“What do you want from me?” I asked simply.
“Something I never thought I’d say to any woman. But from now on, whatever happens, keep your hands off my son!”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Sometime later—maybe an hour, maybe more, because who could tell in here?—the same story was repeating itself. And I was considering going mad. “Gertie! Gertie!”
“Do you have to yell?” Rosier asked sourly.
“Yes! Don’t you get it?”
“Not really. Enlighten me.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No! I don’t want— God!” I put my head in my hands, fisted my still-damp curls, smelled the smoke that clung to them. Smoke from another time and place, a place where I’d had him. All I’d had to do was hold on to him, and I couldn’t even do that. And now I couldn’t get back, and if I didn’t . . .
“No,” I said, because Rosier was just sitting there, looking at me out of those weird eyes. “No, I don’t want another conversation. I don’t want to be told to calm down. I don’t need to calm down. I need to get out of here!”
“Yes, you do.”
“How?”
“What do we know?” It was crisp. And despite the squeaky quality of the voice, it sounded vaguely like Pritkin when the shit hit the fan. It should have made me feel better, but for some reason it only made me miss him more.
“That’s the pr
oblem,” I snapped. “We don’t know shit!”
“On the contrary, we know a great deal more than we did. Although I’m not sure how much it helps us in here—”
“Then it doesn’t help us!”
There was a sudden silence.
“I’m sorry,” I said, after a moment. “I’m panicking, and I know I don’t get to do that.”
Rosier gave a laugh, and strangely enough, it sounded genuine. I guessed when you’d lived as long as he had, you developed a weird sense of humor. Except about giant hellhounds and twenty-story drops and murderous fey.
And crazy exes.
I wanted to ask about Morgaine but didn’t think this was the time. “You’ve had a day, too, haven’t you?” I asked, instead.
“I’ve had worse.” He looked at me narrowly. “Have you?”
“I . . . don’t know.” The days were kind of running together lately. I got up, I chased Pritkin through time, crazy things happened, I fell into bed—or whatever passed for it wherever I was. The next day, I got up and did it all again. It had sort of become my job description.
But it wouldn’t be for much longer.
It wouldn’t be tomorrow.
“If anyone ever had reason to panic, I think we qualify,” Rosier told me. “But there’s no such thing as an impregnable prison. If there’s a way in, there’s a way out. And, as I was about to say, we do know two things that apply here.”
I ran a hand over my eyes. “What?”
“I can’t shift out, and neither can you.”