“Consider them attractive grenades,” he said, glaring in the direction of the mall.
“Grenades? But grenades are weapons—”
“Brilliant observation.”
“What kind of weapons?”
“What do you mean, what kind? The lethal kind!”
He jerked on his arm, but I didn’t let go. “Like the ones you’ve been working on for the Circle?”
He looked at me in exasperation. “What else do you think I have that could handle something like this?”
“Handle it how?”
“Would you let me go?”
“Handle it how?” I repeated, because I’d seen what one of those weapons could do.
The only way to end the war was to invade Faerie, where the leaders of the group trying to bring back the gods had holed up. But for all its skill, the Silver Circle balked at the idea of fighting a war in another world, partly because they didn’t know enough about it, but mainly because their magic didn’t work there. Augustine’s did.
Being part fey and famously creative had put him on the list to make some of the weapons needed to fight a literal war of the worlds, and he had delivered. I knew this because one of my bodyguards had recently stumbled across a spell that hadn’t made it to the finished stage. Yet it had still been almost enough to kill a master vampire.
And if it could kill one of those, it could kill anything.
“We’re in a hotel full of people,” I reminded him.
“Security has probably evacuated them by now—”
“In a couple of minutes?”
“The drag is clear,” the Oracle guy said, from a chewed-up black wad on the floor, where I guessed Deino had spat it out. “The hotel employees scattered like rats off a sinking ship once they realized what was happening—”
“They’ve had plenty of practice,” Augustine muttered.
“—and security dragged off the few tourists who were up this early. We think it will work, lady.”
“And if any of that gets into the air-conditioning system?” I looked at Augustine, who didn’t look back. “Can you absolutely guarantee me it won’t kill everyone in the hotel?”
“They’re going to kill everyone in the hotel!” he snarled, gesturing at the army outside. “Or hadn’t you noticed?”
“The Circle will be here soon,” Carla said, biting her lip. And looking at her child, who was crouched beside her, watching everything with bright eyes. I would have expected the girl to be sobbing in fear, but it looked like she had her mother’s resiliency.
Which was
ironic, considering that her mother appeared to have lost it.
Carla looked at me. “They will be here,” she said again, as if waiting for me to confirm it. To tell her that I saw us all getting out of this, her and the child she suddenly clutched against her side. “They will!”
“Maybe, but not in a few minutes,” Augustine said. “Twenty, and that’s if we’re lucky—”
“Twenty?”
“That’s what they told Françoise. They have to get across town, and they have to assemble a force first,” he said, glancing up. And noticing the desperate grip she had on the girl. “Although . . . although perhaps they can shave a few minutes off that,” he finished weakly.
“But the Pythia is here! Half the senate is here—”
“Not at the moment. They’re in New York,” I told her, trying to think.