I looked ahead, and saw Mircea’s free hand half buried in the wall, where cracks in the earth were starting to appear. I looked behind, where I could just see a booted foot clinging to a boulder on the opposite side. But only one, because the other foot and its leg were wrapped around the corpse, as was Mircea’s other arm, holding it up and away from the mages. The ceiling of the tunnel was low enough that they were passing maybe all of three feet below, with the trailing tail of the mage’s long, leather coat almost brushing a few of the taller one’s heads.

I held my breath, while small trickles of dirt cascaded down the wall from underneath Mircea’s hand. Only the darkness hid us, although the light from the orbs gleamed dangerously off the slick surface of the mage’s outerwear, and his dead, open eyes. And even if no one saw us, there was no reason to believe that someone else wouldn’t see Pritkin, too.

I’ll try a shift, I told Mircea mentally. If the portal is still active, my power may be able to reach you.

Good, but not out. Back to the corridor where you came in.

I didn’t like it, but I wasn’t sure that I could shift two people any further than that. Not right now and not from centuries away. I’d never done anything like this—

Annnnd that record held, I thought, when they went exactly nowhere.

Cassie?

Trying. Only I wasn’t. I was straining enough to cause me to gasp, and my blood to pound in my veins, but nothing was happening. Maybe because I was attempting to feel something that simply wasn’t there.

Cassie! Mircea’s mental voice was becoming desperate, maybe because the hard packed earth wasn’t hard enough, and his hand was sinking. But there was nothing I could do, and there wasn’t going to be.

Plan B, I told him grimly.

What happened to Plan A? Shift us!

I can’t—

Why not?

The portal is closed.

And then we fell, when the wall gave way in a cascade of dirt. But we fell silently, landing no louder than a cat, right behind the last line of mages. The platoon kept going, pelting hell bent for leather somewhere that thankfully wasn’t here, and from over a century away, I realized that I’d covered my mouth to keep silent.

I let go, and concentrated on just breathing for a moment. Mircea, however, didn’t hesitate. He shoved the dead man into the surface of the crumbling wall, pushing until the dirt all but liquified around him. Until only the round oval of his face was visible, staring out at us with its glassy eyes.