Tempt the Stars

decided that the knife-throwing act they were doing wasn’t working, and had started throwing themselves instead. One flipped off a roof to the right, bounced off Caleb’s rug, and then used the momentum to keep right on going, through the air and straight across the drag to a building on the other side.
    And in his wake, he left a bloody line across Pritkin’s stomach, where his sword would have gutted him if war mage reflexes were a little less sharp.
    But that wouldn’t help for long. More than a dozen guards were massing along the roofline, about to overwhelm us with numbers. And it was too late for anything but screaming as they jumped—
    And went flying backward, like a bomb had been set off in front of them.
    Pritkin’s and Rosier’s voices had risen together in a spell that not only saved us, but cleared the other rug, as well. Caleb had hit the carpet at the last second, and now stared up, looking both surprised and vastly relieved.
    He’d been battling two of the creatures alone, and it hadn’t been going great.
    But then, neither was this. Because they’d be back. And I didn’t think we’d last long with the air full of deadly blades kamikazied straight to their target by a bunch of immortal warriors.
    And I guessed Rosier didn’t, either.
    Some of the Allû were still falling when he muttered something low and harsh and vicious, with enough power behind it to make the hairs on my neck stand up.
    But that would have been fine; that would have been awesome.
    If it had actually done anything.
    “Was that supposed to
help
?” I asked as Rosier and Pritkin stared at each other blankly.
    And then Rosier tried again, and this time, the power of his words prickled across my skin almost painfully. And kept right on prickling until Pritkin shot out a hand and grabbed his father’s arm. “They aren’t coming!”
    “They have to,” Rosier said, looking almost comically indignant. “I’m a member of the council!”
    “The same one that’s preventing you from shifting back to court?” Pritkin asked acidly.
    “That’s not them; it’s
her
,” Rosier said, gesturing at me. “She wants to force my hand—”
    “Are you mad? She doesn’t have that kind of power!”
    “You know who her mother was! There’s no telling what she’s capable—”
    “Face facts! The council would rather see you dead than risk their precious necks! They won’t call off their guards until they’ve killed me—and anyone with me.”
    Pritkin’s eyes focused on me with that last sentence, and I shook my head. Because I knew him. “No. No! I’m not leav—”
    Which was as far as I got before he grabbed me and threw me off the rug—and into Caleb’s arms.
    “Pritkin! Damn it—”
    “Listen to me! I need you to find Casanova. Tell him to have his men—”
    But I didn’t hear whatever he wanted Casanova to do. Because two very scary things happened at once. The crowd below gave a huge roar, like their favorite team had just scored a touchdown, and an almost solid sheet of scimitars came slicing through the air from the other side of the street.
    I didn’t even have time to scream before I was eating carpet, with Caleb’s hand on my neck, holding me down. I saw Rosier pull a red-sheened blade out of his side, felt our carpet buck hard beneath me, heard Pritkin curse as he was jumped by the two guards who had just used us as a springboard. And then we were moving.
    But not very fast. It looked like the spell was having problems, maybe because the Allû had practically hacked to pieces the platform it was trying to use. But despite the poor treatment, it didn’t look like they wanted it going anywhere.
    We, on the other hand, were another matter.
    Something smashed into my side, and for the second time in less than thirty seconds, I felt myself flying.
    And Caleb couldn’t catch me this time.
    Because he was right there with me.
    But a second later, something
did
catch us, something I promptly fell off because it was the size of a smallish dish towel.
    No, not a dish towel, I thought, as Caleb came rolling after me. I yelped and tried to make room for him on a carpet fragment the size of a single stair, only to fall again—onto another one. I looked up, and saw Pritkin hanging off the side of his carpet, Rosier and the Allû battling all around him, his hand outstretched and an intense frown of concentration on his face—
    As he formed a staircase out of woolen fragments, in some case all of a foot