Page 80 of Smoke & Ashes
I clung to Elaine, although there was little I could do for her. My arm was still broken, and I’ve always been an okay swimmer at best. Now and then I managed to kick my way towards the surface and gulp in a few breaths of air, hoping that Elaine could do the same. But always the water sucked us down again, as if it was directed by some malicious will. Which, I mean, it definitely was.
I’d seen glimpses of Nimue’s power over the years, but I was beginning to realise that they’d been just that—glimpses. What I’d seen her turn on the Prince of Wands was something else. And now I was caught in the grip of her disdain, in a city whose very air and water responded to her most casual thought.
In other words: I was fucked.
Then suddenly I felt something pulling me upwards. No, not me. Us. In fact not even us, Elaine. The unselfish thing to do would be to let go and allow whatever was rescuing her—and who was I kidding it wasdefinitelyPatrick—to rescue her while I fended for myself in the river. But there were some hard limits to my unselfishness, and I wasn’t getting drowned to make a point.
Patrick dragged us to shore on a muddy bank just past Tower Bridge.
“Katharine.” He looked at me accusingly. “How dare you try to drown an innocent girl.”
I lay on my back staring up at the sky, rain still stinging my face. “I cannotbe fucked with you right now.”
“She saved me, Patrick,” Elaine explained, her head laid delicately against his chest. “Everything was so confusing and frightening, but she saved me.”
If we were counting I’d kind of been the one who led her into danger in the first place. Then again, Yelena would probably have killed them both eight hours ago if I hadn’t shown up so we might have been very much in a po-tay-to po-tah-to situation. “See. Take her away and keep her safe, Patrick. I’m going to lie on this nice comfy mud for a bit.”
He apparently didn’t need to be told twice. The two of them vanished into the night.
Which left me alone in the dirt, soaking wet with a broken arm. I wondered for a moment whether, if I opened my mouth, I’d drown like a turkey in the rain. If turkeys did drown in the rain, which they probably didn’t.
How spectacularly had I fucked this up? Pretty fucking spectacularly was my feeling. But what had been the alternative? Let Nimue lose the battle for the city? Let her die? Kill her myself? I wasn’t exactly what you’d call a moral philosopher, but I wasn’t sure how you were meant to game out the implications of your friends turning into supervillains. Was I supposed to stick by her anyway? Was I supposed to try to be a force for good on the inside?
Trying to stab her in the heart with a giant fucking combat knife had probably been the wrong call however you sliced it.
The more I thought about it, the morelie here on a mud banksounded like a promising strategy.
It was a strategy that I was able to keep up for about another hour before I got moved on by the police. They were quite nice about it all told, a pleasant uniformed officer who looked way too young to be in charge of arresting people let me off with a caution for loitering and saw me safe onto the night bus. From there it was a gentle stagger home to my tragically empty flat. I threw myself face down onto the bed without bothering to take my shoes off and then rolled over at once as my weight pressed down onto my bad arm.
Fuck. Just. Fuck. Things were… Fuck. And I couldn’t even. Fuck.
I shut my eyes and cried myself to sleep.
36
Water & Stone
Iwoke up in about six different kinds of pain. There were the injuries, the fact that I’d slept in a funny position, and—oh yeah—the bit where I’d gone on an entire fucked up vision quest to save one of my oldest friends and she’d paid me back by going full psychopath.
Figuring that I probably needed to be contactable, I slipped the sim card out of my water/storm/battle with faeries/magical confrontation damaged handset into the backup I’d kept ready against its inevitable demise. It had been a good run, but I definitely needed to start addingwear and tear on electronicsto my list of expenses. It buzzed the moment I switched it on because I’d acquired a fair few messages overnight. The first three were from Tara, the first sayingYelena is in the dungeon,the second, which seemed to be from later the same evening readThinking of you, let me know if it worksand the third saidSofia arrived this morning with her friend. She said she dreamed of a terrible storm. Tell me you’re okay. Please call.
I should probably have got on that. The next message was more professional, coming from Nicola Bright and readingHave translated pertinent elements of text, suggest meeting today 11 if convenient.
It wasn’t convenient. What I really wanted to be doing today at eleven was lying in bed screaming at the ceiling. But that would be zero help to anybody, and while I was prettycomfortablebeing zero help to anybody right then, it was probably terrible for my mental health. I fired a text back.
11 works for me. See you then.
Then I rang Tara.
“Kate?” I could tell she was concerned because she didn’t use my full name. “What happened?”
“Long story, but the gist is that Nimue’s gone proper all-shall-love-me-and-despair.”
“What?”
“Sorry, ex-girlfriend was big intoLord of the Rings. I mean, she’s kind of embraced the evil side of monarchy—you know,bow before me or be destroyed. She killed Sebastian Douglas and, don’t get me wrong, couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, but it was fucking nasty and I’ve never seen her doanythinglike that before.”
Tara was quiet a moment. “Sometimes difficult things need to be done.”
