I let out a very shaky, very relieved breath.
“I—I don’t think—” I began, only to be cut off by several loud thumps from overhead, and the sensation of the cage suddenly dipping.
Rosier’s head jerked up. “What was that?”
I didn’t answer. I just sat there, remembering that there had been six possible futures, not five. But I’d freaked out before I made it to the last one. Not that it mattered, I thought, looking up. I’d even thought that she’d be right on top of us.
I just hadn’t meant it literally.
“What is happening?” Rosier yelled, as the solid wood overhead crumbled away in a large patch, hundreds of years of decay taking place in seconds. It was on his side, near the door, probably because Gertie didn’t want to risk aging one of the women, and was big enough for a head and shoulders to fit through. Maybe a whole body if she didn’t try it herself.
And she didn’t, although why she didn’t, I wasn’t sure.
It wasn’t like I had any options left.
Well, except for one.
“Tell your demon to stand down,” she told me. “Or I will kill it.”
Rosier looked upward, his face bewildered, and then at me. Stand down? he mouthed.
“And if I do, what then?” I called up, fumbling with my bracelet.
“Then the both of you live to answer for your crimes. Although considering the punishment, you might prefer not to.”
“Unheard?” I asked, jerking a small vial off the dagger-filled chain, which I’d put there like a weird sort of charm, because it was the safest place I knew. “You would kill me without a trial?”
“Your actions have been your trial! How many chances have you been given? How many times have I had to bring you in? If you wanted to talk, you should have done it before—”
“I don’t recall being given a chance,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady as I shuddered through a taste like every vile thing on earth condensed.
“I don’t recall you staying put long enough to use one!”
“If I do this time, will you listen?”
“If you do?” She barked out a laugh. “As if you have a choice!”
“Wrong answer,” I said, and shifted.
Chapter Twenty
A moment later, I was in the same crouch, but no longer in the same place. For a second, I stayed put, disoriented from a shift I wasn’t supposed to be able to make, and from the view. Which looked like I’d just stepped into the heavens.
The waterfall off the wagon had blocked much of the outlook from inside, but there was no such problem here. I could see the vast valley spread out below, the moon riding a wall of purple-black storm clouds above, and the huge arcs of lightning flashing between the two, because the storm still raged beyond the bubble of my spell. And us caught in the middle, rain beating violently against the small time stoppage as if it knew we shouldn’t be here, as if it resented the tiny well of peace in the midst of its fury.
For a split second, despite everything, I just stared.
Like the girl on my left was doing. Her long, dark hair was undisturbed by the gale-force winds that couldn’t touch her, yet her face was shock-pale, her blue eyes staring outward with the same awe that was probably in mine. Because she was young, so very, very young, that this just might be her first time at the rodeo.
It wouldn’t be her last.
Agnes, I thought, my stomach clenching as I looked from her to Gertie, who was bent over, her ample rear in the air as she reached down into the hole on my opposite side.
Leaving me stuck between a Pythia and her heir, with no way to freeze them both.
Especially not when some movement of mine caught Agnes’ attention, and she looked down—