He shut up. But his eyes were wide and he was drinking in the whole scene, from the battle still raging in the background, to the half dozen girls in white fanning out in all directions, to the half-naked demon lord headed this way, until he saw the girls. And abruptly turned and pelted the other way instead, flashing pasty buns as his speed kicked up his shirttail behind him.
And the golden fey, who was suddenly right on top of us.
The only hint I had was a flash of gold to the left, but my nerves were so keyed up that it might as well have been a neon sign. I rolled and threw at the same time, and froze one of those damned energy bolts three inches from my chest. And then tried to scramble out from under it and almost fell off the roof.
Pritkin
caught me, his mouth hanging open in shock, and God, this wasn’t the plan, this wasn’t the plan, this wasn’t the goddamned plan! It also wasn’t the sort of thing you just forgot, sixth century or no. But dealing with what Pritkin had seen was going to have to wait because I was having a crisis and couldn’t seem to breathe, and then I was gasping and choking, and scrambling back, away from the damned flaming spear and the bastard who had thrown it and even Pritkin, because fuck this! Fuck all this!
I grabbed the decorative curlicue on the front of the roof, and held on, my chest heaving. I honestly thought I might be having a heart attack.
Pritkin reached out for me again, after a moment, but I batted his hand away. Which was stupid; we might have to shift again, assuming I was able, which frankly didn’t feel too likely right now, but sooner or later somebody was going to look up. The only reason we hadn’t been found already was the amount of magic flying around, which was raising my hair like electricity and shaking the air around me and making my little contribution seem almost irrelevant.
Or maybe I was the one that was shaking. I couldn’t tell; I couldn’t tell. Reaction was setting in, and no, no, no, Cassie! You don’t get to do this yet. You get to do this after. But my nerves had decided to take a vacation early and, oh yeah, now I was shaking. And crying, not for any reason, not because I was hurt—well, that badly—but because I had to do something and that was what my body seemed to have decided on.
I bit my lip and looked away from Pritkin, who seemed kind of at a loss, which, yeah. And stared around, tears making tracks in the dirt on my face and splashing onto the dirt on my hands and God, now my nose was running. I put up a hand to wipe away that indignity at least, all while telling myself to think, to think, to get it together and think—
And then I stopped.
Not frozen, not spelled, but feeling sort of like it.
Because the golden fey was watching me.
I stared at him, and he stared back. I thought at first that it was just a trick of the light, the golden glow of his frozen spear gleaming in his eyes. But no. The pupils expanded as he looked at me, and then they slid over to the side and looked at Pritkin.
And no. No, he didn’t get to do that. I’d just frozen him, and in my panic I’d thrown everything I had, which was a lot, which was a whole lot, because I was still hyped up on an entire bottle of the world’s rarest potion. That was why I was sitting here shaking with fear and exhaustion and bawling like a baby. It was the reaction that usually came with freezing time, times a couple of exponential points because of my life. But while that little trick might wipe me out, it does something else, too, and stops goddamned time.
So how was he looking at me?
And then he wasn’t just looking.
A finger twitched.
I stared at it, trying to convince myself that I was seeing things, that it was a trick of the light being reflected off the burning trees.
But then it happened again.
“G-give him the staff,” I told Pritkin.
But Pritkin was shaking his head.
“Give him the damned staff!”
“I can’t.”
“Just give it to him, and maybe this will all be over. Maybe . . . he’ll let us go?”
I made the last into a question, and looked back at the fey, who was definitely following this. But he couldn’t move, not yet, so I didn’t know if he agreed or was just waiting for another chance to kill us. But I knew how I voted, ’cause all the light fey seemed to be crazy, murdering bastards, but it was still worth a shot.
Only Pritkin didn’t seem to think so.
“I can’t,” he repeated, his fingers closing on it.
“Would you like to explain why?” I asked pleasantly.
Pritkin swallowed. But his eyes were steady on mine when he replied, “The Svarestri were taking this to court. They must have been. There’s no other reason they would have been on that road.”
“So?”