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“Where?”Mircea said.

“Right here.Probably on that wall,” Pritkin said, pointing at the only one without shelving.“I need to see if I can reignite it.”

“And it’ll take us straight to Dante’s?”I asked, clutching his arm.

“It should.”He thought for a moment.“Or it will backfire on top of us.You should probably wait outside...”His voice trailed off.

“This portal, it is powered by a talisman, yes?”Bodil asked, an eyebrow quirking.

Pritkin sighed.“A talisman powers it, yes.”

“Then, after fifty years of accumulated power, if it backfires, it will take out the entire block,” she said dryly.“I do not think waiting outside will help.”

Alphonse had some colorful phrases to reply to that, and this time, Mircea didn’t stop him.Maybe because he agreed.But all he said, looking at Pritkin, was, “Can you do it?”

“Yes.”

It was stark, with no qualifiers, and I suddenly felt my spine unclench.Despite looking like Rambo half the time, Pritkin had a scholar’s mind and usually qualified everything, hedging his bets because there were few absolutes in the world.But apparently this was one of them.

“I will help,” Bodil announced, and he didn’t argue.

“The Lady Bodil is right,” he cautioned the rest of us.“Talismans are usually drained on a regular schedule if not used, to prevent… complications.This one has not been.The portal will be powerful.”

“In other words, prepare your buttholes,” Alphonse muttered, and I felt mine clench.Or maybe that was over a new barrage outside, as I guessed Jonas had decided there was still something left around here to kill.

The rest of us gathered in a knot over by the door, with the witches casting protection spells that I sincerely hoped we wouldn’t need.Pritkin and Bodil put their heads together, muttering stuff I could almost but not quite hear over the thumping of my heart, theboom, boom, crash, boom, from outside, and the rattling of the metal shelving that was almost constant now as Jonas worked on wiping this part of the city clean off the map.

Then Pritkin’s spell took, just that fast, before I or my butthole was remotely prepared.The entire back wall of the freezer disappeared, and—shit!We had a split second to stare at a swirling maw as red as hell before the portal grabbed us, hard and fast, like a starving giant throwing us down its throat.

And throwing hard.This was no simple transition, like walking through a doorway, as was the case with the more expensive portals, or even riding a rushing river of power like with the illicit sort that smugglers often carved into Faerie.No, this one literally made my soul feel like it was being sucked out of my body as I went flying through the bloody mouth as violently as being thrown out of an airplane.

There was an instant of “oh,” a second of “auggghhhh!”and a brief sensation of weightlessness.And then I was flung out of the other side so fast that I hit the floor and went sliding across a great expanse of marble completely out of control.And would have kept on going, but something stopped me.

Something huge and warm and strangely shaped and glistening.

Something that looked a lot like a giant foot encased in a golden sandal, once my eyes stopped crossing long enough for me to focus on the massive thing, and the equally huge body towering over me.

“So glad you could join us,” a great voice boomed, echoing around what might have been the lobby at Dante’s, but I couldn’t tell.

But not because it had been remodeled, although it had, looking like Caesar’s with an upgrade, with gorgeous statuary, lush potted plants, and a brilliant mosaic in a dome overhead made of millions of pieces of glass showing Zeus triumphant.And not because I was too busy screaming for everyone togo back, go back, go BACK,although I was.But because my voice and my air were cut off the next second by that giant sandal starting to grind me into the ground.

Chapter Thirty-Four

It should have worked.It should immediately have been all over.With nothing to show for our bravado and daring and monumental effort but a smear of clairvoyant on the priceless marble flooring.

But it didn’t, and for a moment, I didn’t know why.I only knew that I could suddenly breathe when the sandal disappeared.And that something was happening as I lay on the ground, stunned and silent and gasping like a fish out of water.Then Enid reached me, with Bodil on her heels, and got me sitting up so they could pound me on the back, like that was going to help!

It didn’t, butthatdid, I thought, staring.

And then I stared some more, because what I saw across the great expanse of the lobby didn’t compute.

I even did the dog trick of tilting my head to the side, thinking that would make it any less crazy, but no.

Enid started trying to pull me away, but Bodil stood there flatfooted and gaping like I had just been.And still was even while trying to get back to my suddenly much bigger and more brightly colored feet.But that’s hard when you’re simultaneously also growing to the size of a rather large barn.

Just like Pritkin, who was now huge and soloing somebody who looked a lot like Zeus but wasn’t, unless that wily old chameleon had switched faces again.This one had a long black beard and bushy eyebrows of the same color above vividly blue-gray eyes, the color of storm-tossed seas, which matched the golden trident he was holding, and, oh, I thought.That was why Bodil looked so gobsmacked.

What a way to meet your grandpa.