Page 87 of Hijack the Seas: Seismic

“If he’d been thinking clearly, you would be dead, permanently.” He made a sound of disgust and grabbed my shoulders. “Listen to me, and listen well. You’ve done better than anyone could have expected, but you were right before—you aren’t your mother. And I am not some demonic god or whatever storyline you have my brother believing. We are not going toe-to-toe with the king of the gods and walking away, not again. We’re going to die, or we’re going to run, that’s the truth—”

“And leave the job to who?”

“Who cares?” It had an edge of shrillness to it. “When the hell did this become our responsibility? We’re two very small, very insignificant players on a huge cosmic stage! You sound as if—”

“You’re a coward.” I stared at him. “I thought after London—but you’re a coward.”

“You’re damned right,” he said, with no embarrassment at all. “I’m a bloody coward. In a case like this, anybody with a brain would be!”

I felt my eyes narrow. “Are you calling me stupid?”

“Well, if the high heel fits—”

He’d let me go during that exchange, so I took the opportunity to grab him. And to shake him as hard as I could, only that amount of muscle doesn’t shake. All it got me was another raised eyebrow, and I swore to God—

“I’m calling you young,” he said flatly. “And naïve. And brainwashed—”

“By who?”

“By any number of centuries-old people, putting more and more of the burden for this war on your fragile shoulders and not caring when they inevitably snap. But I do care—”

“If you cared, if you loved me as you once claimed, you’d help.”

“Help you kill yourself?” The mulish chin was back. “That I won’t do. I won’t endanger you or let you endanger yourself by giving you power. And that’s not the spell talking. Fey magic has a limited grip on me; unlike my other half, demon blood is resilient—”

“Then help yourself!” I interrupted because the damned man could talk all day! “Zeus is still looking for you. He wants to strip your soul and gain your power—”

“He’ll have to find me first.”

“And you think he won’t? That he can’t? The only safety for you is if we beat him!”

“Nice try, but my father has eluded that old bastard for centuries, proving you wrong—”

“Centuries when the gods weren’t here. They had to work through intermediaries like Aeslinn and that demon lord we saw in the Common who regularly erased his memory. But if they come back—”

The incubus smiled. “If. So far, everyone who has tried it has died.”

“Because we beat them!” I practically screamed. My God, and I’d thought Pritkin was hardheaded! His incubus made him look positively easygoing, and I was running out of arguments. “Do it for Pritkin, then—”

“Who will then help you, thus putting you in danger? No. Bodil will be back eventually, and I can wait for her.”

“Can he?”

“Who knows? Who cares?” the familiar face darkened. “My dear, foolish brother can look out for himself, as he left me to do for so long. And who knows? If Zeus’s spell destroys him, perhaps it will leave me in charge for a—”

I don’t remember moving, don’t remember anything until his head snapped back, with the shape of my handprint livid on his cheek. “You wear his face,” I hissed. “But he was right all along. You’re not him! And you never will be!”

Retreating, I went to the corner with the damned bucket and sat there, my back to the room, because I didn’t want him to see my face. Demons only respected power, and right then, I didn’t have any. I never did unless it was borrowed from someone else.

I sat there for a long moment, almost shaking with rage. But it didn’t last. I felt myself deflate and grow almost perceptibly smaller, just a tiny, insignificant thing like the incubus had said.

And a grubby one.

I’d been wearing this gown for a while, being too afraid in Faerie to take it off. And although it had been laundered a few times, it looked the worse for wear. Augustine was going to have a fit when he saw it. . .

If he saw it.

I stared at the toes peeking out from under the hem, visible now that the armor had retreated, and tried to push thoughts like that away. It was stupid, and I always did this, and it wouldn’t help! But I didn’t know anything that would.

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