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A raft of spells, so thick they almost looked like one, flew at the mass of mages, and—

Damn, I thought, staring as the spell tormenting me broke and fled.Probably because the casters had just broken and fled, what ones of them still could.Which wasn’t many; the witches’ spells had bisected some, cutting them right in two, had eviscerated others, leaving them tripping on the bloody ropes of their own intestines, had flayed still more alive, leaving the red meat of their bodies springing out of their skins even as they tried to run, and had immolated most of the rest.

It didn’t look like many of the idiots had bothered to shield.

I guessed that would have cut down on the amount of magic they’d had to send at me, and they probably hadn’t thought they needed to, as we were fully occupied with a genuine, senior god.And in all this, who would notice a tiny knot of witches, muttering in a corner?Not them, I thought, watching as the few shielded ones turned and ran.

But they weren’t the only newcomers, and it looked like the gods had been busy.An even dozen of their demigod children, those who had evaded the portal’s fury, came for us while I was trying to get my breath back.And they came fast.

The witches turned their barrage on them and dropped a few, but the majority seemed almost spell-proof, with the wicked curses sloughing off them with no more effect than rain.I struggled back to my feet, but it didn’t go well, not only because I was slipping on blood and burning body parts from the rain the portal had caused, but because whatever the mages had done to me had lingering effects.

The pain was fading, but my eyes kept trying to cross, and my limbs didn’t always do what I told them.I kept falling back onto my butt while Alphonse kept yelling at me to “get up, get up, get up, goddamn you!”And I tried, I was trying, but when I attempted to tell him that, my tongue tripped on the words, too.

“Minute,” I managed to get out, which didn’t help, as we clearly didn’t have one of those.

Or maybe we did, I thought, as Æsubrand said an emphatic word that Bodil’s link to me translated as “Finally!”

And stepped forward.

Nobody went with him.Enid was cradling Zara in her lap, who had gotten hit by something in the melee; Bodil was still just standing there, looking at the battle raging between Poseidon and my two triumvirs as if she could follow it; and Alphonse was now punching my oversized leg, as if that was going to help.

It did not.Meanwhile, Æsubrand leisurely pulled his weapons, the bright new sword he’d bought in town, and the rusty pike he’d been carting around all this time, the one item that he possessed of his old world.And smiled.

“Let us dance, then,” he told the advancing horde, like a complete madman!

“Help him!”I managed to say to Bodil, but she didn’t even look at me.

A distracted, “He’s fine,” was all I got back.

But at least Alphonse finally noticed what was happening and turned, just in time for the tide to break over top of us.And jumped one of the fish-looking bastards, taking him down in a rolling, snarling, fighting knot of didn’t see that coming, did you?I thought.Or that, because in the little demonstration Æsubrand had given in town, he had been holding back even more than I’d thought.

Alotmore, I thought, watching him carve through three demigods in a matter of seconds.Because yeah.He had god-blood, too, didn’t he?

And they’d made the same mistake the mages had, watching me instead of the human rabble around me, and had paid the same price.But there were a lot of them, and I was still struggling, although I managed to grab one of the assholes trying to carve me up and threw him at a couple of the others.I missed, but I must have thrown hard, because he didn’t get up again.

And then I roared at them, my voice suddenly coming back, and that seemed to have an effect.They started looking at each other, and when I staggered back up, keeping to my feet this time, they backed the hell off, deciding to opt for another spell instead of direct contact.And then kept on deciding that as they started stumbling around as if they suddenly couldn’t see straight, either.

Or walk straight, or do much of anything else straight, because Enid was back on her feet now, too, the witches having taken Zara, and she waspissed.Whether because these bastards were menacing her man or me, I wasn’t sure, but Iwassure that Margygr magic worked on them as well as everyone else.They were staggering like drunken sailors, and a few ended up cursing each other instead of me, and while I assumed they’d throw it off eventually, they didn’t have eventually.

Æsubrand, bleeding from a couple of wounds somebody had managed to get into him, was nonetheless on his feet.And it seemed that the fey were like vamps: if they could move, they were deadly.Something he proved as he and Alphonse, the latter’s mouth red with demigod blood, jumped the disoriented squad and fucking laid waste.

“I don’t even know why I came,” I said thickly—to no one, as no one was paying the huge golden woman any attention.

Well, except for one.

In retrospect, getting back up had probably been a bad move, as it drew a certain god’s attention.And suddenly my still less-than-coordinated ass was having to dodge spears of water that curved upward out of a huge pool and fountain halfway across the room behind me, which must have been part of the reno, because it certainly hadn’t been here before.But it was there now, full of leaping horse sculptures that I almost couldn’t see anymore as the water spears were slashing everywhere like a demented octopus.

And anything they touched, they carved through.

The water wasn’t touching me, not yet, but it was lashing at me, and everywhere it did so, the bright haze around me began to shrink.Only no, I realized a second later,itwasn’t shrinking.I was.

Several of Poseidon’s endless array of children jumped me, seeing their chance.And then not seeing anything when I put a whip through one’s eye and watched his face melt, and curved a strand of magic around the other one’s throat, popping off his head like a champagne cork out of a bottle.And felt nothing except disappointment that there wasn’t anything inside but blood.

Shit, I thought distantly, grabbing another and then another, ripping their heads off looking for power that I suddenly, desperately needed, because the damned fountain was stealing all of mine.And my triumvirs couldn’t help, as they were locked in a life-or-death struggle with a much larger foe, meaning that I was on my own.And then another idiot jumped me, I guessed trying to prove his worth to Papa, and I didn’t even bother to attack him, just screamed my rage into his useless face so loudly that he actually let me go.

Just in time for Æsubrand to run him through, and jerk me away from another, and that was a lot easier than it would have been a moment ago, because I was almost back to normal human size.Goddamnit!I needed power!

“The water!”Mircea yelled.“It’s eating our energy!”