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This was...

“Oh, God,” I whimpered, and then I threw up everything.

It lasted a long time.It lasted forever.Dry heaves took over when I had nothing left, even as people touched my back, as someone wiped my lips, as someone else tried to give me water only nothing was going down because everything was still coming up.

It only stopped when I was too wiped out to function well enough even for that.

“Oh, God,” I whispered, and felt someone hug me.To my surprise, it was...“Enid?”

She didn’t answer, just cried and cried.I could feel her tears hitting my face, splattering my skin like the start of a summer shower.What the...

“I thought you were dead,” she whispered.

“I’m not?”

I was confused.And then even more so when everything came rushing back, and I remembered.Ishouldbe dead; we all should because there was no way I had made that shift.

No way in hell.

“Notinhell, maybe,” came a familiar, crabby voice because I guessed I’d spoken aloud.

I paused, slowly removed the towel, and blinked at a face to match the voice.There was a campfire nearby, as we seemed to be somewhere in the desert, and the flames were flickering on the side of the new arrival’s face.Appropriate, I thought, and saw him smirk.

“But definitely with hell’s help,” he added, coming over and squatting beside me, where he took his time checking me out.“You don’t look much like a goddess at present.”

“Good.”I shuddered and wondered why I was wearing a tattered and dirty saffron-colored robe instead of my tunic.My much-abused armor was also gone, probably flayed off in the fight I could barely remember, or maybe I’d burst out of it when I suddenly expanded to the size of ahouse.

I thought about passing out again.

“You have something here, did you know?”my tormentor said and flicked a finger at my cheek.

I took the towel and rubbed off what was probably a bit of vomit, but I didn’t look to see.There were so many other options.Including some that made me want to puke all over again.

“What are you doing here, Rosier?”I rasped, struggling to sit up until Enid helped me.Which left me sprawled against her like a broken rag doll, staring at Pritkin’s father, who had somehow found us after all.

And wasn’t that just what I needed?

“What are you doing here, Rosier?”he mimicked in a high falsetto.“Saving your asses, it would seem!Something I could have done with much more efficiency if you had, I don’t know,talkedto me in Stratford.Instead of siccing thosethingson me—”

“I didn’t sic them on you,” I said thickly because my tongue was still remembering how to talk.And my stomach was debating being sick some more.“I sicced them on the dark mages.You weren’t supposed to be there—”

“But Iwasthere, and youknewI was there, and you didn’t trust me!”

“Trust you?”It came out pretty calmly, mainly because I didn’t have the strength for anything else.“Is that a thing people do?”

He scowled ferociously.“It’s something you should do, considering our history!I thought you knew me well enough—”

“To think you’d help out a bunch of people you don’t even know, at great risk to yourself, instead of snatching up Pritkin and running for the hills?”I asked, gratefully accepting what looked like a goatskin of water that Enid had found somewhere.Possibly our previous abode, as it had a pretty strap decorated with geometric designs.

She was rock solid at my back, as if afraid I’d die if she moved from my side, but she was the only one.Pritkin and Mircea were nowhere to be seen; neither were Jonas and his crew, although I’d taken them, too, I knew I had.And the fey and witches, who were staying well away from the demon currently shedding scarlet light to rival the fire as his temper rose.

But Enid stayed put, and after a moment, Æsubrand wandered over, I guessed refusing to be outdone by a kitchen maid.But he looked spooked as hell, probably because Rosier’s face kept going amorphous every so often.It changed from a guy who looked like a younger, considerably less weather-beaten Pritkin into a blob with pure white, barely-there features unless you counted little humps under the skin.

It was the appearance he took on when healing, and he did it again as I watched, the regular features disappearing into a white mask, like someone submerging themselves in a sea of pale paint.I frowned at him.“What’s wrong with you?”

He had been haranguing me about something—I wasn’t listening—but at that, he stopped, and a normal-looking mouth poked out of the blob for a moment.

“Excuse me?”It sounded outraged.