Rosier scowled.
“And we have one. Don’t we?”
Nothing.
What a surprise.
But then he did surprise me, by leaning over the bed, close enough to mouth, Two.
I blinked, brain still foggy, and followed his gaze to the door.
All it showed me was a tousle-headed blonde in an oval mirror, with dark circles under dazed blue eyes, wearing a high-collared white nightie. I guessed the shorts and T-shirt I’d started out with had offended local sensibilities. My new attire offended mine, making me look about twelve. It also did not give me any answers.
My eyes found Rosier’s again in confusion.
He sighed. Guards, on the other side of the door.
Yes?
They have the key. He held up his chained wrist.
I looked from it to the skinny, hairy legs poking out from under his tunic. And the arms that in no way resembled his son’s. And the too-soft middle. Rosier looked like he’d never lifted anything heavier than a champagne glass in his life.
Which might explain why he kept getting beaten up . . . by little girls.
Yes?
He sprawled across the bed to glare at me. And to whisper: “I’m a lover, not a fighter, but I’m damn good with sleight of hand. Just help me get them in here!”
Fine.
“It wouldn’t have to be for long,” I said, going with the argument I’d planned to have anyway. Because I wasn’t the only one who could shift. Of course, Rosier couldn’t time-travel, and his spatial shifts only went one place. But right now I’d take it. “A short trip into the hells—”
“No.”
“Really short. Like a couple of minutes—”
“Not a couple of seconds.”
“—just long enough for us to move a block or two and get past whatever wards they’ve got on this place—”
“Going into a minefield to avoid a fence. Yes, that sounds safe.”
“You know what’s not safe?” I asked, getting genuinely pissed. “Pritkin stuck in freaking Wales about to die, that’s what’s not safe.”
“And if I could do something about it, don’t you think I would?”
“Not if it meant risking your precious neck. You’ll let your own son die when a small risk—”
“Small? Small?” Rosier was beginning to look a bit flushed himself. “I put so much as a toe in hell, any hell, and I might as well have a neon sign over my head reading FREE BUFFET! I wouldn’t last two minutes—I doubt I would last one. And in case you forgot, this mission requires both of us, or I wouldn’t be here talking to you!”
“Ditto! If I could do this alone, believe me—”
“Alone? You can’t walk across a room alone—”
“I did pretty well when you abandoned me in freaking medieval Wales—”
“—without starting a war!”