by Natalie Grey
“Wait!” Her voice was desperate.
I turned to look at her. As far as I was concerned, she had one chance to answer all of my questions, and if she tried to be evasive at all, I was going to walk away without another word.
“If we work together—if you do this for me—you will be bound to me.” There was despair in the woman’s tone.
“How?”
“I cannot say!” She looked at me, and I heard trees rustling and the slow, deep sound of seeds cracking under the earth. “You seek to save a druid,” she told me, and I realized she had looked into my mind. “Daiman Bradach. He is in the hall.”
I couldn’t let myself waver. “It doesn’t matter if you believe you will be in my debt.” I made my voice hard and cold. “I believe it, and doubly so if I’ll be bound to you in some way. So, tell me. Will you help me save him? Will you promise that?”
She stopped, silently, and I knew the answer.
“Then you don’t have my help,” I told her.
“I thought you wanted to defeat the monster that holds the druids,” she admitted. Her voice was quiet. “I was so sure. I have waited fifteen centuries for an ally.”
“Then you can wait fifteen more, for all I care.” I stared her down. “You agree to save Daiman, or we have no deal. He’s in the hall, it’s not even out of your way.”
“I cannot promise that he will survive,” she said sharply. “There are always casualties. He might be one.”
“Why even admit that?”
“I would rather not have.” She turned her head to stare at me. “But you asked, and I cannot lie to you. So here we are.”
I lifted my shoulders. “Here we are,” I echoed.
“Don’t you want to save it?” she challenged me.
“It’s not my problem.” I saw the words wound her, and I forced myself to keep going. “Saving Daiman is what I care about.”
I gave one last look down the hill, and then I turned and walked back into the domhan fior, leaving the woman behind. Whoever she was, whatever she wanted—I had no intentions of helping her.
Daiman had been terrified that this woman could call me into another world, that she could drag me away. And if she’d been able to promise that she could save him, I might have taken the bargain.
I wished, more than anything, that I could tell him he hadn’t needed to worry about me taking her offer.
Chapter Sixteen
I felt a strange sensation as I walked away and left her there. It clung inside the front of my chest, half ache and half itch, and I was nearly back to Philip’s cage before I managed to place it.
It was guilt.
I nearly guffawed. After everything I’d done in my life, I felt guilty about this?
“What’s so funny?”
I turned to look. Philip was clearly in a much worse mood than I was. He’d given up even trying to lounge comfortably, and was sitting with his back propped against the bars and a sullen expression on his face.
I considered before answering him. At length, I decided to sit down on the ground nearby.
“So, have you given any consideration to my proposal?”
“You could have asked if I had an answer before leaving me here overnight, you know.” The look he shot me was venomous. “You had your offer all tied up in a very neat bow, it didn’t exactly leave much to consider.”
“Still.” I shrugged. “I wanted to make sure you didn’t rush into anything. And you’ve surprised me before.”
His expression only darkened.
“I need to hear you say it,” I said equably.
“Very well.” He gave a mocking smile. “I’ll help you save Daiman.” He might as well have spat the name.
“Interesting.” I’d expected a clever evasion—for him to say he would do ‘whatever he could,’ or ‘whatever was possible.’ “Just to be clear, you will help me in good faith, yes?”
“You have me in a cage.”
“I didn’t say anything about me acting in good faith,” I pointed out.
He looked heavenwards briefly, and blew out his breath. “If you’re asking, it means you don’t trust me.”
“Of course I don’t trust you.” I shook my head.
“Then why ask me to say it, if you don’t trust me? You won’t believe the answer. It will mean nothing to you.” He gave me a nasty smile. “After all, I could be lying.”
“If it proves nothing and means nothing, you should have no trouble saying it,” I rejoined easily.
“Why? Why do you want me to?” He was growing visibly frustrated.
I didn’t have an answer for that at the ready. I looked down at my crossed legs and considered. “I just want you to say it,” I told him. “Believe it or not, I still think you have some kind of a soul in there. I think if you say it, there’s a better chance that you’ll mean it.”
He stared at me for a very long time, so long that I was about to open my mouth and tell him to forget everything, I’d do this on my own.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll help you, in good faith, to rescue Daiman. This might be beyond us, but I’ll do anything to save him that I would have to save you.” He hesitated. “Is that enough of an oath for you?”
“Yes.” It was more than enough. I wasn’t sure how far I trusted him, but Philip promising to help Daiman as much as he would help me was definitely the best I’d get.
“If it’s between the two of you, though….”
“Let’s not go there,” I suggested, as lightly as I could. I forced a smile.
“Right.” His shoulders loosened as the tension left him. “In any case, I think I have a part of plan for you.”
I raised my eyebrows. This, I hadn’t expected. “Go on.”
“You said the beast is death magic. You said it like you couldn’t fight death magic. Is that right?”
“Um.” I didn’t want to admit a weakness, but the fact was, he needed to know my capabilities if we were going to make a plan together. “No. I fought something like that during the trial. It was made of death. My magic didn’t even faze it, and it wasn’t like I could suck away its life force—it didn’t have one.”
“Interesting.” Philip’s eyes flickered as he took in the information, but he didn’t dwell on it. “Well, my plan might work, then. If death magic hurts living things … would adding life hurt this creature?”
I gaped at him. “It might. That’s genius.”
He gave me a satisfied little smile. “There you go. Draw life from the creatures surrounding the hall, and you should have all you need to work with, yes?”
My face fell. Draw life from the creatures surrounding the hall? That seemed … wrong. They hadn’t asked for any of this. They were just minding their own business while humans went insane around them.
“I can’t just….” I swallowed. “I’ll have to find another way.”
“Oh, don’t tell me you have moral objections,” Philip snapped. He’d always been able to change moods on a dime. “You’re putting your own first, that’s how the world works.”
“Oh?” I gave him a look.
“Yes. And I’m not willing to sit in this cage forever just because you don’t want to kill a mouse.”
“Well, then.” I raised an eyebrow. “How about I just use your life force? That would solve all my problems at once, wouldn’t it?” I laughed at his affronted look. “What? I’m just putting my own ahead of my enemies. That’s not wrong, is it?”
“I should think that as your ally, I would merit a higher rating in your plans,” he said stiffly.
“Are you an ally? Because you’re only doing this to save your own skin—”
“Don’t presume you know all of my reasons.”
“—and you’ve told me you’d rather have Daiman out of the way,” I finished, ignoring his attempt to make himself look better than he was. “You’re someone I’d never trust if you were out of a cage.”
“You know,” he said thoughtfully, “a lot of people feel the same
way about you. I wonder if any of them are in that hall.”
I looked at him, chilled by this analysis. I didn’t respond. What could I say, after all? That it didn’t matter? If I freed them along with Daiman, it might very well matter. It was just an attempt to scare me, and I knew that, but it was a good reminder that I was not truly welcome here.
“I’ll find a source of life,” I said quietly.
“Not mine,” Philip specified.
“I didn’t promise that.”
“My dear Nicola, think for a moment.” He was back to his usual self, the rat. “If you kill me … you’ll never find out what I’m planning for the world.” He waited until I looked at him, and smiled. “And it’s good. It’s really, really good.”
I gritted my teeth. I hated it when he was right.
“What if I figure it out on my own? What if you slip and tell me?”
“I won’t,” he said confidently. “And you won’t. You’ll never guess this.”
“That’s awfully confident for a thundercloud in a cage.” I tilted my head. “Anyway, at least you admit I’m only keeping you alive for that.”
“For now,” he said, seemingly content. “The longer I stay alive, Nicola, and the more we talk—the closer you come to realizing what we are to one another. The closer you come to acknowledging that we have unfinished business, you and I.”
“We don’t,” I said automatically. “And no matter how convinced you are that we do, I’ll live with that if I need to.”
“Mmm.” Philip gave up on that tack. “So why were you looking over your shoulder as you came back from the real world, then?”
I spent a moment considering whether to tell him.
“I met someone who claims to be trying to lift the curse on the hall,” I said finally.
“Why didn’t you bring them with you?” Philip demanded. “We have a whole ‘nother person and you didn’t think to tell me so I could work that into the plan?”
“We don’t have another person,” I specified. “They gave me a false name, refused to promise to rescue Daiman, and told me I’d be bound to them for life if we worked together to free the hall. Oh, and they’re cursed. Or something.”
Philip blinked at me, apparently trying to decide if I was serious.
“I kind of want to meet this person,” he said finally.
“Don’t waste your time,” I advised him.
“Don’t dismiss it out of hand,” he countered. “I’ve never known you to throw away potential allies. So this person might or might not have goals that align with yours. That’s what you’re afraid of, isn’t it? Well, the same is true of me.”
“I know your goals,” I contradicted him. “I don’t know hers.”
“It’s a woman?” He sounded even more delighted by this. “Mysterious women offering mysterious bargains, better and better. Druid? Sorceress?”
“She claims to be a druid, and the better part of two thousand years old. She says she’s been searching for an ally for fifteen centuries.”
“You should find out more about her,” Philip advised dryly. “Someone like that, after all … well, you have to ask yourself, what sort of things do they know? If you’re fighting druid magic, you’d want a druid on your side. And if she’s been cursed and kept from her people for so long….” He gave an artful shrug.
“If she has been, she’s a wild card we don’t need,” I said brutally. “She can’t lie, but she doesn’t tell me much. And I don’t have much of an urge to be bound to someone for the rest of ever when they won’t tell me why or how that applies, for a goal I wasn’t really invested in to start with.”
“You need the hall un-cursed,” Philip said with a shrug.
“Maybe. And maybe I don’t. Either way—”
“Find out more about her.” Philip cut me off. “That’s all I’ll say. Unless you’re willing to let me out, she’s the only one who can give you backup out there.”
I stared at him for a very long time. It was impossible that he’d somehow collaborated with this woman … wasn’t it?
“I always told you who to give a second chance to,” Philip reminded me. “And it saved your back more times than you’d like to admit.”
“Get some sleep,” I told him. ‘I’m going to go prepare for this fight.”
The last thing I wanted was a discussion of the old days. In fact, the more I talked to Philip, the surer I became that killing him now would be the safest way to go about things. Because he was right. We had a lot of unfinished business.
And the more I spoke with him, no matter what the purpose, the closer I became to being mired in the past.
I was just pressing my fingers to my temples in an effort to bodily press the thoughts out of my head, when a crash nearby made me turn. It wasn’t of this world, I knew that immediately, but even Philip had heard it. He was alert, hands on the bars of his cage, and as we watched, something emerged as if from mist.
The head of the serpent.
It had found me.
Chapter Seventeen
I wavered, frozen in place. I had exactly one hope going for me: that the serpent hadn’t seen me.
Its head swung toward me and it gave a scream as its mouth opened.
Well, that hadn’t lasted long. I dove sideways, fearing some bolt of magic, and stared wide-eyed as the entire body of the beast shot through the veil in the worlds and buried itself headfirst in the ground. If I had still been standing there—
Move now, think later. I scrambled up and dodged behind the cage. I needed life, and a way to make it into a bolt. Normally I did the transfer of life energy skin to skin, and I wasn’t even sure this thing had skin.
The monster pulled its head out of the ground with an angry, mechanical groan.
“Go faster!” Philip yelled at me.
“I am trying!” I hightailed it around the edge of the cage again as the long body shot past me in the air. “I didn’t exactly have time to plan this strategy out!” I lobbed a bolt of magic and was pleased to see the serpent swerve out of its way with an angry hiss.
It didn’t know yet that I couldn’t hurt it. Good.
I managed to throw Philip a quick look as I circled. “You should probably stay down, by the way. I don’t know how strong those bars are.”
“You aren’t letting me out?” He sounded as much incredulous as furious. “You’re kidding me. You’re not letting me out of here?”
I dodged and rolled. This time, the serpent’s barbed tail caught me as it whistled past, a spike catching on my side and wrenching me sideways. I gave a scream, too blindsided to try to control myself—and luckily, too surprised to feel the first explosion of pain.
The tail whistled away and I hauled myself up, chest heaving, and pressed my hand over the wound in my side. Fuck, that hurt.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I need right now,” I managed. “To let you out of your cage so you can stab me in the back and get back to planning whatever the hell it was you were going to do.” I shot him a furious look. “I have no illusions that you’ll help Daiman if you don’t have to.”
His eyes bored into mine. “You are going to kill me if you leave me in here.”
“Can we discuss this later?”
“There may not be a later!” He pulled at the bars as hard as he could. “And if you die—”
I stopped listening. I wasn’t letting him out. Any chance I had that he could hurt the serpent was handily outweighed by the chances of him taking revenge, or simply running.
Plus, he and the cage made a nice shield.
The serpent reared up over the cage. Its head spun like a drill bit and it bellowed skyward. A challenge or a promise, I wasn’t sure—but whatever the hell this thing was, it was alive enough to know the postures of a fight.
When it began to tip, I stared at it slack-jawed. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
But it wasn’t. I sprinted sideways and hurled myself to the ground as my enemy slammed its entire body down on the cag
e. Lightning and darkness burst through the air and there was a horrible buzzing noise.
I scrambled away like a crab. Smoke was pouring off the cage, and against my better judgement, I called out, “Philip?”
“Oh, don’t tell me you’re worried about me now.” His tone was acerbic enough that I knew he was all right, but he was panting slightly. I guessed he had thrown himself sideways when he saw the body coming down. In a very disgruntled tone, he added, “And I really must commend you on the strength of your cage. It seems unbreakable.”
“Well, that was the idea. So, thank you.”
I looked around myself. My side hurt. It hurt so badly it was hard to think, all of a sudden.
Keep moving. I felt my feet follow the command and I pressed my hand over the wound. I’d had a plan….
Right. Use life to see if that could hurt the snake. I shook my head to clear it and looked around for the beast. It was picking itself up off the ground somewhat woozily, which would have been a lot more funny if it weren’t so dangerous.
Life. I’d try it with myself first, I figured. That was a good, honorable way to do things. Yes.
I seemed to be having trouble with that, though. Blinking through a sudden burst of spots in my vision, I tried to dodge at the same time as I looked for sources of life.
I found two, blazing brightly, but I failed to get out of the way of the serpent quite so well. Its passage knocked me forward onto the ground with jarring impact, and it was all I could do to push myself up onto all fours.
I really didn’t feel well. I heard Philip scream something as I grabbed for the life I’d found. It was slippery, or maybe my mind just couldn’t capture it all that well, but I reached for it without hesitation. I could feel the serpent now, for some reason. It was getting closer. It could see me.
I turned as it reared up in front of me and, with the last of my strength, sent a bolt of life straight for its head.
It had started to plunge towards me, and so it got the bolt full in the face. Its scream made me clap my hands over my ears as I rolled out of the way. The body hit the ground so hard I swore I bounced, and began to thrash. It shrieked at me, writhing in pain so that its head struck the ground.
