“Which he also disdains!” It was close to a roar this time, maybe because he’d just ruined his career only to find out he was rescuing someone he considered to be a war criminal. And I didn’t know how to prove him wrong.

But, unexpectedly, I got some help.

The goat creature, who had been lying by Pritkin’s side, appearing unconscious, suddenly spoke up. And croaked a word I didn’t understand, and couldn’t pronounce. But I guessed it made sense to Arsen, judging by how his face twitched.

“More monsters,” he said, his lip curling.

But then he looked at Mircea, who was still not moving. He could have gotten away, whether over Arsen’s dead body or not, but he’d already learned the hard way—getting away was not getting out when it came to Faerie. Or maybe he was playing for a much-needed ally; I didn’t know.

But he didn’t move, even when Arsen shrugged me off, and took a step closer.

“You lost your woman?” the tone was a challenge.

“Aeslinn took her,” Mircea confirmed, his own voice rough. “I want her back. That is all I want.”

Arsen’s eyes narrowed. “That is what you meant, at the capitol. Where is she, where, where, where…”

Mircea nodded carefully. “I thought Aeslinn could tell me, that I could beat it out of him, but he wasn’t there. I risked everything… and left with nothing.”

Something flickered over Arsen’s face, as if he knew what that felt like.

Then he looked back at me, and his demeanor changed. “Can you carry two?” he asked. “My strength is… diminished.”

“I can try.”

He nodded and grabbed Pritkin, who was still out cold. He threw him over his shoulder, while I scooped up the goat, who helped by clinging to my back like a hairy backpack. Mircea got up, stumbling slightly, and I got an arm around his waist.

And then the impossible happened.

We just… walked away.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Six

A blast of sound hit as soon as we broke through the silence spell, loud enough to snap my head back. It was disorienting and coming in waves, like blows from a fist. It immediately sent me staggering, or perhaps that was Mircea.

A heart wound could be healed by a master, or even by a non-master if he didn’t mind lying in a darkened room for a few months. Mircea, as a first-level master and a Senate member, would likely be back to his old self by tomorrow. But this was today, and we were doing a tipsy dance across the camp, sometimes sideways, sometimes forward, and on occasion, doing the cha-cha back a few paces, before I managed to get us righted.