I searched the vines with my eyes for any sign of life. They were dry and lifeless. I sent a flash of power into the vines and felt an answering pulse of power, strong still, but faint, nothing like the warm pressing presence it should have been. I touched the nearest vines gently with my fingers. The thorns were small here, but dry, like straight pins.
"Stop petting the roses," Frost said. "We have more pressing problems."
I turned to him, hand still on the roses. "If the roses die, truly die, do you understand what this means?"
"Most likely, better than you do," he said, "but I also understand that we can do nothing for the roses or the fact that the sidhe's power is dying. But if we are careful, we may save ourselves this night."
"Without our magic we are not sidhe," I said. I pulled my hand back without looking, spearing my finger on the thorns. I jerked back, which broke a thorn off in my skin. The small dark thorn was easy to see and easy to remove with an edge of fingernail. It didn't even hurt that much, just a small dot of crimson on my finger.
"How bad is it?" Rhys asked.
"Not bad," I said.
A thick, dry hiss ran through the room like some great serpent gliding through the dark. The sound came from above us, and we all looked upward. A shudder ran through the vines, and dried leaves fell like a crumbling rain onto the floor, catching in our hair, our clothes.
"What's happening?" I asked.
Doyle answered, "I don't know."
"Then shouldn't we get to the other room?" Rhys said. His hand went for a sword that was not there. But his other hand went for my arm, and he pulled me toward the closest door, back into the hallway. None of them were armed, unless Doyle still had my gun. And somehow I didn't think a gun was what we needed.
The others closed around me like a wall of flesh. Rhys's hand touched the door handle, and vines spilled over the door like dry rushing water. He jumped back, pushing me away from the door and the reaching vines. Doyle grabbed my other arm, and we were suddenly running for the far door. They were moving too fast for my high heels. I stumbled, but their hands kept me upright and moving, my feet barely touching the floor. Frost was ahead of us, going for the doors. He called back, "Hurry!"
Rhys muttered under his breath, "We are."
I glanced back to see Galen. He was facing away from me, guarding my back with nothing in his hands but his own skin. But the thorns were not touching him. There was a sense of movement everywhere like a nest of snakes, but the thin, dry tendrils dangled above me like an octopus - reaching just for me. As Doyle and Rhys carried me farther into the room, the thorns receded behind me and fell above my head, brushing my hair, pulling at us. When Doyle turned his head to look upward, I caught a scarlet flash on his face, fresh blood.
The thorns wrapped in my hair, trying to pull me away. I screamed, jerking my head down. Rhys grabbed the handful of my hair and together we pulled it free of the thorns, leaving strands of hair behind.
Frost had the far doors open. There was a glimpse of brighter lights and faces turned toward us, some human, some not. Frost was yelling, "A sword, give me a sword!"
A guard started to move forward, hand on his sword. I heard a voice yell, "No! Keep your sword." It was Cel's voice.
Doyle barked out an order: "Sithney, give us your sword!"
The guard at the door started to lift his sword from its sheath. Frost held his hand out for it. The vines poured over the opening in a dry rushing wave. There was a moment when Frost could have dived through the door, could have saved himself, but he turned back into the room. The door vanished behind a reaching, slashing wave of thorns.
Rhys and Doyle took me to the floor. Doyle pushed Rhys on top of me. I was suddenly under a pile of bodies. Rhys hair spilled past my face like curly silk. I had a glimpse through his hair and someone's arm of a black cloak. I was pressed so hard against the floor I not only couldn't move, I could barely breathe.
If it had been anyone but Doyle and Frost on top, I'd have been waiting for screams. Instead, I waited for the pile to grow lighter as the men were dragged away by the thorns. But the pile didn't grow lighter.
I lay flat on my stomach, pressed to the cool stone floor, staring out through Rhys's hair. The arm that was braced outside the curtain was bare of cloth, and slightly less purely white, so it was Galen.
My blood had been pounding in my ears until all I could hear was the beat of my own body. But minutes passed and nothing happened. My pulse quieted. I pressed my hands to the stones underneath me. The grey stone was almost as smooth as marble, worn away from centuries of passing feet. I could hear Rhys's breathing next to my ear. The shift of cloth as someone above us moved. But over all was the sound of the thorns, a low continuous murmur like the sound of the sea.
Rhys whispered against my hair, "May I have a kiss before I die?"
"We don't seem to be dying," I said.
"Easy for you to say. You're on the bottom of the pile." This from Galen.
"What's happening up there? I can't see a thing," I said.
"Be happy you cannot," Frost said.
"What is happening?" I asked again, putting more force into my voice.
"Nothing," Doyle's deep voice rumbled down through the pile of men, as if the other bodies carried the low tone of his words like a tuning fork straight down my spine. "And I find that surprising," he said.
"You sound disappointed," Galen said.
"Not disappointed," Doyle said, "curious."
Doyle's cloak slid out of sight, the weight above me was suddenly less.