“Hey,” I said. No response. “Hey!”

He opened one eye.

“I’m not getting anywhere with this. We should call it a night.”

He sat up. “Giving up already?”

“Already? It’s been like two hours. Probably three.”

“Miracles don’t happen overnight. These things take time.”

“How much time? I’m starting to wonder if you made this magic rule just to procrastinate on getting Jasmine.”

“Well. You can believe that if it makes it easier for you. The truth-if you trust me enough to hear it-is that this is for your own protection. In a perfect world, we would go in and extract the girl quietly. In the real world, we will likely fight Aeson’s guards and Aeson himself. I would prefer we both walk out of this alive. You didn’t fare so well last time.”

“This is going to take forever. This training.”

I knew I was being whiny and petulant, but my back hurt, and mosquitoes had come out. At least in identifying the water source, I’d been able to take guesses. Here I could do nothing more than just wait and stare. If nothing happened, nothing happened.

“I’m sorry,” I told him. “I’m just tired, that’s all. Didn’t mean to bitch you out.”

He seemed untroubled by my reaction, just like always. Indeed, I could see his face regarding me kindly in the twilight. “No problem at all. Let’s go, then.”

He walked over to the canteen and recapped it. Closing my eyes, I leaned my head back against the rock to wait for him to release me. As I did, I felt something cool and wet, like mist, spread out behind my back and neck. To my new water senses, it didn’t feel…right. Moments later, before I could ponder the difference, the mist coalesced into slimy skin.

“Dori-”

My scream was cut off by cold, clawed hands. One covered my mouth, and the other gripped my throat. Dorian had spun around before my cry, making me think he’d sensed something before I had. He leaped toward me, but four wet, human forms materialized in the air before him, blocking his way. Nixies. Water spirits.

Two were male; two were female. Legends whispered they could shape-shift into more beautiful forms, but here they appeared drab. Clammy skin, mottled and gray. Clothes sodden and dripping. Seaweedlike hair hanging down. The one holding me pushed me down flat to the ground, all the better to cut off my oxygen that much faster. Water dripped onto me from her hair, and her eyes gleamed a sickly green in the waning light. She hissed with pleasure and pressed harder while I frantically assessed my options.

I finished the assessment pretty quickly because I had no options. I was fully armed but unable to reach anything because of Dorian’s fucking bondage fetish. Covering my mouth stopped me from summoning a minion. The world flickered with starbursts as my air disappeared. My lungs and throat heaved, trying desperately to latch onto something. Her claws dug into the tender flesh of my neck, and I half-wondered if she’d rip it out rather than wait for suffocation.

My only hope was Dorian, but he wouldn’t get to me anytime soon, not with his own army of Every stone and pebble in the area suddenly lifted off the ground. Shortly thereafter, the really large stones and boulders followed suit. Those big ones exploded, fracturing into thousands of tiny shards. All those little pieces of rock rose higher, joining each other, slowing rotating in a clockwise manner.

My captor’s grip had lessened slightly, probably from surprise. It didn’t return my air, but I twisted my head enough to see Dorian standing with his arms raised up like some sort of symphony conductor. Above him, that cyclone of sharp rocks spun faster and faster, a blur to the eye. Then, as though giving the song’s grand finale, he brought his arms down sharply.

And down came the rocks.

A portion of that maelstrom swooped and soared, the primitive predecessors of bullets. At first their movements seemed chaotic, and I feared falling into their path. But it turned out every rock had its own plan, its own target. Those sharp pieces honed down on the nixie holding me, piercing and slicing with a fierce precision. She opened her mouth in a silent scream as blood splashed onto me, and her torn body collapsed in a bloody, wet pile. I twisted out from under her, taking in big gulping breaths of air.

Beyond her, Dorian gave another downward motion, urging his orchestra to its next climactic moment. The rocks swooped into another nixie, cutting it to pieces. Then another…and another…until the nixies were nothing but ribbons of blood and gore. Their task complete, the rocks gently fell to the earth, as soft and placid as drops of rain.

The entire counterattack had taken less than a minute.

Immediately, Dorian knelt by my side, helping me sit up as I gasped my way back to life. “Easy, easy,” he warned. Blood covered both of us. “Small breaths.”

“Untie me! Get me out of this!”

He pulled the silver athame from my belt. In moments, he sliced open the cords, freeing my arms and hands. I jerked away, my adrenaline still surging. He reached for me, but I flailed against him.

“Damn you! You almost got me killed!” I yelled, hearing the hysteria in my voice. “You almost got me killed!”

He grabbed my upper arms with a solid strength, pulling me to him and forcing me to stillness. “Eugenie, calm down. Eugenie!”

He shook me-hard-where I still struggled, and I halted abruptly, quelled by the harsh sound of his voice and ferocity of his grasp. I could no longer find the silly, languid gentry king. There was a stranger holding me, his face hard and commanding.

“Do you think I’d let anything happen to you?” he demanded, almost shouting. “Do you think I’d let anything harm you?”

I swallowed, still in pain from the nixie’s claws on my throat, and found my body shaking. His grip was so tight, I might as well have been tied up again. He scared me, having turned into someone else. Someone powerful and awe-inspiring. Looking into his eyes and seeing the sweat on his face, I realized fear had touched more than just me. He was scared too, not for himself, but for what had almost happened to me. Something inside me eased up, and I nearly slumped into him.

“I can’t believe what you did,” I whispered. I killed all the time without much thought or effort, but this…this had been something else entirely. And he wasn’t even at full strength in this world. “You slaughtered them.”

“I did what I had to do.” The heat in his voice had faded, replaced with a deadly calm. “And you’ll be able to do the same someday.” One of his hands released me and moved to my head, smoothing my hair back. He pressed our bodies together and rested his cheek against mine so his soft words could spill into my ear. “You will surpass me, Eugenie. Your power will be so great, none will stand against you. Armies and kingdoms will fall, and they will bow down before you.”

I found myself trembling again, feeling the same fear and excitement that had filled me during our last kiss. Only this time, I didn’t know if my feelings came from his body’s proximity…or the promise of power he offered.