I should have seen it coming and probably would have if Shaylee hadn't been keeping a vibrations ear open behind us in case of pursuit. Besides, I was a little busy working out how I was going to free Charlotte and the werewolves while helping Piers bring down the Czar without backup and no maji power.
It was a lot to juggle and pay attention to where we were headed and who we might run into. I was counting on Piers to handle at least one of those jobs. Otherwise, why did I drag him along again?
Oh, wait. He dragged me along.
Right.
My vampire's hiss was all the warning I had as we rounded the next corner into an atrium of some kind, filled with doorways leading elsewhere. Some kind of wing hub to the rest of the palace was my guess.
Well, my peripheral mind guessed. The rest of me snapped into focus on the dozen werewolves and two sorcerers hovering in the middle of the grand space.