We grabbed it at the same time, adding more cooked-meat smell to the smoke and blood and ozone-laced tinge of expended magic already in the air. I had the pointy end, but it didn’t matter, even when she shoved it through my already
damaged middle. In fact, it made this easier, my new rib cage working to help trap it as we scrambled to our feet and started doing a strange sort of waltz through the battle, using the spear to throw each other around as rain pattered down and people stared and Jo finally realized why I was willing to dance with her.
And then her face burst into flames.
The blaze in her hair had become a conflagration, like the one the blunt end of the energy weapon had created in her chest. She was literally cooking in front of my eyes, and that was before her body went up like a Roman candle when the fat ignited. I staggered back, shocked despite my alarming new threshold, and grabbed a fey for balance. Who screamed and tried to get away, but my hands had fused to his shirt. And I belatedly realized: I was melting in the middle of my own personal inferno.
The fey screamed again, a strange, high-pitched note of pure terror, and pulled out a knife. A moment later, my spirit was slamming back into my own body as my borrowed one all but exploded against the ground—except for the severed arms. They were still clutching the sleeves of the now terrified fey.
He tore off through a cloud of smoke and I looked around, trying to spot the next threat, but there didn’t seem to be one. I didn’t wait for one to show up. I grabbed the sledge and took off, pushing Pritkin toward the relative safety of the river.
It was quieter here, most of the fleeing people having gone to the docks. I could see them in the distance, a huge, squirming mass illuminated here and there by flickering torchlight. I didn’t follow them. There weren’t going to be enough boats, and anyway, I had no way to get there. The sledge was already starting to drag the ground; in a minute, I wouldn’t be able to move it at all.
So I headed for the little tent belonging to the launderer. It was somehow still standing, maybe because it was sheltered by a couple of spreading oaks. The dirt road in front had turned into a river, rushing like a torrent. But the tent was on higher ground and still dry inside when I pulled open the back flap. And shoved the sledge inside.
I looked around, panting slightly. The young couple must have had to leave in a hurry, because their freshly dried wares were still in place. Including a pile of them on a woven mat just inside the back that looked incredibly comfortable.
For a second, I just stood there, feeling bad about messing them up. It had started to rain harder on the way here, and we were both soaked. And then I wondered what the hell was wrong with me, worrying about laundry in the apocalypse.
I tipped Pritkin off the board and into the middle of the pile, and sat beside him, because there was nothing else to do. Except wonder if that last battle had finally drained Jo, or if she’d be back. And why she cared.
If it had been anyone else, I’d have understood the attack as a personal vendetta. But Jo had been planning death-by-god anyway, allowing Ares’ return to wipe her out of existence along with the rest of us. So, at best, I’d pushed up her timetable a little, which hardly seemed worth this kind of risk.
And if she was still afraid I’d manage to interrupt her plans . . . how? I was exhausted, out of power, and dragging around a guy with a possible concussion. As far as fighting went, I was done. And possession drained ghosts faster than anything else. She was risking missing the big finale, and for what? Killing someone likely to die anyway? It didn’t make sense.
Especially considering what was happening in the skies above us.
Because Ares was winning.
I pushed the tent flap out of the way and stared as a torso the size of a skyscraper shoved its way into the world. The sonic boom of ripping space and time came again, but it seemed distant this time, dull. Like the rain blowing in to wet my feet, like the burning sensation in my throat, like everything. Grayed out, unimportant. Lost in shock and pain and grief so great it didn’t matter anymore.
And then came a light so bright that for a moment it seemed like day. And an explosion so huge it rocked the ground underneath me, and rained dirt and debris and a small piece of bright red wool down in front of me. Rosier’s color.
I watched the burning piece of cloth be doused by the rain, and felt my face crumple.
I guessed I could feel something after all.
Like the arms, coming around me from behind. Not an attack this time, but an attempt at comfort. From someone who deserved it more than me.
“It didn’t work,” I said unsteadily, before he could ask. “The device was destroyed, but Ares . . . he’s too far in.”
He was having to struggle for it, to fight. But he didn’t just have his foot in the door now, but half his body. Rosier’s sacrifice had been brave, and ultimately successful. But it didn’t matter.
You can’t close a door if someone’s standing in the middle of it.
“Your name,” Pritkin said suddenly, his voice hoarse.
“What?”
“Your name.”
I huffed out something that sounded strangely like a laugh. And maybe it was. What else was there to do at the end of the world? “Does it matter now?”
His arms tightened, and when his voice came again, it was desperate. “Your name . . .”
I twisted, trying to look at him, but his arms held me fast. “If it really means that much to—”
“. . . is Cassie.”