A smile brightened his weary face too briefly, but it was enough to strengthen me. There is more than one way to skin a cat. There were two doors in the coach, one that opened onto the spirit world and one that opened into the mortal world.
Vai nodded.
I swung up into the interior of the coach and gripped my sire’s arms so he could not slam the door in Vai’s face and thus leave him outside at the mercy of the tide.
“Father! I missed you so much!” I leaned in to kiss him on the cheek, my lips warm against his cold, cold skin.
I had the intense pleasure of watching my sire blink in bewildered astonishment.
Before he could react, I snatched the basket off the seat and slung it over my body. Then I clambered past him. Grabbing the latch, I pushed down with all my strength.
It did not budge. It did not shift at all.
I hissed, “Open up, I beg you.”
The latch’s eyes glimmered into life as two stripes of light on brass. Its mouth was a flat line. It said nothing. And it stayed stubbornly locked.
The other door slammed shut. The coach lurched forward, swinging in a wide turn. I tumbled onto the upholstered bench opposite my sire as Vai pushed past me and, in his turn, grabbed the latch. Sparks spat with a cracking cascade of pops. With a grunt of pain Vai hit the bench and sat down hard next to me. He swore as he shook his hand.
My sire touched fingers to the spot I had kissed. “A transparent ploy. Truly, I thought better of you, Cat. You might have known I would have anticipated such a move.”
He rapped on the ceiling of the coach with his cane.
“Back to the pit,” he said in a conversational tone I knew the coachman could hear. His gaze settled on me. “You’ve done well, Daughter. You’ve proven you are strong and stubborn, but still not quite smart enough. You’re still not quite thinking things through. Affection weakens you. I gave him a chance to survive so he would still be living when you found him. This time I will dump him straight into the pit. I don’t need him any longer. Let me assure your tender heart that he will feel no pain once they’ve drained his blood, for the blood of mortals is the force that gives the courts power over the rest of us. He’ll become something like them, only without a mind.”
I hadn’t known I could move so fast. My sword slid like lightning out of its sheath. I knew exactly where to aim: up under his ribs at his heart.
Vai slammed into me, jostling my point so it skipped off the upholstery and lodged in a corner. I cursed and tugged it free.
“A killing blow will kill you, not him!” He kicked past my legs and shoved open the door that led back into the spirit world. “Stay where you are, Catherine.”
“Vai!”
“Better this than the salt plague, love.”
He jumped out of the rushing coach into the path of the incoming tide of light.
I did not think. I leaped after him.
The dragon’s dream roared down over us in a rainbow of violent colors. The call of a bell split the world, air from water, fire from stone, flesh from spirit. The vibration rang up through the ground and down from the sky until there was no existence except the tremor of sound shivering the entire world as if the world were the drum being beaten.
I threw my arms around him, and I kissed him. Let his embrace be the last thing I knew. He held me tightly. A cloak of magic rippled from around his body to envelop me as within wings.
The tide ripped over us like sea spray followed by the pounding of a huge crashing wave. We were driven down as an abyss opened. Every part of existence yawed sideways, then tipped upside down. We fell into smoke as the world around us vanished.
20
Death wasn’t all bad, because it felt a lot like kissing Vai. Our embrace distracted me for longer than it should have. Then I remembered what had happened. Still clutching him, I broke off the kiss.
Inhaled.
I could not breathe.
I could not breathe.
I could not breathe.
An undertow sucked me down.