“Which one?”
“The Winter King, they call him. I know what I’d like to call him!”
“Aeslinn?” Pritkin’s grip tightened. “What did he—”
“I’m trying to tell you, aren’t I? Son of a bitch picked a fight, with that crazy-eyed sea witch—”
Someone fell into us, and he broke off, cursing.
“What happened?” Pritkin demanded.
“She got mad,” the tambourinist said.
“What do you think happened?” the tall man yelled. “Now let me go. I’m getting out of here!”
Which, yeah, would be a good plan, I thought, as they swept around us.
Except that we needed the sword, and the sword was up there.
“Is there another way?” I asked Pritkin, who was staring at the stairs-turned-waterfall.
“Not from here. Not without—” He broke off when a slender opening appeared in the throng. “There!”
“Not without what?” I asked, one hand in his, the other protecting my head as we plowed into the fray.
“Not without going back outside,” he yelled to be heard above the din.
And okay, that wasn’t appealing. I could hear the thunder from here, sounding like the whole castle was under siege. And feeling like it, too. The room shook again, people screamed, and the crowd got even crazier. A panicked guy ran into me, and then kept on going like I wasn’t even there, threatening to trample me.
But Pritkin pulled him off and shoved him on his way, and somehow forged us a path up the middle of the stairs. There was less water there, people’s bodies dispersing it to either side, although that changed as we climbed. The people grew fewer, yet the tide seemed to be growing weaker.
No, not weaker, I realized.
Just changed.
I lost my footing and staggered against a wall, my fingers brushing through something hard and cold and crumbly. Which threatened to freeze them in place before I snatched them back. As it was, the pads had wrinkled up and turned faintly white, like frostbite was imminent, even after such a brief contact.
“Pritkin—” I said nervously, forgetting to use the right name, but it didn’t matter.
Because a booming voice overrode mine, magnified by the stairwell. “Not in my house! Not in my hall!”
“Where, then?” a man’s voice demanded. “For I will have recompense—”
“Oh, and in full!” That was a voice I knew: Nimue’s. And sounding furious.
Okay, the waterfall was starting to make more sense now.
Pritkin had crawled up the remaining stairs, to peer out the top. I tried to join him, but the strange frost covered everything. It glittered in the spill of light from above like diamond dust, turning our surroundings into a beautiful, glistening ice cave. But it burned on the slightest contact, like cold fire.
“Here.” Pritkin pulled off his outer tunic and tossed it down to me, and I gratefully put it on. It was damp, but not as much as my own clothes. And better still, it provided a barrier to the frost. I let the sleeves hang over my hands, like makeshift gloves, and crawled up the remaining stairs.
Despite the crowd down below, there were still people in the great hall—a lot of them. And from what I could see, they were all fey. Including someone in the middle of the room, who I saw in glimpses through a forest of legs. Someone wearing elaborate black and silver robes that glittered like starlight. Someone with long silver-white hair, a gleaming circlet on his brow, and eyes like storm clouds.
Someone I’d seen before.
“Their king was the one chasing us through Faerie?” I whispered, but Pritkin didn’t reply. Maybe he didn’t dare, since we were within earshot of the fey. Or maybe he was too busy staring at the woman facing off with Aeslinn.
Nimue had found time to change, because she was now all in blue: a long, dark velvet robe with white and green embroidery, so subtle and so fine that, even without enchantment, it flowed like the sea whenever she moved. It was a hell of an outfit, but she didn’t need it. Her long hair drifted out about her, as if floating on invisible ocean currents, and her eyes were lightning. I’d thought she looked scary facing off with Morgaine, but apparently that had been, in Tami’s terms, merely a paddlin’.