Something was about to go down, something bad, something that was going to make all of this irrelevant. Because that was what happened last time: a fey had died who wasn’t supposed to, but my power hadn’t cared. Because it knew that a battle was coming, one in which he was supposed to die, and the few hours’ difference weren’t enough to matter.
I was assuming the reverse worked as well. Like if those people who were supposed to die earlier today did so shortly from something else, they’d never have a chance to mess with the timeline. So my power wouldn’t care, but I did, because I was here and Pritkin was here and we needed to get gone before the shit hit the— “It’s time,” Pritkin said, abruptly enough to make me jump. He looked at me. “You all right?”
“Yeah,” I said, a little breathlessly. “Yeah, I’m good.”
I stopped fingering my bracelet and followed him.
The toupee turned out to be a nobleman’s house, because apparently noblemen had different standards back in the day. But it was bigger inside than I’d thought, with a high ceiling under the conical roof, like looking up into a big straw hat. Just how big I wasn’t sure, because a wattle-and-daub wall rose a dozen yards away with a door in it, blocking off the inner areas from what looked like a reception room.
Well, okay, it looked like the medieval version of a hunting lodge, with a fire, a table, and a few chairs covered with animal hides spread around. But no people, just like there hadn’t been any guards on the door outside. It should have made me feel better.
It didn’t.
“Wait.”
Pritkin had already started for the door, but he turned to look at me. “We don’t have much time.”
“I know. But this . . . I need to know something first.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“The staff.”
“Yes?”
“Do you have it?”
“It’s . . . safe.”
“Safe where?”
He didn’t say anything.
I bit my lip. “You don’t trust me?”
“It’s not me. . . .”
“Then who?”
“The king. He said—”
“What king?”
Pritkin stared at me. “The one we met yesterday?”
I just looked at him. “Yesterday” was a difficult concept when you jackrabbited around the timeline as much as I did. Like, really difficult.
“The one who tried to kill us?”
Not narrowing things down much.
“The one you somehow froze in place?”
And then I remembered: the face of an angel, if you didn’t count the expression. Reflexes faster than those of anyone I’d ever seen, including other fey—almost including me, and I’d been shifting. And a shiny mailed boot stabbing down, not on me, but on the roof all around me, which had been thatch, too.
And which had broken, sending me falling straight into the hands of the Pythian posse.
I frowned. “You mean the blond—”
“Yes.”
“—was the Sky King?”
“Yes. Caedmon. He told me—”
“Caedmon. You’re on a first-name basis now?”
Pritkin’s eyes narrowed. “After you disappeared—again—he agreed to let me take the staff back to court, to use as bait to try to find out what’s going on. Or don’t you want to know why all three of the leading houses of Faerie are currently on earth, at the same time, in the same place, with armies?”
I shook my head. “We already know that. The Svarestri stole the staff, and the Blarestri came chasing it. And now Nimue—”
“But that’s just it. Why did they come? The Svarestri barely know this world. Why bring the staff here, where they are at a serious disadvantage even among other fey, who have at least some familiarity with it? And where their power doesn’t work nearly as well as in Faerie? They steal a staff that could easily cause a war, and they bring it here. Why?”
“I don’t know. But we’re not going to find out if you lose it—”
“I told you, it’s safe.”
“But you won’t tell me where.”
Pritkin scowled. It was strange. The face was different—the face was a stranger—but that expression was hauntingly familiar. Except for one thing.
“I hate your eyes,” I said suddenly, before I thought.
“What?”
“Not—I mean those,” I said, gesturing at the blue-black combo he had going on. “Do you have to keep them?”
He looked a little surprised but shook his head. “No. The guard was about to change while I was here, and I wasn’t using this face then, in any case. They won’t know me any more than they will you.”
“Is that why you think this will work? They don’t know me?”
Pritkin looked at me for a moment, and then walked back over. He had that expression, the I’m-going-to-figure-her-out expression, which yeah, probably wasn’t much of a challenge right now. It felt like I was stalling, even to me.
But I couldn’t seem to help it. I didn’t want to go in there. It had been okay from the outside, just a silly little hat of a house, but now . . .
I didn’t like it now.
It felt like standing at the entrance to a cave where you’ve been told there’s a monster, but you didn’t believe it until you got there and, oh, look, a monster. Or like being in one of those old movies where you’re at the top of the basement stairs, leading down into darkness, and the light switch doesn’t work. And, worse, you’re a blonde. Everyone is yelling at their TV, “Don’t go in there, don’t go in there,” but you do because you’re the blonde, which is Hollywood code for criminally stupid.
Only I wasn’t, and I didn’t want to go in there.
Pritkin’s head tilted, as if some of my inner dialog was showing on my face. “That and the fact that the fey can sense power.”
“And that matters?”
He held a hand just above my arm, and goose bumps rose to meet him. “You have power. Anyone who concentrates, anyone with the ability, should be able to feel it. If I’m to convince them that you’re someone who needs to be put in a highly secured area, you have to be powerful.”
I looked up at him. “Is that why this Caedmon doesn’t trust me?”
“He didn’t say.”
“But you believe him.”
“He said I should avoid you. He told me that you’re dangerous.”
“And you believe him?”
It felt important for some reason—some stupid reason, since this Pritkin didn’t know me. We’d spent all of maybe a day together as far as he was concerned. Of course, it had been a hell of a day, and it was a day longer than he’d known the damn fey king, but still— He stepped closer, until our bodies were almost touching. A finger tilted my chin up, and I looked into eyes that were finally familiar, vivid green shining through whatever spell he’d used before. “I’m with you now. I’m trusting you with this. And when this is over, I’ll take you to court. We’ll find out what the Svarestri want with the staff together.”
I swallowed and nodded. “Okay.”
We walked through the door.
I’d expected another big room on the other side, making up the other half of the circle. But instead, there was just a hallway, relatively narrow, with a low ceiling. It was almost claustrophobic, especially coming from the previous room, and there were no windows. Instead, lanterns hung on the walls at intervals, throwing flickering shadows everywhere and ramping up the creep factor.