But he let go and I spun, bringing the short sword up in a stabbing motion—and hit wallpaper. Whoever it was had moved like quicksilver, dodging the blade before darting back in to grab me and shove me against the refrigerator. He pinned me there with his lean, hot weight, grabbing my arms, trapping me.
So I brought up a knee, hard, and heard another grunt, just as I recognized a familiar scent. Fey didn’t smell like butterscotch and whisky—at least, none I’d ever met. I looked up into a pair of furious blue eyes. Louis-Cesare.
“How the hell did you get in?” I whispered.
“Through the door,” he said quietly, his voice a little strained.
I moved my knee. “Sorry.” And then what he’d said registered. “What do you mean, through the door? The wards are set to exclude all but family.”
“I am family, Dorina.”
Oh, yeah.
I didn’t ask him why he was here instead of where he was supposed to be because right then I didn’t care. “They’re after Aiden,” I told him. “We need to get them before they go upstairs.”
He didn’t ask me what I meant. I guess he’d gotten a look in the hall, or maybe that keen nose had scented something off, too. “I counted eight of them. And there may be more,” he told me grimly.
“Eight?” Wonderful. Not that it made a difference. “It doesn’t matter how many there are. We’ve got to stop them.”
I started for the hall again, or tried to, but that iron grip didn’t budge. “We will not stop eight fey warriors by brawn alone,” he told me harshly. “A little planning may be the difference between success and failure.”
“So might delay!”
I wrenched away, but he moved to block the door to the hall, and trying to budge him would have been like going through a brick wall. Harder, actually: I’d been through a wall, but I’d never managed to dislodge Louis-Cesare when he was in a mood. I spun on my heel and flung open the kitchen door instead, intending to circle around back and hopefully take the fey by surprise.
And then I just stood there, staring.
I’d been hearing a weird noise coming from outside, but hadn’t had time to focus on it. It had sounded like someone bouncing on a trampoline, which was a little odd at three a.m. But the reality wasn’t that far off.
“What is it?” Louis-Cesare came up behind me.
I thought it was sort of self-explanatory. He was just in time to see another group of Cheung’s boys throw themselves at the wards. A few of them must have had some serious power, because they actually managed to dent the surface a few inches, distorting their faces horribly as they pressed up against the invisible skin.
And then the wards corrected, throwing more power at the point of contact, and they went staggering backward. Or flying, depending on how far in they’d made it. The reaction seemed to be in direct proportion to the threat.
I could have told them that they were wasting their time. The house wards weren’t run off a talisman that could be exhausted if enough force was applied. They were powered by a ley-line sink, which had unlimited energy. Cheung’s boys could batter themselves bloody, but they’d never get through that way.
“Idiots,” I said with feeling. “It would serve them right if they did get in. I’d like to see how they’d deal with—”
I stopped, staring at all the power expending itself uselessly against the wards.
When it could be in here helping us.
I watched the mud-splattered attackers for a moment and wondered if I was going crazy. No way could the two of us handle a couple dozen senior-level masters. But then, weaker ones wouldn’t be any use againstsubrand’s thugs. And when Cheung’s boys stormed the house, there was a good chance the fey were going to assume they were coming to our aid, and vice versa. If they tore into one another, it might buy me time to find Claire and the boys.
Of course, if they didn’t, I was screwed. But I was screwed anyway, and between the devil and the deep blue sea, the devil starts to look pretty good. At least he can be bargained with. The sea will just kill you.
I felt a hand suddenly tighten around my bicep. I looked up, and saw the same idea dawning in Louis-Cesare’s eyes.
“Can you do it?” he whispered.
“Yes. But Cheung will run as soon as he sees the fey.” If he had any sense.
“He won’t run,” Louis-Cesare said, with a slight smile.
I followed his line of sight out into the yard, where I saw Cheung’s head jerk up. He stared at the house, a scowl spreading over his features. “What did you do?” I demanded.
“I suggested to him that he might have his servant, if he was not too much of a coward to come in and take him.”
“You called a first-level master a coward?”
“Among other things.”
“And they say I’m crazy.”