Page 140 of Fortune's Blade

“What?” he repeated, grabbing her arm.

“Dragons, in the cave . . . caught them in a slow time spell . . . stopped ‘em for now.” She gazed around, and despite the glittery eyeshadow and the bright pink lipstick that she was somehow still wearing, the pale blue eyes were assessing. “I have limited ability here, as I’m having to pull power through two separate portals. But is there anything I can do?”

This time, it was me who grabbed her. “Yes.”

Chapter Forty-Four

Dory

“You want to do what?” I yelled, when Louis-Cesare explained the plan.

“I said you wouldn’t like it,” he reminded me from over by the missing balcony, where he was clinging to the shattered stone and waiting for another dragon to fly by. Preferably a big one, because he intended for us to catch a ride. Which would have been insane enough, since half of the dragons out there were our enemies and all of them were crazed with blood lust, but the way he planned to do it—

“You want to do what?”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Don’t even start that with me!” I snarled, because that was how our worst ideas ended up getting green-lit, and this was not getting green-lit!

“I’m kinda voting with Dory on this one,” Ray said, while dressing Dorina.

“Why are you wasting time with that?” I asked, because he was putting her into a set of elaborate black leather armor with a cape of raven’s feathers across the shoulders.

“’Cause it’s all I got. The queen’s people delivered it this afternoon. Her stuff was destroyed in the arena—”

“What arena?”

“—when she changed a little too fast and—”

“Why was she changing clothes in an arena?”

“More like changing skins—”

“What?”

“—and the queen’s people felt bad about it, or so they said. I think she’s planning to make Dorina her new champion, or something worse, and wants her to look the part—”

“What’s worse?” I demanded, not understanding anything.

“You don’t wanna know,” Ray said darkly, which made me think that I very definitely did want to know, about all of it, right the hell now.

But then a tiny man flew by my face.

I stumbled back, because he had zoomed past my nose so closely that his wings grazed me, and so quickly that I hadn’t even noticed he was there before it was too late. Or it would have been, had he been planning to shiv me with the miniature sword he clasped in one hand, despite the fact that it was mostly melted. But one look at his unfocused green eyes and I didn’t think he could tell that anymore.

I didn’t think he could tell much of anything, since he almost looked like he was melting, too. A quarter of his body was all but burnt away, and what was left . . . wasn’t doing well. Something he demonstrated by flying straight into Ray, who caught him when he bounced off.

He would have fallen to the ground otherwise, as there wasn’t much life left there. But there was enough for him to whisper something when Ray brought him up to his ear. Something that caused my Second’s look of shock and concern to change to one closer to dismay.

“What is it?” I yelled, to be heard over the sound of a dragon screeching outside.

Ray looked up. “The heir to the throne! Steen’s targeting him!”

“I thought he was after the portal!”

“What portal?”

“The one inside the mountain—”