Page 11 of Time's Fool

“Good to know.” I got a leg up, flipped us, and got on top of her, with one hand beating the hand with the spell against the ground until she let go, and the other covering that pretty mouth. “But what if they don’t?”

And then I was sailing again, for a long, long time across the multicolored night, before splashing down in a pool of water. Because the bitch could silent cast, couldn’t she? Just my luck.

And when I tried to move this time, as she slowly approached my position, I found that my limbs didn’t work at all.

Dhampir spell resistance had its limits, it seemed.

She stopped by the edge of the pool and smiled again, but this time, it wasn’t so nice. “To answer your question, then we’ll take them on, too. We’re done kneeling, girl. Be wise: stay out of our way.”

Chapter Three

Rain lashing against a set of ill-fitting wooden shutters woke me up. It was dark, although whether again or still I wasn’t sure. It felt like I’d been kicked in the head by a horse and then had its wagon run over me.

A couple of times.

But I was dry, more or less, and in the bedchamber of what looked like a cut-rate inn.

Well, it would have been cut-rate for London, where inns with fifty rooms were to be found, sleeping up to two hundred guests in plush comfort. They had dishes of dried flowers to make the air smell nice, fluffy featherbeds with clean sheets, benches and chairs with embroidered cushions, and imported carpets draped over tables and cupboards. London knew how to treat visitors.

Rural Lancashire, on the other hand, was lagging a little. I was in a small space with a trestle table sans carpet, a bench sans cushion, and a wonky three-legged stool. And a bed, of course.

Of a sort.

It was not oak framed. It did not have a carved tester overhead or heavy curtains hanging at its sides. And the featherbeds that were supposed to go over the straw-filled pad that served as a mattress had apparently flown the coop.

Probably afraid I’d bleed on them, I thought groggily.

Sleep was still pulling at me, but the shutters banged and clattered, opening just enough to let in little scatterings of rain every so often as there was no glass to stop it. Not to mention that the wind was howling like a banshee, and the eaves of the inn were creaking and groaning in sympathy, as if nature was putting on a concert just for me. A very annoying one.

After a moment, I groaned and sat up, which wasn’t hard as I was pretty much in that position anyway. The ropes supporting the straw pad had sagged in the night as they tended to do. Leaving me scrunched up like a pretzel, with my knees closer to my chest than they had any right to be.

But when I checked, my purse was still on my belt, so at least nobody had robbed me. And despite still being dizzy from the spell I’d taken to the face, I managed to fight my way free of the arse-grabbing mattress. And hit the floor, where I failed to wake anybody up because no one was there.

It took me a moment, blinking around at scarred boards with only my muddy boots leaking onto them, to realize that the vamp had paid for me to have my own room. I hadn’t realized this as I barely recalled anything of the trip here. Except that I wasn’t the only casualty.

And if I hadn’t already known that, I would have when I heard a voice cursing somewhere outside the door in fluent in Wallachian.

I got up, staggered over, and looked outside. And saw Lord Mircea through the partially opened door of a room cattycornered to mine. I’d thought his accent was familiar, and with those brows and that profile, I should have known: I had a fellow countryman here.

A very unhappy one.

He was standing beside a body on the bed in the next room, which was dripping onto the floor, making a small, faintly red puddle below his limp, long-fingered hand. And it was just a body. There was a huge hole burnt all the way through the chest that had taken the heart, and while the head was still attached, something that might have saved a senior master, this one hadn’t been strong enough.

He was gone, and had probably belonged to Mircea, because the master had that look on his face.

I started to retreat, although I had something to tell him. But masters who have just lost a Child are not people you want to deal with. It could wait.

But he stopped me with a rasped word. “Lucid?”

“More or less.”

“Downstairs.”

I nodded, grabbed my boots from beside the bed, and did as I was bid. I had faced down some fearsome opponents, but I didn’t poke the bear if I didn’t have to. And a grieving master was worse than a great many bears.

He probably wasn’t too happy with me anyway, as I had been less than useful. I’d actually encountered the witch we were looking for, but instead of immediately knocking her out, I’d given her a second to think. And a second was all she’d needed.

It had been a foolish mistake, and rendered the loss of his man all the worse, since it had been for nothing. It made me clench my jaw in anger, because I didn’t make mistakes like that. If I had, I’d have been in the dead vamp’s position a long time ago.

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