my sword and squinted into the dark and the sheeting rain I’d called upon. Under such circumstances, it was difficult to tell just who was your friend and who was the guy you were trying to kill, which worked out great for me, since everyone seemed to be either clawing for their lives or running through the broken-down doors, or standing about uncertainly, not sure who to strike out at. Then I heard a shout from the hall Temur had ducked down, loud enough to be heard over the roar of the water gushing in dark geysers all around me. I didn’t know what it was, whether it meant we were winning or losing or if Fiacre had decided he didn’t feel like trusting any man at that moment and who could blame him, but I pulled as hard as I could with everything I had—if there’d been oceans nearby I’d have included those too—and just let loose.
If I was going to die in a country I hated, surrounded by soldiers I’d spent my entire life fighting and six weeks kissing up to, then I sure as hell was going to take as much of that damned palace as I could down with me.
Maybe if I’d been better educated in the ways of Talents, I’d never have tried it, since there were all sorts of rules about what you could do without draining your own life force. But the way I saw it, if it came down to dying on my terms or theirs, then I knew which side I was sticking to.
The courtyard disappeared with a boom like dragons exploding overhead, and white sheets of furious water exploded upward in its place, swallowing the trees and any soldiers yet trying to escape. The building rocked with the force of it all, knocking me clean off my feet and sending me through the far wall—grateful at last that they were made out of a bare wooden frame and mostly flimsy paper.
The water swirled after me eagerly like a hungry pet looking to be fed as I fought to get up. I blinked the droplets out of my eyes and shook my head out like the dog Caius had named me when we’d first met. One of the guards with better eyesight had finally taken notice of me, and I threw myself to one side. Moving was harder than it’d been when we’d first started that little campaign. I managed to block the guard’s sword when he swung, but only just. Even my good arm was getting tired from having to take all the weight of the sword by itself.
The only problem was that Josette was probably going to kill me if I died, or worse, if I let Temur die, whatever that was about.
I was just resigning myself to fighting about as dirty as I possibly could—biting, clawing, scratching, you name it—when all of a sudden the guard went stiff like he’d been turned to stone. A moment later he toppled over, flat on his face in the rising water.
“Is Marcelline all right?” Fiacre asked, sloshing out from behind the guard, where I guessed he’d been standing. “Are the others? They said if I used my Talent, it’d mean a quick end for them, but I thought… considering the situation…”
“Alcibiades!” Marcy sloshed through the water toward me, clutching at Marius’s sleeve. The better to drag him across the battlefield, no doubt. “Have you seen the others? I’d have torn this place down around us, only they said they’d kill the other delegates!”
She caught sight of Fiacre and stopped short.
“Ke-Han ingenuity,” I said. “No doubt everyone got that story, and they were betting on us being good and attached to our fellow delegates.”
“Yes, well I’ve no doubt that had you been in the same situation, you’d have upended the palace at once,” Marius said, just as Casimiro appeared like a shadow, with Valery behind him.
“Hello,” said Val. “Is this your rescue? Rather wet, don’t you think?”
“It’s the best I could do under the circumstances,” I said.
“Well, you know what they say,” Fiacre replied, clearly itching to take out his aggression on some of the soldiers. “You can’t choose your Talent.”
So that I wouldn’t have time to think about Fiacre and the way he—and all men like him, for that matter—rubbed my fur in the wrong direction, I paused to take stock of our numbers. Fiacre, obviously, was in tiptop shape, although I noticed there was a nasty cut on his face;