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Marco didn’t find any help

"Marco--"

"I don’t know, all right?" he told me, exasperated "I don’t even know if he is"

"Did he ask to talk to me?"

"No I--"

"Did you tell hi?"

"No, he--"

"That I was in the shower?"

"No! Damn it, he didn’t--" Marco stopped suddenly

"He didn’t what? He didn’t ask?"

Marco just looked at me

I stared back "He called you up, infor, asked about theup?"

"You need to ask him about this," he pointed out

"How can I when he won’t talk to me?"

Marco started to answer, but then Jules let out an especially shrill shriek Maybe because the portal had started whirling around at so warp speed And unless I wassmaller

"Would somebody shut him the hell up?" Marco snarled

But Jules didn’t seeh of us and our ideas He gave another shriek and dove through the middle of his buddies, careened into some others, spun out of their hold like a football player heading for the goal line, and then ran all out for the door

Marco went after hied at me instead Because I’d taken as likely to beportal But then a second iraceful Marco suddenly tripped and went sprawling on the carpet, hitting down hard enough to rattle the s and shake all the glasses in the bar

I had a second to see what’s-her-name, the initiate I’d spoken all of a few dozen words to, with her leg out And judging by the angle, it hadn’t been an accident I looked at her and she looked at h the flaone

Chapter Twenty-seven

"Do you knoho your

I scowled back, but not because of the attitude I’d expected that Actually, that was a lie I’d expected worse

He’d been bad enough when surprised and under fire at his father’s court, or fighting for his life against the council’s guards But now he’d had time to think about it And, apparently, to work up a massive attitude

I seeht darkly, and took another sip of so horrible

We were in a bar in the hell known as the Shadow-land, because the de like a normal jail They had distant worlds where they marooned what they called the "Ancient Horrors," creatures I wasn’t interested in knowing more about, thank you And then, on the other end of the spectruuess h to need a holding cell

But thatPritkin in so him in some dark, dank bar On the whole, I’d have preferred the cell I was sitting cross-legged in o and orking on horrific

Soed to step in on the way to the table

I was trying not to think about what exactly ithard

"Bartender!" Casanova called hoarsely, and tried to snap his fingers But he , usually elegant digits as if he couldn’t figure out rong with them

Unfortunately, the summons had included everyone who had trespassed on the council’s good graces, ie, had released a bunch of their former slaves into the ether That includedwith one very sorry excuse for a casinounder the table

"Don’t you think you’ve had enough?" I asked, even as the sha hulk of a bartender set another bottle down on the sticky tabletop

Casanova sent esture that indicated that, no, he did not feel that way