And then I was shifting—
Nowhere, because Gertie slammed me back into place before I could.
Damn it, she was crazy! They were all freaking crazy and I should never have brought my acolyte anywhere near this place. She was going to get killed!
But she wasn’t going down without a fight. Rhea snapped out of her shock and started throwing spells, so rapid fire that I could barely keep up. And, clearly, Agnes felt the same. But then, she didn’t need to.
She’d thrown up a time shield, a nifty little thing that I was still working on, because it was a damned difficult spell. It was also damned useful, however, as it aged out of existence anything sent at you. That included both conventional weapons as well as spell fire, as Rhea was discovering.
So she changed tactics, blasting the ground at Agnes’ feet instead, causing dirt and pavers to explode upward and a sizeable hole to appear underneath the other girl. Agnes lost her footing and her spell wobbled. But before it could fall, she’d shifted, popping out of existence right before Rhea’s latest spell tore through the air, and materializing behind her.
“No!” I yelled, my voice almost lost in the sound of spell fire hitting the far wall of the courtyard.
But Rhea heard me.
And I guess Agnes did, too, because when I burst out of the door, Agnes laughed delightedly and threw a spell my way that I brushed aside, sending it plowing into the dirt, and causing a weed patch to spring out of the ground, waist high.
But I didn’t dodge the second one. A shift caught me, halfway through a step, at almost the same time that Agnes’s spell hit down. But it hadn’t been thrown by her.
I had a half second to see Rhea’s desperate face, her out flung hand, her widened eyes as she realized what she’d done and tried to pull it back—
But it was too late.
And then the garden winked out and I materialized somewhere in the air above the Thames.
Way above, I realized, as gravity caught me.
Well, shiiiiiiiiit.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I cracked open the door.
There was no light and the curtains were drawn, so I wasn’t sure anyone was even in there. But then a lamp flicked on, shedding a small glow around a girl in a bed. She was in my favorite pose lately, with her knees drawn up and her chin tucked down, sitting by the headboard. A little lump of an acolyte who looked like she’d seen better days.
Way better.
“Can I come in?” I asked softly.
I got what I thought was a nod, so I slipped through the opening and closed the door behind me. It was dinnertime, and everyone else was downstairs in the big dining room, where I hoped they’d stay. I schlepped over to the bed, dressed in one of Gertie’s old nightgowns and a robe that was far too big for me. But it was better than the still damp, used-to-be-white gown that I’d shifted back in.
Gertie had dosed me on arrival with half a dozen potions, after she realized where I’d been, and had threatened several more. Why London had what was essentially a petri dish of plague running through the city was beyond me, but it wasn’t my main concern. Rhea was.
“You should have let me go,” she said, after I’d put the tray I was holding onto the bedside table.
“Go where?”
Her hair had fallen over her face, but I could see glimpses of a tear stained, anguished countenance that made me want to hug her. But I somehow got the idea that that wouldn’t be welcome. Her shoulders were tight, and the hand that gripped the blankets was white knuckled.
I got up again and moved the lamp over slightly, so that I could fix us some tea. Personally, I’d have preferred another beer, but it seemed that Rhea had filched the last of the cook’s supply earlier, and there wasn’t any more. So, tea it was.
I handed her a mug. The room was cold, winter having snuck back in after dark, so it served as handwarmer and a tea holder all at the same time. I made myself one as well and sat on the edge of the bed.
For a while, we just drank tea.
“This stuff really does make things better,” I finally said. “Like life can’t be all that bad if you have tea and shortbread.”
I offered her a plate of the latter, because she was currently missing dinner, but she shook her head. So I ate one myself. I discovered that they tasted pretty good dunked in tea, especially milky tea, and ended up eating two more.