“Whit,” Inez said, her tone curious.
“I’m thinking,” I said, hands on my hips.
“No, I know,” she said, her voice sounding breathless. “Why is the rug glittering?”
I glanced down in alarm. The woven fiber was shifting under our boots, darkening in color, clearly magic touched. “Move off.”
“Well, I’d love to, but Ican’t,” Inez said. She lifted her leg and the rugcame up, stuck to the sole of her shoe. “It’s turned into a kind of adhesive. I’m stuck.”
My boots were also glued to the sizable rug. “It has an old spell attached to it,” I hissed. “Don’t let anything else touch it. Watch the hem of your dress.”
Inez bent and gathered the fabric, tying it off into a knot, displaying a good portion of her legs. I glanced away, aggravated. We were stuck, and someone was bound to come looking for Romero if he didn’t turn up in a reasonable amount of time.
Inez tried dragging her feet, her arms swinging, but that only made the rug shift forward an inch. She glanced at me, annoyance stamped across her features. “Don’t just stand there! We have to get out of this.”
“Obviously.”
She tried moving again, yanking the rug several inches and succeeding in unbalancing me. I swung my arms out, caught myself from falling. “Olivera,stop. We have to work together.”
Inez glowered at me.
“Trust me—”
“Trust you?” Inez scoffed. “Consider our past.”
“Consider our present,” I retorted, gesturing at the infernal rug.
She bit her lip, eyes filling with a nervous and raw confusion that tore up my insides. I would get us out of this predicament, but she didn’t know that. Not after what I had done to her. I suddenly felt like howling with frustration. At myself, at this ridiculous situation that we were in. Years of training allowed me to hold on to whatever shred of calm I could muster. I inhaled deeply. “I know it’s the absolute last thing you want to do,” I said. “But if we’re going to get out of this, we have to—”
“What do we do?” she asked in a voice I recognized all too well. It was the one where she fought to keep her tone moderate, but I knew she’d rather be yelling.
The feeling was mutual. “I can’t use my knife to cut the rug—it will only stick to the fibers,” I said. “Can you,very carefully, step out of your shoes and stand on top of them?”
“But then I’ll be in my stockings,” she protested.
“Do you have a better idea?”
“No.” She sighed and then bent forward, fingers working quickly to unlace her boots. She then slowly slipped out of her shoes, gingerly stepping on top of them. Her stockings worked against her, and she kept slipping on the leather.
“Can you jump off?”
Inez eyed the edge of the rug. It was a large woven monstrosity, and she was probably four feet from the corner. “Maybe?”
“Wait,” I said, already picturing her falling onto her hands and knees. “Jump into my arms instead.”
She tensed, the lines of her face steeped in distrust. She no longer believed I could keep her safe. Or maybe the thought of my holding her was so off-putting she’d rather remain stuck to the rug.
Either way, it stung. More than I wanted to admit.
“I’m going to toss you onto the couch,” I said quietly. “From there you can climb up and over, avoiding the rug entirely.”
“You are loving this, aren’t you?” she asked. “Getting to act like the hero after what you did.”
“I’m not a hero,” I said. “I’ve never said I was.”
She opened her mouth, no doubt to argue with me, but I cut her off. “Jump. I promise I’ll catch you.”
Inez gave me no warning, but I was ready for her anyway. She launched herself forward, and I caught her around the waist, boosting her up, flipping her around so I could cradle her.
