by Karen Chance
He wasn’t the only one.
“Yes,” Jonas said, softly. “Her abilities were always formidable. If a fail-safe system was in effect, I can see her being chosen.”
“But why keep it a secret? How am I supposed to ask for help if I don’t even know they exist?”
“Ask them,” Jonas said dryly. “All I know is, that damn paper came out, and I shortly thereafter received two very unhappy visitors who demanded an audience with you. After what you’d been through, I think they were afraid that you wouldn’t see them without an introduction. I made the call and you know the rest.”
“No,” I said, “I don’t know anything,” and walked over to the women.
“Lady,” they murmured with Hildegarde nodding in lieu of the dreaded curtsy.
Like I gave a damn.
“Why are you here?” I asked abruptly.
They exchanged a glance.
“We’re supposed to be here,” Abigail said, after a moment. “If the court is in need. It is why we exist—well, why the position does—”
“The court’s been in need for a while. The court was just blown up,” I pointed out.
“The building was blown up. The court was rescued by you,” Hildegarde corrected, with equanimity.
Unlike her younger counterpart, she seemed completely unfazed by all this. The bullet-ridden wall, which I’d caught Abigail staring at, had passed without so much as a raised eyebrow. The motley crew of punked-out witches and pissed-off vamps had been managed with a cheery “Well, hello there.” And now a distrustful, beyond-annoyed Pythia was being regarded kindly, but with no discernible worry.
Maybe because she’d just seen me have trouble walking up a flight of stairs.
If they wanted to hurt me, they could have done it already. So that left the question of what they did want. “What do you want?” I asked.
“To help you,” Abigail said, her thin face distressed. “When I read the paper—I knew I should have come sooner—”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I did— Well, I tried. When Lady Phemonoe died and Myra was named a rogue by the Circle, I sent a letter to the Lord Protector—”
“To Saunders?” I asked, naming Jonas’ predecessor. The one who had been corrupt as hell, and had wanted my head on a platter before I found out what he’d been up to.
He’d almost succeeded.
And damn, I could have used a couple of acolytes then!
“Yes,” she confirmed. “He was . . . He made me uneasy. I felt his answer was just an attempt to gain information about me. I’d written anonymously, and he didn’t like that. But we’re not supposed to reveal ourselves unless absolutely necessary, and I didn’t know him. I set up a meeting, but he had people there, and ambushed me. I got away, but it was a close thing, and before I could decide what to do next, Jonas had removed him and assumed his role. And you had been named Pythia.”
Hildegarde nodded. “I had considered coming forward as well, but everything resolved itself quickly, and the court did not appear to be in danger. As far as I could tell, this was merely a disputed succession, with the Circle trying to retrieve both of you to see where the power would go—”
“They were trying to kill us and put their own candidate on the throne!” I said heatedly.
“But that wasn’t the story the papers put out, was it?” she asked mildly. “And I have been away from court for some time. My old avenues for gossip have long since dried up”—her lips twisted—“and died off, in most cases.”
“We’re not supposed to reveal ourselves unless absolutely necessary,” Abigail repeated. “If everyone knew who we were, and there was an assault on the court, they might target us, too.”
“And then where would we be?” Hildegarde agreed.
“Where I’ve been for the last four months?” I snarled, and then leaned on the wall and put a hand on my head, because that wasn’t helping. “Why are you here?”
“You know why. The paper made it clear that things were not as we’d assumed. And after my talk with Jonas, it appears they are even graver than I feared. You have not managed to retrieve your last rogue.”
“No.”
“Then forgive me, but why are you here?” she demanded. “A rogue is a priority. Your power should be pulling you wherever she is—”
“My power.” I laughed suddenly, I didn’t know why. Probably because, lately, it didn’t feel like I had any. “I don’t think it knows,” I finally said. “It’s been ignoring her.”
“That’s impossible,” Hildegarde said severely. “A rogue is a priority—the priority, until she’s dealt with. A determined rogue could destroy everything!”
“And I had five,” I said, suddenly savage. I had a headache, I had too many problems to keep track of, and I didn’t have time for a critique from someone who hadn’t even been here. “I only found out about them a couple days ago. Three are now dead and one is in custody—”
“That is admirable, lady,” Abigail murmured.
“And useless without the last,” Hildegarde said, echoing something I’d thought back in the corridor.
“What do you want me to do?” I demanded. “My power doesn’t seem to know or care where she is, and I can’t find her without it! I’ve been working on something else, and it hasn’t so much as—”
“On what?”
“None of your business!”
For the first time, Hildegarde looked less than grandmotherly. “I am not asking for details,” she said curtly. “My point was that if you have been going to the same place and time as your rogue, your power wouldn’t have had to pull you anywhere.”
I shook my head. “I haven’t.”
“You must have!”
“I haven’t! An acolyte couldn’t—” I cut off, suddenly remembering the attack in the fey version of a Winnebago. But that had been Wales, the place I’d almost wrenched my guts out to reach—and that was with a potion Johanna didn’t have. No way had she managed it.
“You’ve remembered something,” Hildegarde said.
“One of the other rogues told me that Johanna Zirimis—that’s the one who’s still out there—is after the same thing I am. A . . . sort of relic. One she thinks might be powerful enough to bring back a god—”
“Then how can you say she’s not a threat?” Hildegarde demanded.
“Because she couldn’t have managed it. She’s an acolyte—”
“A determined acolyte can manage a good deal, I assure you,” she snapped.
“Fifteen hundred years?” I snapped right back.
“Fifteen . . . hundred?” Abigail looked appalled.
I nodded. “That’s why I’m exhausted. And if it almost killed me to shift back that far, do you honestly think an acolyte could manage it? Any acolyte?”
“No,” Abigail said, glancing at her friend. “It isn’t even a question.”
Hildegarde pursed her lips, looking puzzled and vaguely annoyed.
“So like I said,” I told them, “I don’t know if Johanna died on her quest, or hasn’t started it yet, or what, but—”
I broke off, because the door had just opened, and somebody was backing into the room: Jiao, carrying a tray for Rhea. It contained some sort of soup, and smelled good. He shot me a smile.
I smiled back.
And then I frowned.
“What is it?” Hildegarde asked sharply.
“Jonas,” I called, because Rhea was awake now, so there was no more reason for silence.
He looked up.
“Do you have a photo of Johanna?”
He didn’t answer, being busy putting another couple of pillows behind Rhea. But he made a gesture at the stretch of windows beside me, which abruptly changed, from night in Vegas to a photo of a girl. One with dark hair and beautiful green eyes, almost startlingly so against
an olive complexion.
I took in the face, but it didn’t help much. The damn Winnebago had been too dark, and too clogged with dust for me to be sure. It might have been her; it might have been anyone.
“Can I talk to Lizzie?” I asked, and that request seemed to be a bit more complicated. But by the time Rhea had polished off a third of the soup, a new face was in the window, one with dark circles under her eyes and matted blond hair, because it looked like Lizzie had gotten even less sleep than me.
And I’d just disturbed that. There was an unmade cot behind her, bolted to the floor, which she was attached to by what I assumed was a set of magical cuffs. A fact that reassured me not at all.
“She needs to stay drugged,” I told Jonas. “Until she gives back the power.”
“She is. We’re monitoring her closely.”
“Not closely enough! There should be an acolyte with her!” Hildegarde said.
“Are you volunteering?” I asked.
“You—” Her eyes widened. “You don’t have any acolytes?”
Rhea waved slightly from the bed. Abigail’s face went from worried to just slightly above horrified. Hildegarde cursed—rather inventively.
“Hilde—” Jonas began.
“Damn it, Jonas, what the hell have you been doing?”
“I didn’t know that fail-safes existed—”
“But you did know there were other acolytes! Even former initiates would have been better than nothing. Why on earth—”
“He wanted to keep control of the court,” Abigail said, softly. She looked stunned, almost hurt, like she couldn’t believe it.
I couldn’t believe that she was twenty years older than me.
It’s not the age—it’s the mileage, I told myself grimly, and walked over to the windows. “I want some answers, Lizzie.”
“I’ve told them everything I know,” she spat. “A hundred times! They keep asking the same stupid questions—”
“Maybe I can think of some new ones.”
She looked at me resentfully.
“Johanna Zirimis,” I said. “You knew her?”
“Of course I knew her. She was an acolyte!”
“But did you know her well?”
“Nobody knew her well. She was some kind of weirdo.”
“What kind?”
Lizzie rolled her eyes. “Oh, there’re kinds now?”
I nodded at the mage behind her, who allowed her to sit back down on her cot. Her rather uncomfortable-looking cot, with a lumpy mattress and a paper-thin coverlet. Which didn’t stop her from looking at it longingly.
“The sooner we do this, the sooner you go back to sleep,” I pointed out.
She scowled. “She was a loner, all right? Nobody liked her. She always had her nose in a book. And she was a PA, which sucks if you had to actually earn your spot, like I did—”
“PA?”
“Political Appointment?” She looked at me like I was slow. “When the Circle needs a favor from one of the big houses, one that happens to have a daughter at court, they pull some strings and get her an acolyte’s position. She’s never going anywhere, of course—well, not Jo, anyway. She didn’t even have a good grip on the power. But she made acolyte before I did, and my family is just as—”
“She wasn’t good with the power?” I cut in. “How do you know?”
“She wouldn’t duel us. The rest of us, we practiced all the time, but not her. Like I said, all she ever did was read—and talk to herself.”
“Talk to herself?” A chill ran through me.
“Cassie,” Rico said, and I turned to see Rhea sitting up in bed, waving at me.
“A pad of paper,” Jonas told Rico, who shot him a look. Because he didn’t take orders from mages, and because he’d already been reaching inside his coat, where he had one ready.
He handed it to Rhea, who scribbled something that Rico brought over to me.
She’s lying. I saw her and Jo together often.
I looked up at Lizzie, who was suddenly less belligerent and more worried. “What did she say?” she demanded. “And why can’t she talk?”
“Some of your friends paid us a little visit this morning,” I said, turning the pad around so Lizzie could see it. “And I don’t think she believes you.”
“Who the hell cares? Who is she? Some coven nobody! My family—”
“Nobody?” I hadn’t noticed Jonas coming up behind me, but he was suddenly there, his face white and scary. “My daughter with Lady Phemonoe is nobody?”
Lizzie stared. And then she swallowed, and looked at Rhea. And then she crumpled.
And talked—a lot.
When she was finished, I glanced at Jonas. “I’m going to need—”
He held up a hand—with something in it. “I know what you need,” he said tersely. “But there’s a price. I want to see your parents.”
“Good. So do I.”
Chapter Forty-four
“You’re positive this is necessary?” Jonas whispered as we crouched in the darkness, under a bunch of dripping leaves.
“Yes, if you want to do this—”
“I don’t want to. I have to,” he said, sounding aggrieved. “Your mother was prophesied to help us against Ares!”
“She did,” I reminded him. “She helped me kill four of the five Spartoi. I couldn’t have taken them without her—”
“Those were his sons. The prophecy was about him. And in no way have we received any assistance with him!”
“You want to complain?” I nodded at the pale blue fairy-tale cottage that my parents had called home, almost twenty-four years ago. Or right now, because we were back in time. “Go complain.”
Jonas muttered something.
“What?”
“I said, like this?” he repeated, looking down at himself with distaste.
“The price for my mother’s help with the demon council was that I never return. If we want help, we have to make sure they think I’m not here again, but still.”
“That explains the glamourie. But why am I wearing only a blanket?”
He had it wrapped around him toga-style, or maybe venerable senator–style, because the frat party vibe didn’t go so well with the expression on his face. Or Pritkin’s face, because that was who had been with me the first time I was here, and I couldn’t very well show up with a new partner. Pritkin’s features could handle anything from annoyance all the way up to incandescent rage, but pinched disapproval . . . not so much.
But my parents didn’t know that.
“It’s complicated,” I said. “But this is the only way.”
“And you think your mother is going to fall for this?” he asked, adjusting the blanket’s folds over one shoulder.
“No. Which is why we’re not talking to her.”
A light winked out in an upstairs window, leaving the little courtyard dark and silent. Except for our footsteps, as we scurried for the kitchen door. It was unlocked, of course, because we were on the estate of a psychotic vampire with a bunch of trigger-happy family members. Locks were superfluous.
Not that there were any vamps in sight. No one was, except for Daisy, slumped over the table like a very odd drunk. Or, to be more precise, like the “body” my father had constructed for her was currently empty.
Dad had developed a takeoff of the golem spell, giving his ghosts a corporeal form so they could serve as bodyguards for him and Mom. Only instead of clay, Dad’s golems appeared to have been made out of whatever junk he’d had lying around. And a bucket, which Daisy had made into a slightly lopsided head, because he hadn’t thought to give her one.
I breathed a sigh of relief. I hadn’t been sure I’d gotten the day right; fine-tuning exactly when I showed up in time had never been my strong suit. And the maybe quarter bottle of potion Jonas had found in his
nightstand hadn’t helped nearly as much as it should have.
“I’ll go first, and check it out,” I said, and for once, he didn’t argue. Maybe because he was busy. Staring in consternation at the makeup Daisy had, somewhat inexpertly, applied to the bucket.
I crossed the kitchen to a door I hadn’t been through last time, where an odd-looking glow was leaking in to splash the tiles.
And found a living room filled to the brim with . . . stuff.
It was on tables and shelves and stuck in corners. It spilled out of boxes and was piled high in baskets. It had taken over the sofa and replaced the books that had once occupied built-ins on either side of the fireplace. It was everywhere. And it was glowing.
Liquid light splashed wood-paneled walls, most of which was somewhere along the blue spectrum. Which wasn’t too surprising considering that, in magical terms, blue and green were the colors of milder spells—or in this case, spells with the equivalent of run-down batteries. Everywhere I looked were old wards, decaying amulets, dried-up potions, and shield charms that weren’t shielding anything anymore.
It was a room full of magical junk.
Well, mostly. A few items looked like they might still have some oomph. A couple boxes were bobbing up and down, as the power levels in crumbling levitation charms ebbed and flowed. Half of a small end table was flickering in and out of sight, and an odd sort of duel was going on between an EverFlame and an extinguisher spell. But for the most part, they just gently glowed, splashing the walls with wavering, underwater light.
“Don’t touch anything!” Roger’s voice came from behind a bunch of boxes. “Some things are at the iffy stage right now.”
Yeah, I thought, watching a bug zapper on a box near the window. It was painstakingly burning out all the pictures of bees on a kitschy set of floral curtains. It turned what looked like a tiny feeler on me as I edged around the pile, but I guess I didn’t look sufficiently insectlike, so I sidled by unscathed.
And found Roger, sitting at a desk, working on something that required a magnifying glass on a stand to see. He looked up, the light glinting off glasses perched low on his nose. They were magnifying, too.