What did we have that could kill a god?
“Cassie?”
I looked up to find Fred leaning back on the couch, watching me. And maybe it was a trick of the light, or my overactive imagination. But for a second, the too-round face was grim, and the big gray eyes were narrowed and shrewd.
And then he smiled again, and he was just Fred.
“Both?”
And shit.
I was just putting my foot in my mouth every time I opened it tonight, wasn’t I?
But this time I got a reprieve when Rico decided to rejoin us.
He was closing the little leather fold of tools he’d brought with him, and putting it back inside his jacket. The jacket was another leather one, which went with his bad-boy image better than the suits I’d never seen him wear. It also went with his somewhat checkered past as a “troubleshooter” for the family, which must have included a little safe breaking since he’d volunteered.
Only a glance at the safe showed that he hadn’t broken this one.
“No?” I said, because of course not. When was anything ever that easy?
“I can break it open or rip it out of the wall for you,” he confirmed. “But I can’t do it while those wards are up. We need a mage.”
“And where are we supposed to find one?” Fred asked. “We can’t just call up the Circle and ask ’em to send one over, or it’ll change time. And we can’t go back to our own time and snag one, because she’s already exhausted. And all the ones around here are—”
He cut off when the door suddenly hit the floor, sliding halfway across the room, while the opening erupted into one giant fireball.
“Dark,” I finished for him, as all hell broke loose.
Chapter Thirty-eight
The mages weren’t the problem.
I threw a time freeze at them at almost the second they cleared the door. It wasn’t quite strong enough to do the job, because I was tired and they were scattered, forcing me to spread the spell over a bigger area than I’d planned. But that actually ended up being okay. Because instead of stopping them in place, it encased them in a large blob of slow time, which left fire spells boiling out ahead of them and coats wafting out behind them and the mages themselves on what looked like might be a ten-minute journey to the other side of the room.
No, they weren’t the problem.
The acolytes were.
“Shit!” I heard someone say, and a spell tore through the room at the same time that I tried to shift my group out of it. But shifting without being able to touch someone is a new skill for me, and exponentially harder. And that’s without having to throw two spells within seconds of each other.
Fred winked out of existence, still clutching his hideous souvenir, but Rico knocked me back, trying to shield me. And in the process put himself out of reach. And Rhea wasn’t even back yet, and shifting people without even being able to see them wasn’t happening.
Especially not when you’re already shifting yourself.
I never knew exactly what happened. But either the acolyte’s spell or Rico’s elbow must have thrown me off, because instead of the suite, I ended back at the top of the hidden staircase. That was good, since I hadn’t wanted to leave with two of my people stuck here anyway. That was bad, because whatever had hit me hadn’t just frozen my power, it had frozen me.
Annnnd now I was falling.
I tottered against the wall, which wasn’t so bad. And then bounced off and hit the stairs, sliding all the way back down to the secret panel, which was worse. And which obligingly opened, spilling me halfway out into the room, because of course it did.
Goddamn it.
The awkward way I’d fallen had left my feet sticking out into the ballroom and my head inside the passage. And the pitch-dark stairs behind me and the wall of paneling in front of me ensured that I couldn’t see shit. I could hear, though, and a few seconds later my ears were being treated to the sound of boot heels hitting marble.
My breath froze as still as the rest of me as I stared at the dim outline of the gothic arch. The room outside was lit only by a little moonlight, but it looked bright as day compared to the gloom of the stairs. And my jean-covered legs and the gaping maw of the staircase were going to be hard for anyone to miss.
If the boots were coming this way, that is.