Page 72 of Hijack the Seas: Seismic

His lips were warm in the cold cell, even though his flesh was as chilled as mine. And even more so when my armor, which had steadfastly refused to morph back to its alter ego even to sleep, sensing danger everywhere here, suddenly vanished in a cloud of silver silk. Because there was nowhere I felt more safe than in Pritkin’s arms.

We were both sweaty and grubby, and the surroundings were the least romantic I could think of, and none of it mattered. When incubus energy swirled around us, the dirty room became almost beautiful, the black rock glittered in the slanting light through the bars, the cool, slightly musty air turned clean and fresh, and the straw pallet underneath us became as comfortable as a feather bed. Not that I cared.

The hard arms around me were all I wanted, the harder lips on mine, the scrape of stubble as he kissed my neck, my chest, my breast. I was tired of fighting with him; I hated fighting with him! I wanted us to be in sync, working together, fighting together. That’s what I’d envisioned when I came here.

But that wasn’t what I’d found. Something had been off ever since I arrived, something strange, something wrong. And it still was.

“What is it?” I gasped, breaking away.

“Nothing.”

“Tell me,” because it wasn’t nothing, and we both knew it.

His eyes met mine, and there was no deception in them, but there was none of the hope I wanted to see, either. “I know what you want,” he said, his voice rough. “And I would give it to you. But you have to understand, this time, that may not be enough. I may not be enough.”

“Then . . . maybe we need some help,” I said slowly.

He shook his head. “Bodil made it clear—”

“No, not Bodil. One of ours. You’re allowed a team—”

“A team who could win here?” A blond eyebrow raised.

“I could call on the Pythian Court. I didn’t want to bring them into this, but—”

“And you shouldn’t. Rhea is the only one whose magic would work reliably in Faerie, and she’s your heir.”

No, not Rhea, I thought, seeing my beautiful, kind, and still only half-trained heir. My whole being revolted at the idea. She’d been in Faerie exactly once, and if I had my way, that would be the last time. And not my acolytes, either.

Their power wouldn’t be any more reliable here than mine, and they were all about two hundred, which was old even for a magic user. They’d been heroes recently, every single one, but channeling the Pythian power was hard, and they had enough on their hands keeping my court safe. I needed young blood.

“The covens,” I heard myself say, seeing the three impressive witches who had joined my court to help watch over the little coven initiates that a few well-disposed Great Mothers had entrusted to me.

They’d been needed, as half of the covens were part fey these days. It was a type of magic that few others knew, including the various magic workers at court. But it would be perfect here!

Especially as they were not only powerful but crafty and inventive. They’d had to be to survive the best that the Silver Circle could throw at them all these years while also keeping their people safe from raids by the fey. Unfortunately, the covens weren’t exactly my friends.

We’d had a run-in recently when some of the more radical leaders had decided that the war gave them a perfect opportunity to get some payback on the Circle. I’d stopped it because the last thing we needed right now was to fight each other, but they hadn’t liked it. They’d always suspected me of being a little too much in the Circle’s pocket, as most Pythias had been, and that had only increased their doubts.

I’d stopped a war but gained few friends, and those I had. . .

“Would not be welcomed here,” Pritkin said as if finishing the thought for me. “We have to persuade, not just win, and bringing in an outside army to fight for us, particularly that army—”

“Assuming I could even convince them.” Because that had always been the problem with the covens. They’d sacrificed the best of themselves fighting the Circle all those centuries ago. The ones who had survived were those who had stayed out of it, who went to ground, who took care of their own and let the world hang.

And ever since, that had been the model they’d followed.

They wouldn’t come, not at my call, and even if they did, an army made up of the very people the Alorestri had enslaved and vilified all these years wasn’t likely to gain us many votes.

“War mages then,” I said. “The Alorestri have treaties with them; they can’t claim them as slaves! And they’re supposed to help the Pythia—”

“They’re supposed to protect the Pythia,” Pritkin corrected. “Protecting you means getting you away from here, not helping you win.”

“But Faerie said—” I stopped myself. Because explaining that the spirit of a planet had been giving me orders might not help. That was why Mircea hadn’t given the consul a precis of what he was doing before he took off for the dark fey capital. He’d known how well that was likely to go over.

And while Jonas Marsden, the acting head of the Silver Circle, was a little easier to deal with than a two-thousand-year-old paranoid vampire queen, his forces had also taken some beatings recently. He wasn’t likely to endanger them to get us an army he didn’t trust. Not with half of the fey court on the other side!

“The demons!” I said, getting desperate. Because this place was far worse than I’d expected, and I’d expected it to be bad. But how were we supposed to win when we had to fight for our lives just to make it to the challenges?

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