Except to bundle the nasty stuff up and weight it with the shoe. And drop it off the side of the platform. And try not to hit anybody in the head with it on the way down, although another little guard far below grabbed his spear and leapt around wildly when it landed in a patch of weeds behind him.
But he didn’t find it, and I breathed a sigh of relief, peering into the darkness and wondering what Salvatore would think if he knew where one of his loafers had ended up.
And then the Ewok started making some sort of noise behind me.
I turned to look at him again, but he hadn’t come back over. He also hadn’t moved, like, even to blink. I’d have thought him a hairy statue except for the firelight glinting in those black, black eyes. Or the way the chest under the layers of rags rose and fell, a little more quickly now. Or the way his hand clenched on his spear.
Looked like he wasn’t a fan of human magic.
Like, really not. He didn’t move, but the whites of his eyes were showing. And flickering around as he looked from me to the side of the platform to me again, and yeah. He had no way of knowing what I’d just conjured up, did he? Or what I’d thrown down into the middle of his buddies, and on reflection, maybe I should have just lived with the litter because there was such a thing as being too tidy, and now he was making those sounds again.
And taking a step toward me.
And no, they really weren’t cute enough for Lucas, I thought, scrambling back. They weren’t cute at all, and while I’d assumed there were humanlike features under there, I didn’t really know that, did I? I didn’t really know anything and I wasn’t anywhere even close to home and I was out of juice and, for all I knew, maybe Pritkin and I were on the menu, because it wasn’t like the dark fey at Dante’s had been particularly picky, and—
And then what I could see of the guard’s face changed, and crumpled, like maybe I’d done something to piss him off. Only how could you tell when all you could see was a couple inches of skin? But said skin was looking a little flushed suddenly, like I’d been staring too long, and maybe that was an insult in their culture, because what I could see of the face wasn’t looking happy.
And that was doubly true when I jumped to my feet and took a step backward, hands raised, trying to look as nonthreatening as possible.
Only maybe that didn’t mean the same thing in their culture, either, because he was looking seriously flushed now, something that didn’t change even when I took another step back. Like maybe I was showing weakness and that was pissing him off, only what were my options here? And he was making those sounds again, more like screeches, and they didn’t make sense, maybe because the translation spell was wearing off or maybe because he was cursing at me—who the hell knew?
I stumbled back and he started waving his arms, including the one with the spear in it, and then rushing at me, and I gave a cry and tried to retreat again, only this time, there was nothing under my foot but air.
I screamed and the guard screeched and he lunged and I started to fall and the canopy of trees swirled sickeningly above me—
And then stopped just as abruptly.
But not because he had caught me.
But because someone else had.
“Do you always get in this much trouble?” Pritkin asked from behind me.
I craned my neck around to see
him standing on one of the little swinging platforms, holding a basket in one hand and me in the other.
“Mostly,” I breathed.
“You know, I’ve noticed that about you,” he told me.
And then he kissed me.
Chapter Forty-six
“Guard,” I gasped, jerking back.
“What?”
“There’s a guard!”
Pritkin looked confused. “Yes?”
He glanced over his shoulder, and then so did I. And the guard who had been about to kill me was suddenly looking like the third wheel at a junior high school dance: awkward and uncomfortable and slightly embarrassed. He had been examining the toe of his boot, but he glanced up when Pritkin said something in a language the spell didn’t know. But the guard must have, because he abruptly turned and booked it down the rope bridge at a sprint.
I looked at Pritkin in shock. “What did you say?”
“I relieved him. And I think he was relieved. Poor man; he was afraid you were about to put a hex on him!”