For a moment, all I saw was gothic wood paneling, the kind that looked like it belonged in a country gentleman’s library rather than a ballroom. But it was there for a reason. Because when Rhea turned a wooden rosette, a narrow section of wall slid back, revealing a slender hidden staircase.
“Mages on the second floor,” I reminded them softly as we left the first behind.
“So why aren’t we on the third?” Fred whispered. “Or better yet, inside the room? Why are we taking the scenic route?”
“Because I don’t want to materialize in a room full of dark mages?”
“Why would they be there? Why would anyone be there? This place is about to go up like a firework!”
“Because that’s the way my life works,” I hissed, as Rico cautiously pushed open the paneling on Agnes’ hall.
And just as quickly pulled back in.
“What?” I asked, moving to the front so I could see. “Crap.”
“What is it?” Fred demanded.
“Some of those mages who aren’t supposed to be here.”
“What?” He poked his head under my arm, so he could get an eye to the crack in the door. And saw the same thing I did—two guys lounging around, smoking. Like this whole place wasn’t about to be.
“What in the hell are they doing there?”
“Having a smoke.”
“Having—that’s just stupid.”
“Not if the acolytes failed to mention that this place was about to go up in flames,” Rico whispered.
“They wouldn’t do that,” Fred said, sounding shocked. “Would they?”
“You don’t know them.” That was Rhea, her usually gentle face suffused by something that looked like hate. “The adepts, they’re . . . They didn’t care. Two dozen children, and they didn’t care.”
“It’s safe to say they didn’t care how many mages made it out of here, either,” I told Fred.
“No offense,” he whispered. “But your acolytes are dicks.”
No argument there. But they weren’t the problem right now, their stooges were, and how to get around them. And we didn’t have a lot of time.
And then we had less.
A familiar sound came from below. A sound like a door opening in some paneling. And then boot heels started hitting stairs, a lot of them. Like maybe someone had seen us come in and got a few buddies together to check it out.
“Damn,” Fred said.
Yeah, that about summed it up. I looked back the other way, but it was worse than before, since the smokers had been joined by a guy dragging a sheet made into a bag. A bag that clanked with what, at a guess, was every valuable he could find.
“They’re plundering her,” Rhea whispered, quivering because she was so furious.
“I can take them,” Rico told me, dark eyes level.
And yeah, he probably could. But I didn’t know for certain that these men didn’t make it out of here. And while I wouldn’t waste any tears on a bunch of child killers, I was risking the time line enough as it was.
“I could shift us inside,” I said reluctantly, as the approaching boots hit the second floor.
“You sure?”
No. Furniture could have changed position, more of their friends could still be in there, a thousand things could go wrong. Like me not having the power to shift us back out, which wouldn’t be fun.
But then, neither was this.
And then it got worse.
“Hey!” came from the stairs behind us. “Hey, up—”
“Here” went unsaid, because Rico’s knife was buried in the speaker’s throat.
Shit!
“Check it out,” a voice growled from below, and the stairs started to shake under multiple boot heels.
And then we were stumbling out into the hallway, because the odds were better here, although the mages hadn’t moved. And they still didn’t, even to look up, when four strangers emerged from a wall just down the hall. The panel slid shut behind us, and then I noticed Fred, staring intently at the men bent over their bags.
“Got it?” Rico whispered.
“Think so,” Fred muttered.
“Be sure.”
“You be sure,” Fred snarled in a whisper. “Three’s damned hard!”
“Not if they’re distracted,” Rico pointed out. And a second later, one of the mages turned around and slugged the guy next to him.
“What the hell?” His buddy looked up, a silver candelabra in one hand and his bulging cheek in the other.
“That’s mine!” the first mage said, grabbing the candlestick.
“Get your own. I found this!”
“And I want it.”
“What you want is a fat lip to match that head,” the second guy said. “And you’re going to get it if you don’t let go.”
“Fuck you” was the elegant reply.
Which is why mage number one had his nose bashed in a second later.
“Hurry, before they start flinging spells,” Rico said, and started pulling us toward the scrabbling duo.
“They’re going to see us!” Rhea said, pulling back.
“They won’t see anything.”
She looked at me, and I nodded. I didn’t know exactly what was going on, but I could guess. All vamps could do suggestions, but based on recent experiences, I was assuming Mircea’s bunch were better than most. Which meant that Fred could probably make them swear the sky was red if he wanted to.
At least for a while. But it looked like maybe that kind of thing was hard, because he was already sweating. And considering that vamps don’t, that wasn’t a great sign.
“Let’s go,” I told her, and we started down the hall, just as someone began scrabbling at the paneling behind us.
“Don’t. Run,” Fred said tightly, pulling Rhea back as she darted ahead.
“Why not?” She looked around, eyes huge.
“Because people notice you when you run.”
“And they won’t notice if we walk right by them?”
“No.”
And they didn’t, being too focused on each other to pay us any attention.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t true of the ones who burst out of the hidden stairwell behind us a moment later. “There!” somebody said, and a spell shot over our heads, missing us only because Rico jerked us down at the same second.
He didn’t have to jerk Fred, who had already hit the ground, still staring at the mages ahead of us. Until the wall beside his face burst into flames when the spell hit, making him curse and draw back. And lose his grip on the little group of thieves.
Luckily, they were too busy fighting with each other to notice. And with the guys behind us, who they assumed had just attacked them. And it didn’t look like the Black Circle was any better at talking out differences than the Silver.
So much for not altering the time line, I thought grimly. And for once, hoped my murderous acolytes actually were, and that none of these men had been fated to get out of here anyway. But there was no time to worry about it now, no time for anything except scrabbling forward on hands and knees as the battle raged above us and we made for the door.
Which we somehow hit before anything hit us, maybe because Rhea was shielding for all she was worth.
At least, I assumed that was why a spell deflected off the air maybe a foot above our heads, hit some other mage’s shield, and then went ping-ponging around, striking shield after shield before finally finding a target in the ceiling.
And blowing a hole in it.
Plaster rained down, dust billowed out in a choking cloud, and the door we’d finally reached was thrown open. And a bunch more mages ran out, drawn by the crazy. But thanks to the camouflage we’d just unleashed, they didn’t see us.
Until they fell over us.
Rhea’s shield had given up t
he ghost at some point, so I felt every bit of the boot to the ribs I took when one of the mages tripped over me. And then Rico jerked the remainder, who were trying to draw back into the room, out into the fray. Boots stomped, coats were slung in my face, and the yelling, cursing, and spell slinging suddenly intensified. But I didn’t care. I had my eye on the open door, and I dove for it, the others sliding, crawling, and, in the case of Fred, rolling through along with me.
And then someone slammed the door.
“Like that’s going to help?” Fred said, his voice a little high.
“No, but this will!” Rhea snarled, and smashed her hand down on a small button on the wall.
I’d taken it for a dimmer, but I guess not. Because a shield shimmered into place right in front of my face a second later, almost close enough to cut off my nose. But it didn’t matter, because we were in!
Chapter Thirty-seven
“Oh,” Rhea said softly, her anger evaporating into shock as she stared around.
And, yeah. The place looked a little different now. The coffee table was cracked, the many sofa cushions were slashed, and the bar had been emptied of its crystal and most of the booze. A few half-empty bottles were lying on their sides, above stained and dirty carpeting, leaking onto the imprints of dozens of muddy boots. It looked like we’d arrived at the tail end of the pillage.
Which made it strange that the safe was still there and still intact, despite the van Gogh having gone.
A moment later, I understood why.
“Shit!” Rico jerked back his hand.
“What is it?” I hurried over.
“Wards.”
“But they’re supposed to be down. That’s the whole point of this!”
“The safe was probably set up to be independent of the house grid. Either that or—”
He looked at the door.
But Rhea was already shaking her head. “It’s a perimeter ward only. It shouldn’t affect anything else.”
And too bad if it did, because we couldn’t exactly lower it, could we?
“How long will it hold?” Rico asked her.
“I— Ten minutes? Perhaps a little more? It was meant as an extra level of protection for the Pythia in times of distress.”
“Well, I think this qualifies,” Fred muttered from behind the sofa. He was doing something, but I couldn’t tell what. But if it was cowering, I didn’t intend to say anything.
Bet he didn’t volunteer next time.
“I am no mage,” Rico told us. “But I know a few tricks. As long as we have time, I will use it.”
“We don’t have much time,” Rhea said, biting her lip.
“Then I will be quick.” He shot her a devastating grin over his shoulder. “Although that’s not my usual style.”
She looked at him blankly. He grinned wider. I went over to see what Fred was doing.
He was behind the sectional of many pillows, but he wasn’t cowering. He was peering myopically at something ugly. I assumed he’d pulled it out of the largish sack on the ground next to him, which one of the thieves must have dropped on the way out the door.
Although why any thief had wanted that thing was beyond me.
“Have you seen this?” he asked, looking up.
“Yes.” And I didn’t want to see it again.
“It’s a hell of a thing,” he told me.
“It’s a bezoar.”
“That’s what I mean.” He held it out to me. “Someone rescued that from a goat’s stomach, prettied it up, and made it into a cup.”
“I know,” I said, trying not to shy back, but the thing was nasty. And that was despite the nice little framework of enameled gold someone had added in a seriously misguided attempt to add some class. Although what else they could have done I didn’t know, since it was basically a dung-colored, hairy softball.
That now looked like a dung-colored, hairy Fabergé egg.
“Why would anyone do that?” Fred demanded.
“Lady Phemonoe collected poison remedies,” Rhea told him, glancing at the empty shelving. Which, until recently, had held the world’s creepiest cup collection. Which seemed to now be residing in the sack Fred was looking through.
“All of them?” Fred asked, clearly fascinated. “Even the horn?”
“Horn drinking vessels were believed to vibrate on contact with poison,” she told him. “Vintners used to wear a piece of horn around their necks when they tested their wine, to make sure it hadn’t gone off.”
“Seriously?”
“Rock crystal was similar,” she added as he pulled out another cup. “When exposed to poison, it was supposed to lose its transparency and turn cloudy. This one is set with amethyst, as it was believed to change brightness when near poisoned items.”
“And the one with the shark teeth?”
“Fred,” I said, interrupting. “Can you do me a favor and try to find any potion bottles that Rhea and I might have missed? Your nose may be able to pick up on something we didn’t.”
“Well, yeah,” he agreed. “That’s why I came over here. These things reek.”
“Of potion?” I asked sharply.
He nodded.
I suddenly got a lot more interested in the weird collection.
“There’s probably residue on most of them,” Rhea said, looking at me apologetically. “These weren’t just for show. She used them. She wouldn’t drink from anything else.”
Fred whistled through his teeth. “Wow, paranoid much?”
“It wasn’t paranoia,” Rhea said. “It had been prophesied that she would die from poison if she wasn’t vigilant.”
“But she was Pythia. Wouldn’t she know if someone was trying to slip her something?”
“How would she know?”
“I just thought she’d get a vision or something.”
“We don’t see visions about ourselves.”
“Oh.” Fred looked like he hadn’t known that. “Well, looks like she took it seriously. Sharks’ teeth?”
I glanced at Rico, who had just jerked his hand back again, cursing softly. But I couldn’t help him. So I found a spot on the ruined sofa and sat down, and a moment later, Rhea joined me. Like we were having a polite chat instead of plundering a dead woman while thieves battered at the door and a bomb ticked away its last minutes.
“A cure rather than a preventative,” she told Fred. “Sharks’ teeth set in an agate cup—both said to render poison harmless. Like the bezoar.”
“And these?” Fred pulled a miscellany of items out of the bottom of the sack. A small gold cup set with rubies. A handful of precious stones, some the size of a marble, others large as hens’ eggs. A tangle of amulets. Some odd charred bones.
“For an extra precaution, you could add a bezoar or an amulet to the cup,” Rhea explained. “Lady Phemonoe usually used several.”
“But that’s . . . just superstition. She had to know that, right? It doesn’t work.”
“It worked,” I said. “Just not the way it was intended.”
“Come again?”
“It’s what killed her.”
Fred looked down at the cup in his hands and dropped it like it was hot.
“They’re not going to hurt you,” I told him. “It was an amulet that did it. It contained arsenic—”
“Arsenic?”
“—because of an old belief that poison attracted poison and would draw it out of whatever it was dunked in.”
“That . . . seems like a really bad idea.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be able to get out.”
“But it did,” he pointed out.
“It had help.”
“Help?” That was Rhea. She’d been looking back and forth between the two of us, but now her eyes focused on me.
And I remembered: not too many people
knew for certain how Agnes had died. There had been rumors, of course. But the reputable—read Circle-controlled—papers had done a pretty good job of hushing them up.
I guess they didn’t want to give people ideas.
But Rhea had been part of Agnes’ court; she deserved to know.
“It was Myra,” I said, talking about Agnes’ former heir, who had been a little too impatient to inherit. “She poked a pinhole in one of the amulets—”
“She did what?”
I suddenly wished I’d kept my big mouth shut. Because Rhea had just turned white as a sheet. But it was too late now.
“It, uh, it enabled the poison to leak out a little at a time, whenever it was used,” I told her. “Agnes, well, she did the rest herself, every time she had a drink.”
“Why . . . why weren’t we told this?”
“I thought you had been.”
“No. No.” She looked stricken.
Way to put your foot in it, Cassie, I thought darkly.
“Did the Lord Protector know?” Rhea asked, using Jonas’ official title. And then didn’t give me time to answer. “Of course he did. Of course he did!”
“Well, yes,” I said, because clearly.
“Why would he do that?” she demanded, her expression caught between tears and rage. “Why would he deprive her of her right?”
“What right?” Fred asked. “She’s dead.”
I shot him a look.
“The right to avenge herself on her attacker!”
“But . . . she’s dead,” Fred reiterated, as if maybe Rhea had missed that part.
“But her soul is not!” she snapped.
“Yes, well, I’m sure it’s, uh, in a better place,” Fred said awkwardly.
Rhea shook her head. “You don’t understand. A Pythia devotes her life to her purpose, and is rewarded by being allowed to merge with another at death.”
“Merge?”
“Her soul migrates to another body, a host body.”
“Just . . . anybody’s?” Fred asked, suddenly looking alarmed. And glancing at me out of the corner of his eye.