Although that was preferable to what looked like a giant fist made out of air, the outline formed from twigs and debris, which plunged into the water just behind us. It threw us off our feet and almost caused us to get jerked up when it reversed course. But one of my doubles went flying instead, like a blow-up doll caught in a hurricane.
And was ripped apart a second later, exploding far overhead, like a firework made out of steam.
I stared upward, caught between terror and more terror, and seriously considered shifting. But before I could, Green Fey flooded the scene, what had to be two or three dozen of them, running across the grass-turned-lake-turned-battlefield, not attacking the Blue Fey or helping us, but getting terribly, terribly in the way.
The wind stopped, I guessed because the king, while perfectly happy to make mincemeat out of us, was unwilling to do the same to a bunch of his fellow fey. Especially when their queen had a vicious temper and was in a murderous mood already. And, anyway, he didn’t need to.
It wasn’t like we had anywhere to go.
Except back under.
Another wave hit, and before I had a chance to take a breath, or even to close my mouth, we were underwater again. And swimming for all we were worth. And slogging through the grasses at the edge of the brand-new lake. And emerging, not as Cassie and Pritkin, but as two waterlogged Blue Fey, our gorgeous attire ruined, our blond hair straggling around our faces, just like the half dozen others also wading ashore.
Every single one of which was being met by another fey, like the one who stepped in front of us. He must have been a new arrival, because his uniform was dry—and fancy, with gold embroidery in a design I didn’t understand but that Pritkin apparently did. Because he stopped abruptly.
The officer—at a guess—took a look at the arm Pritkin had slung around my waist, to help support me, and his eyes narrowed. He said something I couldn’t hear, because I had water in my ears as well as my lungs. Until I went into a coughing fit, and they popped.
“—half-drowned,” Pritkin was saying. “Getting him to a healer.”
The officer looked at me some more, and I attempted to look half-drowned.
It wasn’t difficult.
It also wasn’t enough.
Wind blew up around us a second later, like a miniature cyclone that caused my hair to flutter and my heart to pound. But it wasn’t like before; it wasn’t an attack—at least not yet. More like being caught in an oversized hair dryer.
But whatever it was, Pritkin didn’t like it. I heard him swear, and then saw him throw out a hand. And as quickly as it had blown in, the little gale died. Leaving me staring around, my nose running, my half-dried hair stuck to my face—and the officer looking far more relaxed.
“May I get him to a healer now?” Pritkin demanded, the words more polite than the tone.
But he wasn’t rebuked. “We were told to check. Go.”
We went, stumbling through the debris of the market, and up a path by the shore, trying to keep to the grassy edge to avoid leaving muddy footprints in our wake. Because we would be. The Green Fey’s illusions, like much of the rest of their magic, seemed to involve water in some way, and we were losing ours.
Fast.
I looked down to see skinny, freckled arms and rough, wet wool, instead of muscles and velvet. Pritkin still had his illusion, complete with cape, which he threw around me to hide my very un-fey-like features. But it wouldn’t last for long. Beads of water dotted the “cloak” and stuck to his “skin,” like his whole body was sweating.
And then I saw a young bearded man gesturing furiously from inside a tent.
It was across a dirt path from the riverbank, where dozens of sheets and articles of clothing had been laid out in the sun to dry. And where a young woman was whacking the hell out of some more piled up on a rock with a wooden paddle. We headed for the tent, crossing the path and dripping in the dirt, leaving an obvious trail behind us.
Until the man turned over a tub of water, spilling it everywhere. “Mallt!” he called.
A woman in a neighboring tent, older, plumper, and surrounded by children, nodded. And sent the bevy of kids out into the path, churning up the mud, and adding dozens of footprints to our own. And then running up the street, laughing and playing, and hindering a group of fey coming this way.
The tent flap closed behind us, and what looked like a skin of water splashed the dirt at our feet. Pritkin, now back to normal, went to his haunches, head down, breathing hard. And looking like he might pass out.
But he didn’t get a chance.
“Under here,” the man told me. “Quickly!”
We crawled under a table strewn with dirty clothes, some hanging off the sides, waiting their turn for a wash. Baskets heaped with more were quickly shoved in front of us. And then the tent flap was pulled open again, leaving me peering out from between pieces of soiled laundry at the little bit of street I could see.
“Damn fey,” the man muttered. “You’d think it was their town!”
“They think it is their town,” the woman said, coming in. She was red-haired and red-faced from exertion, and picked a fussy carrot-topped baby out of a basket. “They say they protect it—”