“That we could jury-rig a god.”
I stood up.
“Dulcea?a?” Mircea said. Because he could feel it, the emotions running through my veins, speeding my breathing, causing my heart to skip. Billy. He’d known that I had to hear this, and that Jonathan had to die to release all of that power, and he’d given up his life to make both of those things happen.
And then what had he said?
“Knock ‘em dead, kid.”
I felt tears flow down my cheeks, but they weren’t of grief. It was still too raw. I couldn’t deal with it; couldn’t touch it. Anymore than I could put my hand in a fire.
But there was something I could do.
I started forward, but Pritkin grabbed my arm. It was the burnt one, but it didn’t hurt anymore. Mircea’s gift had already healed me.
“What are you doing?” Pritkin demanded.
“What you think.”
“Cassie—”
“Don’t.” I told him tightly. “Don’t tell me my life is worth so much that I cannot risk it. Don’t tell me to hide in a corner and save my strength for another day. This—” I pointed savagely at our army. “This is that day! We either act now or—”
“Or what?” he demanded. “It’s the same argument we had in Jonas’s office, almost a week ago. About the fey assassin you tracked down and killed when you could have just gone back in time. We’re already back in time! We can go home; we can stop the army from ever leaving—”
“And then what?” I demanded. “Aeslinn knows. He’s ready. We won’t surprise him this time; the damage is done—”
“Then we find another way! We fight another day!”
“No, we kill them all. Now,” I said, and shifted.
The other side of the portal let out into a mountainous cave overlooking the battlefield. It was a dark, blueish gray like all this realm, and empty except for the massive portal thrumming away behind me. Which meant that I was probably visible.
And explained why I suddenly had company.
Pritkin slammed me into the wall, and I realized something. “You shifted us, didn’t you?” I said. “Back at HQ. Mircea was too out of it at the time; he couldn’t have done it. But you could. You put Lover’s Knot on us once before, to fight Jo, so you knew how.”
Pritkin stared at me. “You want to talk about that now?”
“No, I want to go kill something,” I said, and started forward.
He dragged me back.
“I put Lover’s Knot on us to get you out of danger! Not to get you into more of it!”
“He didn’t realize that you and I already had that bond,” Mircea said, shifting in. “And that his spell would unite all of us.”
“Something that would have been nice to know!” Pritkin snarled.
Mircea shrugged. “You have a temper. She knew how you’d react.”
“Mircea is dealing with a condition right now,” I added. “It was the only way to help him, and can we talk about this later?”
“We can talk about this all you like—back home!” And Pritkin actually tried to shift us out.
He failed. Partly due to his spell stuttering halfway through, because the Pythian power was tied to Earth and we were no longer on Earth, and partly due to me.
When I shut. It. Down.