"You have no right to hold magic!" he screamed. "How dare a slave boy wield the power of the gods!"
"I wield it against the enemies of Rome," I yelled. "Against you!"
He chuckled. "Listen carefully. You have exactly one day to turn over the key to the Malice or you will never see your mother again. And once I'm finished with her, I'll go after your sister, and then that sewer girl, and then anyone else I must destroy until you cooperate with me. In the end, I will win."
"Impossible," I said. "Because I intend to win this war, and I do not share my victories with cowards."
He smiled. "I will have you on your knees before the week is out. You will beg me to spare the lives of those you love."
Then he widened his arms and took a step backward, willingly letting himself fall into the sewer water. Which should have meant he had lost our fight, but somehow, I felt as if I was the one who had lost.
A hand gripped my shoulder, and I swung around, raising my hands to confront the next Praetor. Magic flew to the tips of my fingers, and once I recognized who had grabbed me, it was all I could do to keep the magic inside.
"It's over!" Radulf released me and backed up to show he was posing no threat. The chains that had bound him lay on the ground where he had been, but they were split apart like they'd been made of dried reeds. His magic had returned.
He started to approach me again, but I backed away from him too. "Lower your hands," he said. "I'm not your enemy."
"Aren't you?" Still angry with Brutus and anxious for my mother, I needed to empty the magic inside me and wanted nothing more than to use him for target practice.
"The problems you face are of your own creation," he said. "Not mine!"
"I never wanted this!" I yelled. "None of it!"
"Maybe you did." His tone was as sharp as the edge of a knife and felt like cuts across my chest. "I warned you not to wear the bulla in Caesar's cave, but you stole it and called it yours. You stood between me and Horatio to take a key that I would've gotten from him on my own. Every time I tried to keep you out of this war, you put yourself at the center of it."
"You want me at the center of this war!" Magic swirled inside my head. It was hard to think straight.
"I could've killed you in that arena, but I didn't. I could've let the emperor's guards arrest you afterward, but I refused to let him have you. I've kept you alive, Nic!"
"Only until you force me to make a Jupiter Stone, which will probably kill me!"
Surprisingly, his anger cooled. With a chuckle, he said, "Yes, I suppose that's true. It is risky to make a Jupiter Stone, but doing so is no more dangerous than facing the Praetors. So let's agree that if I'm an enemy to you, the Praetors are worse. You need me."
I swerved on my heel to march away from him. "I need you like I need to break out in boils."
He crossed in front of me. "Boils? Is that the worst thing you can think of? Then you don't understand the Praetors, or what they will do to your mother if you fail to bring them the key tomorrow."
"I don't have --"
"I know what you think about the key." He sighed and folded his arms. "Why didn't you run when the Praetors came? You didn't stay here to save me."
"Of course not," I said, though maybe I did. Nothing made sense anymore.
Radulf stared back at me, his eyes blinking far too fast. I scratched my cheek and finally looked away.
Radulf said, "I will help you save your mother. I owe you that, in gratitude for saving me just now. Are you all right?"
I was so tired that I barely understood his question. The swell of magic within me was calming, but I knew it would take a while until I could fight again. I only hoped he couldn't figure that out.
"Why did you need me to save you back there?" My brows creased together. "Why didn't you use magic to stop them yourself?"
Suddenly, I realized that we had begun walking back to his home. Still, I wanted his answer, so I continued to follow him.
"The Praetors have no magic of their own," Radulf said. "But they do have a way to stop us. Did you ever wonder why Marcus Brutus was able to kill Julius Caesar so easily? Shouldn't Caesar have had enough magic to defend himself?"
I shrugged. It had never occurred to me to wonder that, but it was a good question.
Radulf answered for me. "It's because the Praetors can disable magic just through their touch. The armbands they wear endow them with that power. Three hundred years ago, when Brutus killed Caesar, he grabbed him first, rendering the emperor unable to use any magic. After that, it was a simple thing to kill him. The Praetors would've killed me just now if you had not stopped them. By the time I realized they were behind me, it was too late."