And who wasn’t looking so good. The strong, vibrant woman I’d seen last time was gone. She looked pale, defeated, and more than a little ill. And that was before she suddenly collapsed.
The crowd reacted before the fey did, with a rumble of surprised distress and an unconscious surge forward. One that had the soldiers shouting again and pushing back. And people falling and getting trampled, and chaos threatening to break out.
Until another blast of trumpets shivered through the air, and a mass of horses and riders burst out of the walled town.
The soldiers on crowd control were dressed in rough woolen tunics, crude leather belts and leggings—in short, like everyone else, except for iron helmets. But the men galloping toward us wore finely wrought bronze armor that looked like fish scales and gleamed ruddily in the late-afternoon sun. And blazingly white tunics and crimson capes, embellished with a bright red dragon.
My companion suddenly surged to his feet, excited in a way he hadn’t been over magic ships or fey queens. He stood on the branch to get a better view, his eyes gleaming. “The king!” he shouted. “It’s the king!”
The cry was taken up by the crowd, loud enough to shake the leaves around us. And a second later, I saw him, too, the blond-haired king from the mirror at the head of the riders. Ones he didn’t need, because the crowd parted before him like the tide.
He paused next to Nimue, but only to pull the unconscious woman—his half sister, I realized—onto his horse. Other horses had been brought for the queen and her entourage, but Arthur didn’t wait for them to mount. As soon as the princess was secure, he turned and spurred back the way he’d come, the crowd surging and cheering, the soldiers shoving and fighting, and me just sitting there, silently.
Because, for once, fate had done me a favor.
I didn’t know where to find Johanna, and if she continued to phase instead of using the Pythian power, that wasn’t likely to change. But it didn’t need to. Because I might not know where she was, but I knew what she wanted.
And the last time I’d seen it, it had been in the princess’ hand.
I looked around one more time for Rosier, but there was virtually no chance to locate him in all this. I’d gotten him here; I was going to have to trust that his knowledge of the city would be enough to help him find his son. I had to talk to the princess, which meant that I had to get in that castle.
I started looking for a way to get down from the tree.
And then somebody grabbed me.
Chapter Forty-eight
I jerked my head around, hoping to see blond hair and green eyes—and I did. Just not the right ones. I found myself staring at a stunningly beautiful face: perfect masculine features, flashing emerald eyes, hair like captured sunlight. And sculpted lips that curved in a vicious little smile.
A fey, I thought in confusion.
A Blarestri fey, judging from the blue velvet jerkin.
A Blarestri fey king who wanted his staff back, and oh, shit.
The green eyes abruptly darkened, from emerald to jade, and the fingers on my arm dug into the flesh. “I know what you are,” he hissed. “I know what you did.”
Well, that makes one of us, I thought, a little hysterically. Because the way I remembered it, he’d won our last encounter. He’d shoved me through a roof, into a group of Pythias, who had promptly sent me back home. Leaving him with the staff, which he’d decided to lend to Pritkin, and why was that on me?
But I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything. Because a knife had just flashed into his hand, between one blink and the next, and the words died in my throat.
Which meant that my mouth was closed when a bucket of eel guts was dumped on his head.
“Go!” the boy told me, and jumped into the furious crowd, many of whom had just gotten splattered, too.
Good idea, I thought, and hit the ground on the other side of the limb, scrabbling away on hands and knees.
Thankfully, Nimue’s group had just departed, spurring their horses toward the castle, and thus ending the crowd’s interest in the docks. So everybody was swarming back this way. And I do mean everybody. I was almost trampled a dozen times, along with being knocked about, pushed, and yelled at, none of which mattered because I was back on my feet, I was darting through the crowd, I was—
Getting jerked back against the torso of an incredibly powerful, incredibly bloody, incredibly pissed-off ancient being.
And then someone tried to burn us to death.
The king let go, the crowd scattered, people yelled. And I stared up at a mass of fluttering flames, dancing overhead. Flames that resolved themselves into birds, small ones with fiery wings, molten eyes, and bodies that flung a cascade of sparks—
Mostly behind me, I realized, as they swarmed through the air in a vicious arc that never once touched me. But which threw the equivalent of a wall of fire between me and the king. I spun in time to see Caedmon enveloped by flapping flame, and looking like he hadn’t expected that, either.
And then someone grabbed my hand.