It looked like that damned bubble had taken everything she had.
Luckily, that wasn’t true for me. Because she spied the flying mage’s dropped weapon a second later, and grabbed it. But nothing grabbed her back, because the wards still weren’t targeting the acolytes! So I had to—with a shift that sent her out the same window as the burning man, only she wasn’t burning.
She was falling.
Because Agnes’ rooms were three stories up, and she hadn’t managed to grab the balcony in the half second she’d been beside it.
I was still staring after her, panting with effort and disbelief, when Rhea started screaming. “Lady! Lady!”
My head jerked around to see her holding on to the slumped body of the old war mage, trying to drag him toward me and to wrestle with the auburn-haired acolyte at the same time. It wasn’t working, because the mage appeared to be a dead weight. And because the acolyte had just gotten a knife against Rhea’s throat.
Suddenly, it seemed like everything quieted down. It didn’t; my peripheral vision still showed me cowering mages and shooting wards and acolytes keeping their distance, because they didn’t know how much juice I had left. For that matter, neither did I, but it was going to be enough. It was going to be enough to age her out of existence if she didn’t let go of my acolyte right fucking now.
And then the door slammed open and what looked like a whole platoon of war mages ran in, and I guessed they were ours. Because the auburn-haired witch looked from me to them to the mages in between. And made the executive decision to cover her ass.
“Kill them! They attacked us!” She pointed at her former allies, who had a half second to realize they’d been sold out before the war mages did what war mages do best.
And then Rhea got shoved at me, along with the old man she was still supporting. I didn’t understand why, until the redhead smiled. And tossed the knife even as I grabbed for them, a casual arc of silver in the low light, traced by the bright flash of a ward that didn’t know me, didn’t know me at all. Except as someone unfamiliar who was about to have a weapon.
Only I didn’t.
Because by the time it landed, we were sprawling in the middle of my foyer at Dante’s, me and Rhea and an old man pouring blood from a wound held together only by his own gory hand. While the other was pressing something hard and blood warm into my palm, something I couldn’t see because the gnarled fist had captured mine, the grip surprisingly strong. “Don’t let them—”
“It’s all right,” I said, clutching him, my head spinning from the shift, while Rhea scrambled to her feet and ran for help that was already bursting out of the suite. “You’re safe—”
“No! No one’s safe. Don’t let them . . .” He cut off, blood filling his mouth and choking off his voice.
“Get Marco,” someone said.
“He’s asleep—” Someone else.
“I know that! Go get him!”
The old mage grasped the front of my shirt, pulling me down. “Don’t—”
“Get him up. Get him off her,” someone said.
“Leave him alone.” That was Rhea.
“We need to get him to a doctor—”
“No, we don’t,” she said softly.
I stared down into watery blue eyes. The man was fading, and he knew it. His hand slid down my shirt, falling to the floor, but his eyes never left mine, although I doubted he could see me anymore.
“Get back,” I told the circle of staring men. “Trust me,” I told the mage, trying to sound confident when my hands were unsteady and my breathing was labored, and when I went to wipe the sweat off my brow, I streaked myself with his blood like war paint.
“Cassie—” Someone gripped my shoulder.
I looked up and spied Rico in the doorway. “Get them back.”
He didn’t ask why. But he must have done something. Because a moment later, I and the old man were alone in a widening stain of red, vividly bright against all that cool marble.
I laid him gently on the floor. “It’s all right,” I told him. “I’ve done this before.”
I don’t know if he heard, much less believed me. But the time bubble I summoned popped into existence around him a second later, as pure and perfect as I could have wished, something that had my breath going out in a trembling sigh. Because I hadn’t half believed it myself.
But it had worked. And like a similar one I’d accidentally conjured up a few days ago, it almost immediately began to have an effect. Gray hair lightened with streaks of red, papery skin turned firm and blushed with health, gnarled finger bones straightened and lengthened, back to more youthful versions, age spots receded into nothingness.