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“They think we’re dangerous,” Topknot cackled.

“I hope they’re right,” I said seriously.

“Problem?”Zara’s voice was as sharp as her dark eyes.

“Not if we leave now,” I said.“Finish up.We’re out of here in five.”

“Out of here?”Æsubrand said.He’d come in behind me and looked confused as I strode past him again.“In case you didn’t notice on the way in,” he said acidly, catching up.“The Corps has magicked up a storm outside capable of stripping the very flesh off our bones—”

“We’re not going outside.”

“Then where are we going?”

“Vegas.You’re good with portals, right?”I asked as I passed Bodil on the way back to my room.

“I am proficient with our own,” she said, following me.“And those of the covens which are based on our system.I am not so sure about the ones made by this Silver Circle.More to the point, how do you even know they have one going where we wish to?”

“Can’t you read Jonas’s mind and find out?”

“Not easily.He is resistant to mental intrusions, and I cannot push for fear of having him notice.And you cannot read him at all—”

“Don’t need to.He’s been waiting on my return for fifty years and must have assumed I’d go straight to Rhea, who is his daughter, by the way.He’ll have been keeping an eye on her, so he has a portal there.”

I re-entered my and Pritkin’s room, grabbed up my gross suit of armor, and turned at the unwelcome sound of Æsubrand’s voice.And got a hand on his chest when he tried to come in after me.Only it was like trying to shove a statue bolted into place.

“I need to get dressed,” I told him shortly.“Wait in the hall.”

“You need to have your head examined!”the pewter eyes flashed.“We aren’t going back there—”

“Then stay here if you want.”I tried another shove, but again, nothing happened.“Alphonse?”

The big vamp looked unhappy but dropped a heavy hand onto the fey’s shoulder.“Hey.Let’s give her some privacy—”

Æsubrand said something I assumed was profane from the gasp that Enid let out and shrugged off the hold.And the next second, he was both in my room and my face.“Did you hearnothingof what we were saying?”

And I lost it.Alphonse and Pritkin were there, but I didn’t need them.Not after guts raining down on me like rain, corridors that took off on their own, ravenous godseatingpeople—and Jonas doing his best to turn me into the same thing!

Not to mention the death of one world and the near destruction of another.

My world.

Mine.

So I broke, only not in the way the silver prince had probably expected.

“I heard you,” I said coldly.“Now, you can listen to me.I drained one of your people, a nobleman of your court, almost to the point of death.And used his power to make a small spatial shift—by far the easiest kind of Pythian spell.Do you know how far it got me?Would you like toguess?”

He managed to look pissed off and confused at the same time.“Drained?Drained who?”

“Lord Arsen,” Pritkin said, and Æsubrand turned to stare at him.

“Twenty yards, maybe less,” I said.“And then I wasout.All that magic, all that power, had moved me less than the length of this hallway.And a spatial shift is nothing compared to traveling even a moment in time.That takes the power of a god, a strong one, which Jonas can’t give me.There’s only one person who can, and she’s in Vegas.”

“You don’t know that she can give you anything!”Æsubrand said.“Yet you’re pulling us away from the only people who can!What are you so afraid of?”

Myself, I didn’t say, because I’d had enough of baring my soul for one day.

“He has a point, Cassie,” Pritkin said quietly.