Maybe it was for the best. Because for some mysterious reason, Xumi wanted Sebastian.
“There’s the river,” I said.
Matt nodded. “We have to enter it well back from the walls.”
“C’est guardé,” Jacques spat each word, “byDragons. In the air, on the ground. Surely you see now, that any attempt to go in, issuicidaire.”
“We aren’t skipping through the forest,” I pointed out. “Haki got in just fine, using the river. And then out again. If he can, so can we.”
Jacques simply stared at me as though he couldn’t rip his eyes away. “Mademoiselle, you may be beautiful, but you are also certifiable.”
“You don’t have to come with us,” Matt growled. “In fact, I’d rather you didn’t.”
“Which is precisely why I have to,” the Satyr moaned. “Do you have any idea what they’ll do to me if I let you go alone?”
“Cara is a sweetheart,” I said.
“You’ve never seen her angry,” Jacques said with a dramatic shudder. “And then there’s Sebastian...”
I ignored the whining and got to the important question. “Haki said he had to swim. Can you swim?”
The Satyr’s entire face contorted. “Ben sûr. But only if I must.”
“He also said the river will be lower now,” Matt added. “So we might be able to walk it if the current isn’t too strong.”
“In will be easier than out again,” I mused. The current would carry us in, but coming out, we’d be against it. Unless we diverted to the outflow and didn’t leave the way we’d come. But that would spit us out much further down river...
“Nothing about this is going to befacile,” hissed Jacques.
“Again. We do not need you, mate,” Matt growled.
“You have no idea what you need,” Jacques snapped back.
“Enough,” I said. “Apparently, if we take the main road south out of the city, it intersects with the river, and we can pick it up there.”
I crept back from our perch, and the guys followed me down the ladder and along the alley to the street. With our hoods raised, we made rapid progress through the city.
Xumi’s fortified wall hugged the street for a ways before it wound away from the road and into the forest. About a quarter mile later, the road crossed the river.
The moon lit the river’s lazy swirling action. Xumi’s estate relied on it for their water, and the builders had cleverly diverted it beneath her fortress, where it filled cisterns deep underground. It flowed through them and then out again, rejoining the river further downstream.
It was an ingenious design, but it also created an opportunity. First, for a desperate Dragon. But now, for us.
Jacques regarded the river with distaste. “This planest désagréable,” he said. “When you have as much hair as I do, getting wet is particularlyméchant.”
“Again—” Matt began.
“We get it,” I interjected, eyeing the boulders peeking up out of the water. “Are we wading or swimming?”
Matt examined the river. “Crouching and wading,” he theorized. “If we can stay low enough to avoid getting spotted, the current will carry us right there.”
“Okay. We’ll leave boots on, then. But let’s roll up our cloaks and tie them around our necks. We’ll likely need them once inside, and preferably in a dry state.”
“That’s why you’re the brains of this outfit, Angel,” Matt said with a twitch of his lips.
Jacques opened his mouth to offer his opinion, but closed it again when Matt glared at him.
I used the throat ties to bind it and slung it around my neck. Jacques did the same thing to his trench coat.
