Page 82 of Time's Fool

She sounded certain, and while I didn’t see any spectral monsters being chased off, I did see plenty of other examples of what they could do. Everywhere I looked, tiny, furry bodies scarpered, almost impossible to see against gloom. Until they reformed into full size and hexed one of the increasingly alarmed looking mages.

Their spells were often stopped by the men’s shields, but the fey had provided for that. Their favorite trick seemed to be to pop up behind a Corpsman, spell him with something nasty enough to invite retaliation, then shrink down and scamper off while he spun. And cursed a fellow war mage behind him in his confusion.

In some cases, the war mage on the receiving end hexed him back, resulting in mini duels between people on the same side, while the fey laughed.

But neither their tricks nor whatever they were doing to the weather was enough to stop the Corps, and I had yet to see a witch in this area. Until the ghost suddenly stiffened beside me. And clutched my spirit form so tightly that it hurt.

I didn’t mind.

Because the thunder . . . had acquired a voice.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Estrilda!” The sound rang down the narrow street, and then echoed up and down strangely. “I know that you have her! Send her to me and save your people, while you can. She isn’t worth this!”

I looked about, but couldn’t see much, and yet I recognized that voice. I ran forward, surging past battling mages and sizzling spells. And didn’t even flinch when real thunder tore apart the skies overhead, loud enough to be deafening even through the muffling fog.

Finally, I spotted the speaker at the end of the street, striding up and down in front of what remained of the ale house. The place was a burnt-out wreck, with the majority of the front gone, and what remained staying up mainly because it shared a wall with the house on the right. But I barely noticed, my whole attention on the woman who was striding up and down in front of it, looking furious.

Morgan. Still in her stolen war mage body, with her cloak flapping angrily out behind her. But with her eyes shining so brilliantly against the night that they made her disguise almost irrelevant.

“Estrilda!” she yelled again, magnifying her voice to the point that it shivered through my very soul.

“What is she talking about?” the ghost asked, coming up behind me. And then grabbing me when I started to run, in a hold about my neck that would have threatened to suffocate me had I lungs anymore. “Is that who we’re after?” she demanded. “Is that Morgan?”

“Yes, and turn me loose!” I said, trying to prize her off.

“No, no, no, you don’t understand. You have a problem—”

“I know that!”

“No, I don’t think you—”

She cut off, or maybe I just couldn’t hear her anymore, because there was a new combatant on the field. Louis-Cesare looked completely mad, with his auburn hair a flame in the spell light as he darted out of the darkness, crashed through a group of mages, and threw himself at Morgan. And what lay crumpled at her feet.

For a moment, I stared at my own body and didn’t believe it. I thought I’d expected the worst, but seeing it there, propped up like a doll against the charred side of the alehouse, lifeless and lolling, was . . . something else. And it was just a body, with the eyes open and unseeing, the mouth hanging slack, and the skin as pale as, well, as a corpse’s.

It should have left me unsettled, even despairing, but it didn’t. Instead, the shock was quickly followed by a powerful wave of love, longing and possessiveness. As well as a strange hunger like nothing I’d ever known.

That was mine, my body, my life, my future. No one else could have it; no one else could touch it. Mine.

And I went for it.

I heard the librarian curse as I tore away, but I kept my eyes fixed on my own face, to the point that I barely noticed Louis-Cesare battling the witch, or several sizzling bodies on the ground, or a cat twining around one of my corpse’s limp arms, like perhaps it wanted to try out a different form for a change.

It didn’t get the chance.

Instead, I sank back into my first home, the only one I’d never left behind, and felt it grab me frantically. It was like a key fitting into a lock, a perfectly fitted box snicking shut, a door closing with no gaps about the frame. And a moment later, I was blinking at the fiery street, only to discover that my eyes were almost blind having dried out from being left open.

I lay there staring at a big blur and gasping for breath, filling lungs as flattened as the time I’d fallen off a cliff in Italy, and lay in the dirt for what felt like an hour, waiting for them to reinflate. But this was worse; this felt like they’d forgotten how, and my head was swimming and my limbs were tingling and then hurting as blood sluggishly started moving through half-shriveled veins. For the first time, I thanked God that I was dhampir, because a human wouldn’t have survived this.

I wasn’t sure that I had.

And then somebody kicked me in the head.

It was a glancing blow, as if part of a struggle I wasn’t involved in, but it sent me falling back against the charred boards of the alehouse. I couldn’t even retaliate because I still couldn’t see. And then I could, but only because somebody had pulled me partway out of my body again.

I found my spirit sitting up, while my body slumped against the ground, gurgling in a way that likely wasn’t healthy. But there was one advantage here, and when a spectral hand tried to finish the job and jerk me out completely, I grabbed it and jerked back. And the witch, who had just cast a spell that sent Louis-Cesare staggering, whipped her head around and stared at me.

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