Page 76 of Time's Fool

“Where is it?” she asked, trying to see past the storm, which was still bucketing down, and the yelling, crying people, many in shifts and shirts and nightcaps, huddled together in bunches on the flooded street. Or desperately splashing through the rain, clutching prized possessions and trying to save what they could. And being taken down by magical snares, which wrapped around their ankles and dumped them in the road, before dragging them back from the fray.

“That way,” I told her, pointing toward a bend in the road, which was mostly obscured by the smoke from several burning buildings. “T’is round the corner; you can’t see it from here.”

“Can we shift?” the librarian screeched, ducking as a spell flew overhead, burning through the rain and causing it to turn into steam, leaving a trail behind like a comet. She stared after it, as if she’d never seen that before, and perhaps she hadn’t.

I didn’t think battlegrounds were something that she was very familiar with.

And I wasn’t sure that the same couldn’t be said about Rhea, who was looking in disbelief at a group of youths, running by waving a war mage’s potion belt over their heads, and yelling and whooping like mad men.

“Can you shift?” the librarian repeated, grabbing her shoulder.

“I can’t shift to something I can’t see!”

“Then another street—”

“I know the Corps. They will have placed snares there by now, and mages to watch them, like the one who accosted us. Not to mention that there are fewer people there. We’d be easier to see.”

“As opposed to being easier to kill?” the ghost yelled, as another volley flew by, exploding against a building down the street.

“Perhaps the rooftops . . .” I suggested. And then trailed off when we all focused on the roofs, only to see an even wilder battle raging there. I supposed it made sense; it was easier to throw magical bombs from a height and see that they hit their mark.

As long as the spells being thrown back at you didn’t explode a chimney in your face, that was.

“That would be a no,” Rhea said, as several of the men outlined against the storm ate a dinner of bricks and mortar. And then were snared by golden tethers and jerked down to the cobbles, and if a spell was cast to cushion their fall, I didn’t see it. Or hear it, over the splat they made when they landed.

“Make that hell, no,” Rhea amended.

If I understood her meaning correctly, I agreed. But it wasn’t much better down here. Especially when the war mage who had somehow been looted by a bunch of light-fingered babes, cursed and came running.

But the boys had tired of showing off their prize and were using it instead, tossing the contents everywhere, causing thick white clouds to billow up. I had no idea what they thought they were doing. And then I did, when a rush of the locals suddenly emerged from all sides.

I couldn’t see them well through the clouds, except for the one jumping out of a window near us and another scaling down the side of our building on a rope. But I heard them, because apparently no one had told them that yelling at the top of their lungs rather defeated the point of cover. But there were too many for the Corps to target all at once, and they had weapons, too.

A moment later, flashes of light lit up pieces of the clouds, like the lightning in the storm above. But war mage shields were solid and designed to take a hit or twelve. I couldn’t see the Corpsmen, either, but I didn’t have to. I knew they were hunkered down, absorbing the damage and waiting for their attackers to run low on weapons.

Which they quickly did.

Predictably, the clouds soon lit up again, this time from the Corps’ magic. Then some bright spark did something that thinned out the concealment, allowing the mages see who they were targeting. But the initial spell didn’t like that, and the fighting streams of power in the air tore at my incorporeal body, leaving me feeling like a cloud myself, albeit one caught in a high gale.

I briefly wondered if it would rip me to shreds.

But I was still there a moment later, when the valiant attempt ended and a bunch of the locals found themselves face down on the cobbles. And then corralled into groups behind heavy shields, to wait until their captors had time to interrogate them. I saw one angry young woman test the barrier surrounding her, only to yelp and pull back, cradling a smoking hand.

The mages went back to searching the houses, having obviously not found whatever they were after. That would have cheered me slightly, except that Rhea took that moment to dart down the street, hugging the buildings and using the remnants of the clouds as cover. Until she reached an area where some of the captives were staring out of a fractured shield.

All of the magic being tossed about seemed to be affecting the Circle’s containment, which was spluttering and spitting at us, but not enough to bring it down.

Until she shoved a wand into a gap, muttered something under her breath, and shattered it when it tried to reform a second later.

The captives stared at her, having no idea who she was. But they knew a rescue when they saw one. They burst out of their huddle, scattering in all directions, and bringing shouts from nearby Corpsmen raising the alarm.

The librarian looked after them in disbelief. “We’re not supposed to interfere! We could change time!”

“Time has already been changed,” Rhea snarled. “The job now is to try and fix it.”

She took off down the street before the librarian could reply, dragging me along for the ride and using the chaos as cover. Then abruptly pressed against the side of a wall, and did something that made her shield go dim. It wasn’t as good as the vampire ability to blend into the shadows, but on a street with so many brighter targets, it was good enough.

“Savages,” the librarian muttered, as half a dozen golden snares shot by us, two of them finding their marks around fleeing locals’ legs.

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