Page 92 of Hijack the Seas: Seismic

It used my ability to peer through the centuries to patrol the timeline. And in doing so relieved me of all those nasty visions I used to get, very few of which had ever been positive. And neither was this, I thought, as the vision slowly restarted, showing Morgaine finishing her sentence with a defiant “—him!”

Then she made a gesture, and her compass flew through the air to hit the wall. And a moment later, there was no wall. A tunnel opened up for her, spiraling out from the middle of her compass as I’d seen the stones at Aeslinn’s court do for his fey, creating an exit where none had been before.

Earth magic, I thought, something that Nimue didn’t have. And although she sent her fey leaping across the room after Morgaine, they only ran into what was once again solid stone. Just that fast, Morgaine was gone.

Meanwhile, I had barely kept up with what was happening because I was focused on something else, specifically the black claws biting into Pritkin’s flesh. They weren’t inside it, not yet, but they were bleeding him dry spiritually. I could see the weeping wounds now, trace the tiny streams of power leeching out into the air, and almost feel his pain as I hadn’t been able to a moment ago.

Because a moment ago, I’d been powerless, almost bone dry. Before tricking a demon into giving me access to the vast reserves he held from draining all those fey. Because putting Lover’s Knot on me to steady the vision had steadied something else, hadn’t it?

Like my hands, which had been trembling a moment ago and were now rock steady as I started to unwind all those horrible barbs.

He was going to notice, just any time now, which was why I was careful. And not just about the incubus. But also about my safety because there was no way I wanted to experience Zeus’s power again!

That was why I’d wrapped my hands in triple levels of protection before starting this, layering ward on top of ward. And it was lucky I had, because the barbs on all those strands, like thorns on a vine, bit deep. But not deep enough, and I used the leverage they gave me to pull them slowly out of Pritkin’s metaphysical flesh, freeing him by degrees.

But the main event was over now, with nothing but an empty nursery to hold the incubus’s attention. And some of the thorns were buried deep, having had plenty of time to work their way into Pritkin’s spirit, getting a good grip. I was almost out of time and hadn’t managed to free enough—

Until Nimue saved me.

She’d had her eyes closed while her men beat uselessly on stone, standing as still as a statue. Then those amazing gray-blue orbs opened, and her finger pointed. “The Myrgard! She’s made her way out of the tower!”

The soldiers, their knuckles bloody from their useless fight, turned gratefully toward the window. And the incubus’s attention focused, as did everyone’s, on the tiny, fleeing figure of a woman, her dark hair flying out behind her as she ran easily over the top of the marshland, as I’d seen her do to plain water back on Earth. Because Pritkin’s mother held all four elements, didn’t she?

But she was on Alorestri turf this time, and they tore after her. Like I took the reprieve and ripped the remaining barbs out of Pritkin’s flesh. Enough of them, at least, that it was too late when the incubus finally caught a clue.

I jerked them free, like pulling a heavy, stubborn vine off a house that it had been growing on for decades, and it required an alarming amount of power. The incubus’s power, to be exact, something he realized when he saw those dark barbs dissipate in the air, letting go with a hissing sizzle. And then he started fighting me.

And he wasn’t just grappling metaphysically. We crashed back into our cell and went rolling across the floor, kicking and screaming and hair-pulling—at least I was—until the incubus scrambled up my body and pinned me to the floor, panting and furious. “What did you do?” he screamed in my face. “What did you do?”

“What you should have!” I stared up at him defiantly. Which was not bright as he already looked like he could have strangled me. But he settled for shaking me instead.

“You mugged me!”

“Yeah. Sucks to be you.”

That, of course, prompted some more shaking. “How?”

“Lover’s Knot. You put it back on us—”

“To steady you!”

“I didn’t need steadying. That wasn’t the Common. It was a vision—one of mine.”

“But it dimmed. It flickered—”

“Yeah, because I dimmed it.”

He stared at me for a moment, but then his head shook violently. “Why are you lying to me? I can’t see your visions!”

“Yeah, that stumped me for a minute, too. But you, Mircea, and I . . . got close . . . in London, back when we were battling Zeus. And in the incubus version of sex, sometimes traits get passed over.” I saw his eyes widen. “My guess is that you absorbed some of Mircea’s mental powers and kept them. I don’t know how many, but I didn’t bring you into that vision, so you must have brought yourself.”

“I was trying to calm you,” he said slowly, those pale lashes blinking. “To reassure you, when the vision hit—”

“And sucked you in alongside me. I just let you think it was the Common because I needed access to your power. And because you were the only one with enough juice to put Lover’s Knot back in place.”

I saw when it truly hit him—that he’d been played, and by a human no less. And for a second, he looked more surprised than outraged. “What the hell . . . do you call that?” he asked in wonder.

“Demon practicality,” I said, and sucked down the rest of his power.

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