Page 95 of Hijack the Seas: Seismic

“This is not the time—

“This is exactly the time! You said it yourself—they’re going to cheat. Bodil, definitely, and everybody else, probably. And cheating around here involves blood—”

“I’ll be all right, Cassie—”

“You’ll be dead!”

Pritkin snapped a silence shield around us because we were attracting a few glances, even though we couldn’t afford the power loss.

“We just went through this!” I said, not bothering to lower my voice, even when he winced. “What the hell?”

“It’s not what you think—”

“Then what is it?”

“I need someone to replace me if I fall,” he told me. “You have the right to contest for the throne—”

“What the—”

“—and you don’t have my handicap. You’ve no demon blood, and one of your parents was a senior god, just like Nimue—”

I stared at him. “Have you lost your mind? I only told you that to keep you from leaving!”

“I know, but it doesn’t make it wrong. And you saw what Faerie showed us. If we don’t get this army, Zeus will. He already has Feltin and who knows how many others—”

“Then we’ll take them down together!”

He shook his head. “I don’t intend to die today, Cassie, but if I do—”

“Shut up!”

“If I do, you still have a claim. A blood right to the throne, and you’ve been here since the beginning. You don’t even have to challenge; you’re already part of my team, so mine covers you.”

I stared at him mutely for a second, and then the words bubbling up in my throat spilled out of my lips. “I can’t. I can’t. Not just stand here, and you don’t even have your magic, and those bastards—”

“Then you’re making the same mistake I did when under Barne-Mora,” he said quietly. “I didn’t want to risk you, to the point that I was willing to quit and walk away. I was wrong then, and you’re wrong now. Are we partners, or will our personal desires keep getting in each other’s way?”

“Are we partners?” Because lately, it hadn’t felt like it.

“We always have been.”

I looked up at him miserably, knowing he was right. It made me want to vomit.

“I will be back,” he said and kissed me hard and fast.

And then he was gone.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Pritkin moved so quickly that it almost looked like he’d cloaked, only he didn’t have the strength for that. Or for this, I thought, as the challengers mounted their rides, some of them making come-on gestures at the crowd as they did so as if asking them to be even louder. And the onlookers obliged, with shouts that would leave them hoarse after this and with noise from the various ungodly instruments they’d brought with them, all of which made a vuvuzela sound like a softly whispering brook.

I couldn’t hear a damned thing as a result, and thanks to the pennants people were waving everywhere, I couldn’t see much, either. Except for one thing: maybe a minute after Pritkin left, the royal guard did, too. Jumping down from their perches high over the crowd and surging ahead.

All in the direction he had just taken.

Shit.

He’d had to drop his disguise because no rando from the audience would be allowed to participate in the royal race, which was what they’d been waiting for. And he couldn’t hope to win if they assassinated him before the pistol went off or whatever the fey were using to start this thing! I tried to shift because I could feel the Pythian power surrounding me—

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