Brave the Tempest (Cassie Palme) - Karen Chance Page 0,235

couldn’t read the book until it was out of the way. So they thought, you know what? Maybe a goddess could open it. So creepy mage disguises himself as this shop owner—”

So evil Santa really was evil, I thought.

“—and gets the book to you. They hoped you’d open it there and then, and fight the demon while they made off with the book. But instead—”

“I took it to the covens,” I said, remembering.

“Yeah, it was awesome. You take it to some hidden fey enclave that nobody can find, and then you leave it there! And while they’re looking for it, you go tell the demons all about it—who of course send one of their people to retrieve it. And get this—this is the best part. The demon they sent thought, you know what? Why take this thing to the council and get a pat on the head when I could take it to Aeslinn instead? So he did! Creepy mage was furious.”

“But . . . wasn’t that what he wanted to have happen?” I asked, confused.

She laughed. “Hell, no. Jonathan had delusions of grandeur. After all, if he had an invincible army, what did he need with the fey? Or the Black Circle? Or anyone?”

“He was a fool,” Jo suddenly snapped. “Thought he was going to rule Faerie and use all its magic for himself—”

“Better than what you planned,” Lizzie said. “She’s crazy,” she told me. “I didn’t know it for sure until we shared body space. But thoughts leak over—”

“I’m not crazy!” Jo snapped. “I thought you of all people would understand. Look how you were treated—”

“Which makes me hate my family, not want to blow up the timeline!” Lizzie snapped back. She looked at me, and her face subtly changed. And her voice, when she spoke, was softer. “Shards, if misused, will destroy everything. She basically took pieces of the timeline and threw them at another piece of the timeline. It’s all unraveling.”

“I know.”

“So you have a plan?”

“I have . . . kind of a plan.”

“Good. That’s more than I do,” she said. And stabbed Jo.

It shocked me, because that wasn’t what I’d meant at all. It looked like it shocked Jo, too, because everybody was right: she was a lousy dueler. Specifically, she’d forgotten Gertie’s rule about not disdaining plain old human weapons.

They can surprise you.

Jo looked damned surprised.

For a split second, that is, before the pretty face went slack and she rose up out of the dying woman, a column of silver-gold energy as bright as the sun and as tall as an office building. She boiled right through Lizzie, turning her to ash in an instant, before I could even scream. Before whirling around again, this time toward me.

And then it got worse.

Because another familiar voice rang out, down the empty street. One that had my heart seizing in my chest. Hilde, I thought. You didn’t.

But she must have, because a section of the wall of bodies was suddenly blown out. And in the smoking remains, among the charred and burning flesh, stood a slender figure in a white lace dress. “Touch her and die.”

“Rhea!” I screamed. “No!”

But it was too late. Jo turned on a dime, either because of the anguish in my voice or because, from her perspective, I was all but done for anyway, just awaiting the coup de grace. But she didn’t know what this new threat was, what she could do.

But I did, and it wouldn’t be enough.

Jo surged back down the street and I threw out a hand, desperately trying to throw a spell I knew I didn’t have the power for.

And I was right.

But someone else did. Someone who must have gotten Billy’s message after all, and cast a spell he shouldn’t have known, because it had been outlawed for five hundred years. But he was Pritkin, so of course he did.

Nodo D’Amore, I thought, as a huge pulse of power slammed into me, enough to knock me off my feet. Because I might not have the power to drain Jo, but the Prince of the Incubi certainly did. And right now, his power was mine.

I tightened my grip, and power surged up my arm. It felt the way it had once in the ghost realm known as the Badlands, when I’d been reclaiming some of my strength from a bunch of thieving ghosts. That had been my power; this was not. But this would do.

I got back to my feet and pulled.

Jo hadn’t noticed the first little