And I suddenly noticed something else weird.

The fact that the fey was just standing there.

It wasn't because he didn't see us. He was looking right at us, lit spear in hand, only he wasn't throwing it. He wasn't doing anything, in fact, except blinking. And then casting a quick glance over his shoulder.

But there was no one there. And when he turned his attention back on us, the spear abruptly faded out of sight. Because he thought we were a couple of happy, naked hippies, I realized, one of the fakes he'd been destroying for the last fifteen minutes along with his buddies.

Only his buddies weren't here now. And he was hot and probably tired. And suddenly seemed a lot less interested in continuing the wild-goose chase than in . . .

Than in watching the show, I realized, my heart beginning to pound.

Pritkin's hand abruptly clenched on my thigh.

His back was to the tree trunk; mine was to him. So I couldn't see his face. But I didn't need it.

I didn't need it to know that he was giving me the choice.

The body behind me was tense, the arms flexed, prepared for a contest if it came to it. And for all I knew, Pritkin could take a single fey. My Pritkin could have.

But this wasn't my Pritkin. And this one didn't have hundreds of years of fighting experience. Or weapons. And after everything, his magic had to be redlining if it wasn't already there.

And even if he managed it, even if he won, he might well lose, because this place was crawling with fey. If this one got off a single cry, we'd have another dozen down on us in a moment, and we couldn't handle that. We couldn't handle half of that.

I slowly reached up and put a hand behind Pritkin's neck.

The fey picked up his canteen and leaned against a tree.

And another rush of sensation flooded over my body like a warm tidal wave.

A callused hand found my breast, and the breeze blowing across the water became a warm, dragging caress. It smoothed down my stomach, and the dappled light sifting through the treetops hit my skin like golden coins, holding warmth and weight. It dipped between my thighs, and the light burst apart into a thousand individual suns.

My hair was all in my face; the fey couldn't have seen much of my expression. Which was just as well. Because I doubt stunned disbelief was the expected response when Pritkin began to explore, gently at first, questing, searching. And then becoming more assertive as he learned what made me shiver. And shudder. And arch back, a flood of goose bumps cascading up and down my body.

I cried out, and the forest shattered around us. Colors, already brilliant in the lead-up to sunset, exploded like strobes were behind them. They flooded into the air like mist; blues shimmered, greens were slick and wet, golds hurt. And they all sent spikes and waves of pleasure everywhere they touched, soaking into my skin, making the treetops whirl in a kaleidoscope of sensation and emotion and- And it was too much. I cried out, writhing back against him, and would have fallen except for the hands on my body. Their grip tightened, holding me up when I would have drowned in sensation, drowned and not cared because God, and help, and please, and God.

And then a new hand gripped me, wrenching me away. Throwing me to the ground while my head was still spinning, my body was still shuddering, spell-induced euphoria making me laugh. Laugh even when I was kicked over onto my back, when my legs were pried apart, when a face I didn't know hovered over mine- And was suddenly jerked back.

By the staff in Pritkin's hands, the one he'd slipped around the fey's throat.

But the man-the fey-wasn't trying to get away. He wasn't attempting to throw Pritkin off. He wasn't doing anything I'd have expected while his face reddened and his eyes popped and his tongue began to swell.

Because he was still coming for me.

And he continued to come, to reach, to claw, even as I sobered up, sobered up fast, and scrambled back out of reach, sweating and shivering and staring- But not as much as when he suddenly blinked and stared around, disoriented, his hands coming up to grasp the stick. Which almost immediately began to move away from his neck because the fey were strong; they were so damned strong. And then I was back on my feet, breathing hard, unsure how to help, before scrambling for the fey's discarded pack, hoping for a knife- Which I didn't get. Because another wave of incubus power hit, as Pritkin struggled to reestablish control. And this one was less like a fist than a freight train, sending me back to the ground, writhing under a wash of sensation too strong for pleasure, too euphoric for pain.

The next few seconds were a blur of contradictory images: The fey's lust-filled face hovering over mine, once more focused and determined. The grass licking my skin, like a thousand tiny tongues. The sound of the carnage across the river, cries and screams and shouted commands. The smell of wood smoke, rich and pungent.

The crunch of neck bones, soft and subtle, but as loud as a gunshot in my ears.

I wasn't sure-I was never sure-if Pritkin had done it. Or if the fey had done it himself by pushing against the restraint, still reaching out as he toppled over, the purple face still staring, the dead eyes still wide and fixed- On me.

And even with the muffling effect of the spell, it was too much. I felt a scream building, felt it clawing its way up my throat, felt Pritkin pull me back against him, his hand over my mouth, his lips whispering something I couldn't hear and wouldn't have understood if I did, probably don't scream, don't scream, don't scream in whatever language they spoke here.

But I was doing it anyway, almost soundlessly against the pressure of his palm, screaming and screaming and screaming, even as he dragged me away, deeper into the forest.

Only that didn't work too well with the trees shaking all around me, like someone using a camcorder who doesn't know how. But you can steady a camcorder, and I couldn't seem to steady myself. Or to stop the sensory overload or whatever had me suddenly able to taste colors and smell sounds and touch light and shadow as if they were tangible things.

Pritkin pulled me through an Alice in Wonderlandtype forest filled with familiar things that suddenly made no sense: trees recognizable only by their height, ground just a huge thing that tilted under my feet like a carnival ride, sky an expanse so immense I couldn't look at it, couldn't look, not without feeling like I might fall into it and go mad.

Only I was sort of feeling that way anyway.

And instead of better, the sensory distortion was getting worse, and getting worse fast, along with a gut-twisting craving I couldn't identify, but that had my hands shaking and my skin chilling one second and flushing hotly the next. I looked at my hand and thought I could see actual steam rising from it, an orange-red haze so bright, so bright against the darkened forest that I could only stare.

The branches that we pushed through lashed my body like a hundred little whips. They painted my skin with lines of fire, hot and peppery. Until the sound, the taste, the scent of them swirled up around me with every new stroke, leaving me writhing under their pain-filled touch in a different sort of ecstasy.

Pritkin stopped abruptly, and I ran into him. And discovered that I hadn't known ecstasy at all. My front connected with his back, and he felt so good, so good I couldn't believe it. All the other impressions faded, leaving just this: just smooth, warm, rigid, flexing under my hands. Salt under my tongue. Musk in my nose from the sweat I was still trying to lick off when somebody pulled me away, when somebody else wrapped me in a coat, when they separated us.

Pritkin was cursing. I couldn't understand the words, but the sounds spoke right to my brain, like the sounds of scuffling. He was fighting them; who was he fighting? I didn't know, couldn't tell. Just knew that I missed him, that I needed to get back to him, that I had to touch- I found him again-I have no idea how. I was all but blind, my eyes working but not seeing, my senses so overwhelmed they had practically shorted out, my head reeling and steps faltering- Until I touched him. And suddenly, everything made sense again. He was still trying to talk, to say something, whether to me or to them I didn't know, but it was a problem with my tongue down his throat. I didn't care. He tasted good; he tasted like life, and sanity and steadiness. Where my hands touched him, they felt almost normal, except for this weird sensation that they were sinking into his chest, merging with it. But that was fine, too. I wanted to merge with him, wanted to sink inside, wanted- Hands wrenched me away, a physical pain. Harsh voices sounded in my ears, but I didn't understand. And then someone stopped in front of me, pulling my face up to the light, but I couldn't see anything; my eyes had gone crazy again. They kept trying to taste things, and that wasn't right . . . was it?

"See what happens when you play around with time, girl?" a terse voice asked. And then the hands were pulling me farther away, and I was starting to panic, and fight to get back, slipping out of the coat and out of their grip, and running- For a second. Until they caught me, and wrestled me back, and someone said, "Enough of this!"

And then there was a light.

And then there was nothing.

Chapter Nineteen.

I woke up in what I guessed was the Pythian Court, since I was pretty sure Gertie was the one who'd just snatched me out of Wales. Pretty sure, but not certain, because Pritkin's spell was still in full force. And right then, I couldn't be certain of anything.

But I came around on a chaise in a small, dark room. It had garnet curtains with pompom fringe, an open door with light spilling in, and people talking in heated but hushed voices outside. And some wallpaper, some terrible, terrible stripy wallpaper that I fell into before I could decipher what they were saying, and then couldn't get back out of again.

Every which way I turned there was another line, shooting up immensely high, into the sky. Like the tallest of trees in a strange forest. And for some reason that thought made me panic and run, and get even further entangled in the never-ending jungle of lines, like bars on a cage, like poles on a merry-go-round, like light posts flashing by in a long, steady line. . . .

The carriage stopped.

Which surprised me since I hadn't realized I'd been in one.

Someone pulled me out, onto the sidewalk by one of the light posts, and I stumbled into it. I couldn't catch myself because my hands were cuffed behind me. Someone else gripped my arm, steadying me, and tried to say something, but he was cut off by voices from several sides.

It didn't matter. I couldn't concentrate on the voices. I couldn't concentrate on anything.

Because whenever I did, it was terrifying.

A monster twisted its neck around to look at me, a horrible, elongated thing, like something out of a nightmare. Its massive curve filled half the street, along with a head full of flaring nostrils and enormous teeth. And rolling eyes that stared at me, before it gave an awful, whinnying roar, like it was laughing at my terror- "Get her away from the horse!" someone said, and I was jerked back, screaming.

And was then marched down the sidewalk in the middle of a crowd of people I didn't look at, was afraid to look at. I just stared at the sidewalk instead, a boring stretch of brick that even my messed-up brain couldn't seem to do anything with. And at the feet of the guards or whoever they were, marching alongside me in their black, black boots.

The boots started to leave tarry footprints on the stones, like rubber on a hot day melting in the sun, even though it wasn't day. I knew that because we kept passing under streetlamps that threw circles of light onto the sticky footprints. And then onto pools of melted leather as the boots began to dissolve, first into puddles, then into holes that opened up in the perfectly uniform brick, deep and dark and- The sidewalk swallowed a guard.

It just opened up and gobbled him down between one second and the next, I was sure of it. But no one else seemed to notice he was gone, no one else seemed to notice, and what if I was next? What if- A surge of panic hit, and I tried to run, in a burst of speed that got me nowhere. Because the coat I was wearing again tripped me and arms caught me, and I was twisting and fighting and I must have hit someone, because a voice cursed. And someone else asked a question I didn't hear.

"Damned if I know!" the first voice said. "Just get her inside. Sooner she's put away, the better!"

And then I was thrown over someone's shoulder, and carried down an alley and up some rickety wooden stairs, and into a hallway. It was dim, too, almost dark, with just a few patches of diffuse light from above giving any illumination at all. But even that was too much.

Because there were posters on the walls, most small, more like flyers, others as large as a newspaper page. But almost all of them contained faces, sneering, jeering, hateful faces that seemed to leap off the walls, yelling and threatening, or rattling the bars of the cells many of them seemed to be in, trying to get at me. And some weren't even human.

A large Were leapt out of a page and into the hall, snapping at me with huge, slavering jaws, causing me to shriek and twist away and end up on the floor when the man carrying me lost his grip.

I leapt to my feet, in a crouch, panting, looking for the threat- Which was suddenly gone.

I stared around in panicked confusion, not sure where to go or what was real. Someone had hit one of the hanging lights, and the dim circle strobed the small corridor, making the gallery of horrors that much more terrifying. They all seemed to be coming for me now, a hundred ghostly hands stretching impossibly long, reaching, reaching, reaching- Until one of them jerked back with a curse. "The bawd bit me!"

"What do you expect?" someone else asked. "She's off her chump."

"She isn't mad; she's bespelled!" a more familiar voice said, sounding furious. "I would expect a group of magic users to be able to recognize the diff-"

There was a sound of a fist hitting meat.

The voice cut off.

And then I was dragged into a room that branched off the corridor.

It was wood floored and walled, with old gas lights overhead and a large wooden piece of furniture in the middle, like a freestanding counter. There were no posters. But there were two boxes on the counter, black ones the size of shoe boxes that looked familiar, but that I didn't look at too long in case they turned into something else.

I looked back toward the door instead.

And found Rosier standing just behind me, bleeding from the lip.

"It'll wear off," he told me, low-voiced and hurried. "Until then, don't trust your senses. They've been compromised-"

"No shit," I told him thickly, and had the pleasure of seeing him stare.

And then one of the men on the other side of the desk slapped a baton down on it, with a crack that reverberated through my confused brain like a gunshot. "No talking!"

Okay, I thought, trying not to collapse in a heap.

And then someone was stripping the coat off me, but he'd forgotten about the cuffs. So the leather pooled at the ends of my arms and sent me to my knees when he jerked on it. He finally figured it out and released me, so I could sprawl naked on the dirty floor.

I looked up to see another leather coat coming toward me, with one of the boxes in his hand. And Rosier suddenly tried to fight, and then to run, and he seemed really dedicated to the idea. Because it took three of them to wrestle him to the floor as well.

I didn't run.

What was the point?

The sidewalk would just eat me.

And then the lights went out.

It was wonderful.

It was wonderful.

I didn't know where I was or how I got here. But suddenly, there was no light, no sound, no anything to provide stimulus for my overheated brain. Just a lot of warm, floaty nothingness, peaceful, calm, allowing me a chance to breathe.

Which made it pretty damned close to paradise.

After a while, I put out a hand but didn't touch anything. I felt around with a toe, but there didn't seem to be anything down there, either. And strain as much as I liked, I still couldn't hear a sound.

That was okay; it gave me time to think.

I thought about taking a nap.

It would be so easy here, to just drift away. . . .

But there was something I needed to do first. Something that scratched at the inside of my head like a persistent fingernail. It was annoying, like an insect I couldn't shoo, or like Rosier when he was talking and talking and- Rosier.

I needed to find Rosier. And then we needed . . . we needed . . . we had to do something that I couldn't remember right now, and chasing down the memory that skittered around inside my skull sounded like way too much work. But it was important, and Rosier would know what it was.

I had to get to Rosier.

I wondered how.

And the next second, my butt hit a dusty, hardwood floor with a thump.

It was a loud thump, and it hurt like I'd fallen from a height. For a moment I just stayed there, dazed from the shock of the fall, waiting to be grabbed, to be jerked up, to be reimprisoned. But none of that happened.

Possibly because no one was there.

I took stock.

Dirty wooden floor, check. Big, hulking wood thing, check. Rosier-no Rosier. But I was back in what I guessed was the Victorian equivalent of war mage HQ, where I'd been a second ago. Or maybe not a second; I couldn't really tell. But it felt like longer, and my head felt a little clearer.

I realized I was holding a box.

It was black and shiny, the same one they'd imprisoned me in, at a guess. And I'd been right: I had seen ones like it before. The mages used them as magical traps, and as an alternative to coming up with cells for bad girls like me.

Or bad boys.