Page 97 of Time's Fool

Who scowled back at him. “You cannot order me. I am not a part of your family yet—”

“And will not be at this rate!”

“—and Dory has a point—”

“You will do as you are told!”

“You don’t have the right to do this!” I snarled. “You forfeited it when you let me go, all those years ago—”

“He had no choice,” Louis-Cesare reminded me.

“Whose side are you on?”

Blue eyes flashed in the torchlight. “Whatever side gets us all out of this alive!”

“There are always choices,” I told Mircea. “You made yours—now I’ll make mine!”

He had let me go, I suppose so that Louis-Cesare could do as commanded, because aristocrats always assumed everyone would thoughtlessly obey. Unfortunately for him, I had spent a lifetime proving that was not the case where I was concerned. I was no servant to be ordered about, nor a daughter, either.

Whatever either of them said, he had chosen to let me go. A man such as he, with his resources and cunning, could have found a way to keep me, or to at least keep in touch. Perhaps his fear had held him back, but that did me little good if I starved to death in some filthy barn instead!

He thought he knew what was best for me, yet I had been on my own all this time with no help, and no advice.

I didn’t need any now.

I moved like lightning, dodging around him and slipping through the door, and then out of the grasp that he had somehow managed to get on me. Only to have to immediately throw myself to the side to avoid another reaching hand, this one by Louis-Cesare. But he didn’t catch me, either.

Neither of them did, for it felt like I had wings on my heels, like a modern-day Mercury. Or like a woman who had recently stolen power from a demon. And I needed all of it, almost flying through the low, arched ceilings of the castle’s cellars just ahead of my pursuers.

It didn’t help that I had no idea where I was going, and Louis-Cesare was a pale blur behind me, moving with a liquid grace like nothing I had ever seen. He almost got a hand on me again, but I pushed off a wall and avoided his reach. And then was almost caught again by Mircea.

He wasn’t as fast as his counterpart, but he was sneakier, and he was inside my head. Not with words this time, but with something else. Something that caused me to lose my footing and slide on a patch of dampness, sprawling on the floor.

Right in front of the group of guards wrangling a demon down a wide set of stone stairs.

The creature took one look at me, or whatever passed for it since it had no eyes, and started screaming again.

In the square, it had barely even seemed to realize what was happening. Now, its flailing arms disintegrated several of the hefty wooden pike shafts attempting to hold it back, reducing them to ash, and causing the men who held them to have to jump away to avoid experiencing the same thing. While the iron chains someone had slapped around its legs began to melt and run, and the steps under its feet started to crumble.

The situation quickly disintegrated from there. The soldiers were screaming orders to each other; the creature was screaming what sounded like curses; and I was just screaming, because its cries were almost loud enough to deafen me. They echoed off the brick walls and ceiling like a whole flock of banshees had descended upon us.

And then three things happened at once: Louis-Cesare grabbed me off of the floor and thrust me behind him, the creature broke away from its captors and lunged toward us, and Mircea stepped forward and threw out a hand. Unholy red light splashed his face like the flames of hell as the creature approached, its great maw still shrieking. And then crumpling when it crashed into an invisible wall several feet out from that outstretched hand.

For a moment, they just stayed like that, both as still as statues. Or like the frozen tableau on the stairs, where the soldiers had been pleased to remain while someone else solved this problem for them. Only the flickering light gave away the fact that time marched on.

And then the demon moved, but not to attack in another direction. But to crumple on the floor at Mircea’s feet in what almost looked like a gesture of obeisance. And this time, I heard words in its screeches.

“Get it out! Get it out! Please, lord, get it out!” The great molten head came up, and managed to look beseeching despite the lack of features. “Get it out, and I will do whatever you wish.”

Section IV: England, 1595 (mostly)

Kit and Gillian

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Kit found himself playing lady’s maid, helping to lace Gillian back up and return her to something like respectability. He doubted they were going to fool anyone, considering the flyaway state of her hair, since the cap had been lost somewhere, probably swept over the ledge in their passion. Her neck also had several obvious marks on its otherwise white smoothness, and her lips looked red and full and properly kissed.

Well ravaged, he thought, grinning stupidly, an expression that he tried to wipe off his face with little success. Even though he likely didn’t look much better. He’d lost a shoe, his shirt was even more ripped than it already had been, and he had a few marks himself which he was deliberately doing nothing to help fade, as he didn’t want to see them go.

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