without a great vantage point.
