“Jonas has been telling himself porky pies,” I told her, rolling off the bed.
“I . . . beg your pardon?”
“Lies,” I translated and went into the bathroom.
And then changed my mind, because a bath sounded awesome, but it also sounded like a lot of work right now. And like I might just fall asleep halfway through. But I had to at least wash my feet. I really couldn’t sleep like this.
I ran some hot water in the bottom of the tub, sat on the edge, and grabbed a sacrificial washcloth. God, Victorian London was filthy. My soles were black, I’d stubbed a toe on a higher-than-usual cobblestone, and I didn’t even want to know what was wedged in between the other ones. I loaded up on the soap and went to town.
“Lady?”
“Hm?”
“What kind of lies?”
I looked over my shoulder to see Rhea standing in the doorway, watching me.
“What? Oh. The kind where everything is going to be fine, because Cassie is going to wave a hand and save the day. I think Jonas forgets sometimes that he’s not dealing with Agnes.”
“Why do you . . .” Rhea cut herself off.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
She started picking up the bathroom, and soon had an armful of little soiled dresses. The formerly pristine white cotton was creased and sweat-stained, and, well, looked like it had been lived in for three days. But I guess it would have been hard to have them washed when the kids didn’t have anything else to put on.
I thought of Agnes’ perfect little court, so manicured and well behaved.
And then I thought of the giggling, glitter-streaked, slightly grimy one outside.
And, oh, look, I was having an effect already.
“Too bad we couldn’t have rescued more of Agnes’ stuff,” I said when Rhea noticed me watching her. “We could have outfitted the older girls, at least.”
“Most of her things were too warm for Las Vegas . . . if the court is to remain here?”
“I haven’t given it a lot of thought. Do you want to go back to London?”
“No.” It was emphatic. “The weather,” she added, grimacing.
“I can see that,” I agreed, remembering Agnes’ many coats. If I’d been her, I’d have moved the court somewhere sunny. The south of France maybe, or the coast of Spain.
Mmm, Spain. Paella and sangria and gorgeous guys . . .
Only Agnes’ gorgeous guy had been in rainy old London, hadn’t he? Well, her guy, anyway. I tried to imagine Jonas as a hot young stud and failed miserably. But he must have been once. Or at least she must have thought so. And they’d looked happy. . . .
I grinned, remembering the photo. The woman laughing and joking and kissing Jonas had had windblown hair and a top with half the buttons undone because it was being used as a beach cover-up. She’d had sunglasses on her head and what looked like a smear of that old white sun cream over her nose—to avoid more freckles, I guessed. She’d looked familiar in a way that her elegant rooms hadn’t. More relatable. More real.
More like the woman who had once shot me in the butt.
I wondered again where all the other pictures were. She must have had some . . . right? I mean, people did, didn’t they? Even before the era of the selfie.
But then, where were mine? If I died tomorrow and Rhea had to go through my stuff, what would she find? Some tacky old T-shirts? A few ratty tarot cards? A closet full of unsold ball gowns Augustine had foisted off on me so he could use my name in advertising, but that I’d never worn because I didn’t have a social life?
I shook my head; I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I was in the middle of a war. My lack of a social life didn’t matter.
Only, it did, somehow. Maybe because it had started to feel, especially lately, like I just jumped from one crisis to another. The idea that, sooner or later, things would calm down and I’d have time to get to the personal stuff didn’t seem to be happening. If anything, everything was speeding up, with even the thought of actually making it through to the other side getting harder to visualize.
And what if I didn’t?
Agnes hadn’t. She’d been something like eighty when she died, which might be a damn good run for a human, but not for a mage. For a mage, that was like dying at forty. And here I was at twenty-four, not at all sure I was going to make it to twenty-five, and—
And I suddenly wondered if that was how she’d felt. Like life was going by really fast, but nothing was happening. Not for her.
“In comparison to you?” Rhea asked suddenly.
I looked up. “What?”
“Yesterday you said something about Lady Phemonoe . . . in comparison to you?”
“Just that there isn’t much of one,” I said, grimacing.
But Rhea didn’t look like she got the joke.
“She was a very good Pythia,” she told me quietly.
“But?” I asked, because there had been one in there somewhere.
She bit her lip. But when she spoke, her voice was determined. “But she was too close to the Circle.”
“She and Jonas were lovers,” I pointed out. “Not that most people knew it.”
“They knew. Maybe not the man on the street—they kept it out of the papers. But there were rumors. And the major players, they always have spies. . . .”
The Senate sure did. I thought briefly of Kit Marlowe’s smiling face. The Senate’s chief spy had always been kind to me, charming even. I liked him.
I wondered if I still would if I knew everything he had on me.
“Enough people knew that the other groups felt excluded,” Rhea continued. “It didn’t matter so much with individuals, someone wanting a judgment on a personal matter. But if it touched the Circle . . .”
“And what doesn’t touch the Circle?” They weren’t the only magical game in town, but they were the biggest and everybody knew it.
She nodded.
“So what did groups like the Senate do when they needed a judgment? How did they approach her?”
“Most didn’t,” Rhea said quietly. “Not about the big things. It bothered her—I could tell—when they would sort things out for themselves, only to find that the solution they’d come up with didn’t work. She would have known, could have told them . . . but they hadn’t asked her.”
“You’re telling me their relationship was that damaging? To the point that no one listened to her afterward?”
“It wasn’t that no one listened. It was more that . . . it confirmed what everyone had always suspected. That the Circle and the Pythia worked in tandem.”
“So it started before Agnes?”
“Oh yes.” As usual, she looked slightly surprised at my ignorance. “It started with the Coven Wars.”
Damn. That sounded like more of the kind of stuff I should know about but didn’t. I sighed and womaned up. “The Coven Wars?”
“It’s the reason the Circle and the covens don’t get along. They had a huge war back in the sixteenth century over who was going to control Britain. The Circle won—barely—partly because the Pythia of the day prophesied that it would. The other groups took that as a sign that helping the covens would be a waste of time, and afterward, they couldn’t get allies anywhere.”
“A self-fulfilling prophecy.”
She nodded. “That’s what the covens said. They were furious, and many refused to allow any more of their children to go into the Pythian service. And those who did . . . didn’t do well.”
I remembered that Rhea had a cousin in the covens. It’s why she’d run to them when she found out my acolytes were rotten, and why the coven leaders had been willing to help me. But it sounded like her connections hadn’t made her too popular at court.
“The Pythias were unique in the ancient world, did you know?” she asked, sitting on the edge
of the tub, hugging an armful of soiled cotton. “Every other seer, every other temple, was dominated by wealthy men or women whose families had put them in that position. Every single one. Except for Delphi. Some of the Pythias came from wealth, too, from time to time, but there were just as many who were farmers’ daughters or shepherdesses or . . . or nobodies. Just nobodies. But these days . . .”
“These days?” I prompted when she trailed off.
“They say the power goes where it will. But it almost always goes to the one best able to use it. And that means the old Pythia’s heir, the person who has received the most training.”
I was starting to see where she was going with this. “But if you only allow some people to be trained—”
“Then you decide where the power goes—or where it doesn’t go. It has become a monopoly among a few old magical families that have strong connections to the Circle’s leadership. Lady Phemonoe was from one; her predecessor from another. And on and on, back beyond the wars.”
“And the current acolytes?”
“Old families, every one. Lady Phemonoe’s parents were unusual in not wanting their child selected. Most see it as a path to power, influence, and wealth, and push their daughters to get the position at all costs.”
“And so they breed a bunch of ambitious little hellions like Myra.”
But Rhea shook her head. “Not like Myra. She was selected for her ability, yes, but also for being quiet, unassuming, seemingly humble. The others . . . were not. They wanted the power terribly, and it showed. And I think the Lady must have seen something. . . . She told me once that none of them could ever be allowed to succeed her.”
“But she didn’t see anything about Myra, because Apollo was protecting his little puppet,” I guessed.
Rhea nodded, looking troubled. “He must have been, at least enough that the Lady did not see Myra for what she was.”
“So Myra got the job, and everyone else got bupkis.”
Rhea nodded.
I started rinsing off. “Tell me about them.”
“Victoria—the redhead—is from one of the founding families who first started the Circle, the Roupells. She’s one of the Lord Protector’s distant cousins, and everyone thought she would be the heir, until Myra was unexpectedly named. She was always the leader—even as a child—and still is, it seems.”
“And the others?”
“Elizabeth—the blonde—likewise came from a founding family, but her grasp of the power isn’t as good. She’s more of a follower and . . . not as intelligent. I think she was named acolyte as a political move. The Warrenders—her family—were among the Lord Protector’s chief supporters.”
The Lord Protector seemed to have a lot to say about something that wasn’t any of his business, I thought, and grabbed a towel.
“And the brunettes?”
“Amelie de Vielles—the one with longer hair—is the best with the power. In fact, she’s the best I’ve ever seen. She clearly expected to be the heir, and was furious when it went to Myra. Jo—Johanna—Zirimis is the one who wasn’t there. I don’t know if she is acting with them or not. She was always difficult to read. Quiet, bookish, but a little . . . odd. She never seemed to really be there in some way.”
“And the fifth?”
“Sara Darzi, the one with short dark hair. She’s the one you . . .” Rhea abruptly cut off.
“Threw out a window?” I finished grimly.
“You’re doing what you have to do,” she said, seeing my expression. “A Pythia is responsible for her court as any coven leader is for her coven. And who else could possibly—”
“What about the covens?” I interrupted, because I didn’t want to talk about this right now. Or ever, because what was there to say? She’d been trying to kill me; I hadn’t had a choice. I already knew all that.
But it didn’t make it any easier.
Those girls might be a disaster, but they hadn’t gotten that way on their own. The Pythian position wasn’t supposed to be some kind of prize to be won, some kind of trophy for the prominent families to fight over. It was a job, and a damned hard one. And it needed somebody who got that, not some political appointee drawn to the glamour.
I watched about an acre of Victorian mud slush down the drain.
Not that there was a lot of that these days.
“The covens?” Rhea repeated.
“If they don’t send hardly anyone to court, they can’t think they have much chance of getting a Pythia,” I pointed out.
“They don’t believe they have much of one anyway. They haven’t had a Pythia in more than five hundred years, haven’t had anyone who might take their side—until you.”
“Except I’m not a coven witch, either, am I?” I wrung out my filthy washcloth, and decided I’d been right—it was beyond saving. I chucked it into the trash. “And I was raised by vampires.” Which never seemed to make anybody happy.
Except the vamps, of course.
But Rhea was shaking her head. “The leaders were hesitant to come to you at first. There was a huge debate on it after I asked. I think they only agreed because they were curious. They didn’t know what to expect from you, this Pythia from a vampire’s court. But then they met you and . . .”
“I can imagine.”
“They were impressed,” Rhea said, watching me.
I snorted. “At what? My ability to play pool?” Because that’s what we’d spent half the night doing. And the rest . . . well, I hadn’t exactly been much help there. Shifting five people back in time, even a short distance, had all but wiped me out. If the witches hadn’t taken up the slack, we wouldn’t have made it out of there.
I was kind of surprised that we had anyway.
“No,” Rhea said. “At the fact that you passed the Gauntlet.”
I just looked at her, hoping for more information. I did not want to have to admit to yet another thing I didn’t know. But I guess the idea got through, because her eyes went round.
“The Gauntlet!” For the first time, she looked genuinely shocked at my ignorance.
I sighed. She might as well get used to it. “I’m afraid I don’t know what that is, either.”
“Of course!” She suddenly looked angry. “The Circle doesn’t make teaching Coven lore a priority!”
“Maybe not, but they didn’t oversee my education; a vampire did. And his only priority was making himself money.”
“Maybe it’s just as well,” she said bitterly. “When the Circle does teach something about the covens, it’s usually not . . . complimentary.”
“But this Gauntlet thing is important?”
“It’s not just important. It’s what gives a Coven leader her legitimacy. It varies from coven to coven, but the basic premise is the same: a prospective leader must pass a test, a physically and emotionally grueling, possibly deadly test, if she wants to prove herself fit to lead. If she doesn’t have the courage to go through with it, she won’t be selected, no matter how good she may be otherwise.”
“That sounds a little . . . barbaric,” I admitted, not wanting to offend her. But damn.
But she didn’t look surprised that time; I guessed she got that a lot. “It isn’t!” she insisted.
“Okay. I understand people have different traditions. . . .”
“It’s not just about tradition! A leader has to prove herself. Why should anyone lend her their power if they don’t know what she’ll do with it? If they don’t know that she’ll fight for them, die for them, if she must? You fought for us. You fought for us when Jonas wouldn’t. To the covens, that means you earned your court; someone didn’t give it to you—you bought it with blood and pain. To them, you have a legitimacy the other Pythias didn’t have—that they’ve never had! And then you defied him. . . .”
She broke off, but I kind of got the idea. “And Jonas . . . knows about a
ll this?”
She nodded.
Well, that explained a few things. Like why he went ballistic the other night. I’d thought it was because I’d broken a rule to save my court.
But maybe it had more to do with who I’d broken it with.
Typical. I managed to stumble over one of the Circle’s biggest hot-button issues without even knowing it. I needed a crash course in Magical History 101, like, now. But I wasn’t going to get it now.
Because I’d just realized that, for the first time since taking this job, I finally had someone to ask about things—a lot of things. And who sounded like she might actually know what she was talking about. And I had a question, oh yes, I did.
Chapter Twenty-four
“Rhea.” She looked up. “You seem to know a lot about the Pythias.”
She smiled. “I like to read the histories.”
“Good. I could use some information.”
She hugged her armful of soiled cotton and nodded. “Yes, Lady?”
“About . . . changing time.”
“You were right to rescue your court,” she told me quickly. “The Lord Protector should not have—”
“No, not about that.” That had been all of a fifteen-minute jump, to rescue kids who hadn’t been doing anything but sleeping before I showed up. I didn’t think I could have screwed things up too badly there. “Not about that,” I repeated.
She nodded.
“But say a Pythia did something . . . or caused something to happen . . . or helped something to happen . . . that changed time. How . . . bad is it?”
“That is difficult to say,” Rhea told me, looking a lot calmer than I’d expected. Like maybe that wasn’t as unthinkable a question as I’d believed. “It would depend on the circumstance.”
“Say it was something . . . kind of big.”
She still wasn’t looking freaked out. “I was always trained that time is malleable,” she told me. “And can heal itself to a large degree. An invention or discovery not made by one person can be made by another; a chance meeting, if missed, may happen at another time—”
“Yes, but say we’re not talking about chance meetings,” I broke in, because she still wasn’t getting this. “Say we’re talking about something serious. Something . . . like a death. That’s got to change things, right?”