«Billy! How do I get out of here?» The movement of my mouth pushed the edge of the rapier into the mage's skin, and I could feel a warm stream of blood begin to trickle down his neck. Someone screamed in my head, but I ignored it.
«I don't know.» Billy Joe was gripping Louis-Cesar's arm with both hands and practically hanging off it. Sweat was pouring down my face, but it didn't look like he was making any difference at all. «I'm stuck in here until you get back. Your body knows it'll die without a spirit, so it's got a death grip on me. There's no way for me to help you.»
«I can't believe you talked me into this!»
«How the hell do you think I feel? I don't want to end up inside a woman!» He paused. «Well, at least not that way.»
Louis-Cesar was losing patience. In a swift movement that didn't cause the rapier to waver even slightly, he pulled Billy Joe against him. «You may wish to close your eyes mademoiselle. I do not wish to cause you further distress.»
«I think it's safe to say that killin' her counts as distressing,» Billy Joe choked out, but Louis-Cesar wasn't paying him any attention. He'd written me off as a hysterical female, and that was that. If I ever got out of this mess alive, I'd show him hysterical.
I only had one idea, and it was a long shot. «Don't kill me! I know about Francoise!» It was all I could think of, the only fact about Louis-Cesar that I knew that the mage probably didn't, but it didn't seem to make much of an impression.
«You will not save yourself with feeble lies, Jonathan. I know your tricks from of old.»
«What about Carcassonne? Huh? What about that damn torture room? I—you—saw her burn! We were talking about it a few hours ago!»
«Enough! You die.» Billy Joe kicked upwards at the last second and hit the blade so that it went through the mage's shoulder instead of his heart, but it hurt like a bitch. I yelled and wrenched back, but the blade was so long that I was still trapped on it like a butterfly on a pin.
I finally got some help when a small vial flew into my hand. Apparently Mr. Mage had decided we had a common cause. It looked like one of the row of small containers Pritkin had strapped to his belt, but this had leapt out of some inner pocket. The cool water was up to my waist, and I didn't know what would happen if it overwhelmed me, but at the moment I was more concerned with Louis-Cesar. I didn't try to resist the impulses that ran through my brain, but thrust the vial at him.
«I will gut you before you can say the incantation,» he promised, but I noticed that he eyed the tiny vial with a certain amount of respect.
«I don't need the incantation at this range. Kill me, and you die, too. So does she.» The words appeared in my brain, but they weren't mine. I said them anyway. They seemed to have an effect, for Louis-Cesar hesitated.
The mage must have been waiting for that reaction, because he took the opportunity to step up the inner fight. I was suddenly up to my neck in icy water. «Billy! He's winning, what do I do?»
«I'm thinking… let him?» Billy Joe didn't sound very sure of himself, but he'd done this a lot more than me.
«What?»
If he answered, I didn't hear, because the water closed over my head. But, instead of drowning as I'd half expected, I was abruptly flying again. I landed hard, and the disorientation I'd felt when Tomas and I returned was nothing to what hit me a second later. It was like there were two of me, each going in a different direction, tearing me apart in the process. I screamed and someone tightened their hold around my waist. My blood was pounding in my veins as if it was about to burst out of the top of my head, and the pain was awful. It felt like every migraine I'd ever had all rolled into one. I wanted to pass out, but no such luck. I stayed conscious as the world rocked wildly around me like a carnival ride gone crazy, until I threw up on the asphalt.
«Cassie, Cassie!» Billy Joe appeared before me, his eyes so wide that I could see a strip of white all around the pupil. It took me a second to realize that they were his eyes, and that he was in his usual gambler-cowboy-ladies' man getup instead of my skin. His ruffled shirt was bright red, his hazel eyes as clear and sharp as if he hadn't been dead for a century and a half. At that moment, I really believed I could reach out and touch him and he'd be solid. Then it occurred to me that it was my energy making his eyes shine like that and flushing his cheeks. Bastard. I would have told him off for draining me almost dry in my hour of need, but I was way too sick. It felt like someone had reached inside and turned my stomach inside out. I wanted to throw up again but didn't have the energy.