by Karen Chance
But the coronation would do. It had become a symbol for everything, the whole damn mess coming to a head, the fast-approaching day when I, Cassie Palmer, would be presented as the seer of seers to the supernatural world. Which would probably take one look and laugh their collective asses off.
Not that I blamed them. Two months ago—a little less, actually—I’d been a secretary in a travel agency. I’d answered phones. I’d filed stuff. I’d picked up the boss’s freaking dry cleaning.
On my days off, I worked as a tarot reader, because a couple of bucks an hour over minimum wage doesn’t pay the bills. Only that hadn’t paid them all that well, either, because people didn’t like my readings. Nobody really wanted to know the future; they wanted reassurance, hope, a reason to get up in the morning. At the time, I hadn’t understood that; I’d thought forewarned was forearmed.
Now I understood why I hadn’t had too many repeat customers. Now I’d have liked a little reassurance myself, even if it was a lie. And I really, really didn’t want to see tomorrow.
Ironic that it was my job now.
“It’s a formality,” Pritkin said firmly, watching my face. “You’ve been Pythia since your predecessor’s passing.”
“Technically. But I haven’t really had to do anything yet, have I?”
He frowned. “You haven’t had to do anything?”
“Well, you know. Nothing important.”
“You killed a god!”
I rolled my eyes. “You make it sound like I dueled him or something. When you know damn well we flushed him down a metaphysical toilet.”
Pritkin shrugged. “Dead is dead.”
He tended to be practical about these things.
Of course, so did I when the creature in question planned a literal scorched-earth policy, starting with me. But that wasn’t the point. “I just meant that no one’s expected me to do anything as Pythia,” I explained. “But the coronation is coming up, and you know as soon as it’s over . . . and I can’t even age a damn apple!”
I started to get up, but that hand tightened on my foot. I wanted to pace, needed to let off some of the nervous energy that kept me from eating half the time, kept me from sleeping. And just when I told myself I was being paranoid and everything would be fine, something tried to drown me in the goddamned bathtub.
But I didn’t get up. Because then I’d lose that brief, human connection. A connection that shouldn’t have been there, because Pritkin wasn’t the touchy-feely type. He touched me in training, when he had to, and grabbed me in the middle of crises. But I actually couldn’t recall him ever touching me just . . . because.
I sat back again. The damn balcony wasn’t big enough for pacing, anyway.
“And yet, from what Jonas tells me, you shift with more alacrity than Lady Phemonoe ever did,” he said, using Agnes’s reign title. “And the power is the power. If you can use it for one application, it would seem logical—”
“Yeah, except it doesn’t work that way. At least not for me.”
“It’s only been a month, whereas most heirs—”
“Train for years. And that’s just it. I don’t feel like I’ll ever catch up. And even if I do, nobody is going to listen to me!”
“And why not? You’re Pythia.”
“No, I’m some kind of . . . of trophy to be fought over. At least that’s how I’m treated. So if I do get a flash of something, something useful, something important, who the hell is going to pay attention?”
“The opposition, apparently. They seem to insist on paying you a great deal of attention.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“And you don’t find that strange? If you’re so powerless?”
I shrugged. “I’m still Pythia. Killing me would—”
“Would what?” he demanded. “Say they had succeeded tonight. What would it have gained them? When the power leaves you at your death, it simply goes to another host, probably one of the Initiates. There’s no gain for the opposition there; in fact, they might have reason to view it as a loss. For the moment, the Initiates are probably better trained.”
“Thanks,” I said, even though it was true.
“Then the question remains: why you?” he asked, leaning forward with that sense of pleased urgency he always got when debating. I tried not to take it personally; Pritkin just liked to argue. “Why are they still concentrating on you?”
“Why have they been for the last two months?” I countered. “Apollo—”
“Was focused on you, yes. But only because he had to be. He wanted to use your pentagram ward as a direct line to your power. It was the one thing that would allow him to break through the barrier and exact revenge on those who had banished him.”
I unconsciously rolled my shoulders, stretching the skin between the blades, where my ward had sat ever since my mother put it on me as a child. The big, saucer-shaped thing had never been pretty, and had somehow ended up lopsided and droopy, like something a tattoo artist had done after a late-night bender. But it had felt like a part of me.
It didn’t now. Ever since Apollo’s attempt to find a way back into the world his kind had once misruled, everyone had been freaked out about it. They were afraid I might be captured with it on my body, allowing our enemies to use it to drain my power. So it remained in a velvet case on my dressing table, like a discarded piece of jewelry.
I’d thought I’d get used to its absence after a while, the way you get used to a tooth that’s been pulled. But so far, that hadn’t happened. It was funny; I’d never been able to feel the ward, which had no more weight than the tattoo it resembled. But I could feel its absence, could trace the path where the lines ought to have been, like a brand on my skin.
“But that also didn’t work,” I said, because Pritkin was waiting for a response.
“Which is my point. His allies have to know that we wouldn’t put the ward back on you. You’re safer without a direct conduit to your power plastered on your back. And yet they remain focused on you, despite having a thousand other targets.”
“A thousand other targets who didn’t just help to kill their buddy,” I pointed out. “This could be about revenge.”
“If they knew about the role you played, yes. But how would they? The Circle contained any mention of the aborted invasion in the press, to avoid a general panic. And no one was there at the end but us.”
“There was Sal,” I reminded him. She’d been a friend—or so I’d thought—who had chosen the wrong side. Or been ordered onto it by Tony, my old guardian, who also happened to be her master. It had cost her her life and given me one more reason to hate the son of a bitch.
Like I’d needed another one.
“Yes, but she was dead before Apollo was,” Pritkin reminded me. “She couldn’t have told anyone anything. Of course, by now, his associates must have realized that he was defeated, but there is no way for them to know that you were the cause.”
I shook my head. Pritkin knew a lot about a lot of things, but his understanding of vampires was . . . pretty bad, actually. He’d picked up a few things from hanging out with me, but the gaps in his knowledge still showed once in a while. Like now.
“Sal was a master vamp,” I told him. “Not a very strong one, but still. It carries certain privileges—like mental communication. I don’t know if she could contact Tony all the way in Faerie, but she might have told someone else—”
“Say she did. Or that they otherwise learned or guessed. If we presume revenge as a motive, why now? They’ve had all month.”
“The coronation is coming up—”
“And if they wished to send a message, they would have waited to attack during the ceremony itself. Not now, not here, where there was no one to see. Where, even if they were successful, it could be passed off as a tragic accident, not a victory for the other side.”
I crossed my arms. “Okay. What’s your theory?”
“That this might not have to do with the war at all. That it could be personal.”
>
I didn’t have to ask what he meant. I’d had the same thought as soon as I heard the word “Fey.” Because in addition to all the people on the other side in the war—the Black Circle of dark mages, a bunch of rogue vampires and whomever the god had been buddies with—I’d also managed to make an enemy out of the Dark Fey king.
I’m just special like that.
“But there’s no way to know for certain,” he said, “not without more information. Which is why I need permission to go away for a day, perhaps two.”
There were several things wrong with that sentence, but I latched on to the most pressing one first. “You’re going away now?”
“I don’t have a choice,” he told me, searching in his coat for something. “I’ve already called my contacts here, but given the limited description we have, they wouldn’t even venture a guess as to what we’re dealing with.”
“If you’ve already contacted them, then why do you—” I stopped, a really nasty idea surfacing. “You’re not going back there!”
“That is exactly what I am doing. Cassie.” He caught my wrist as I started to rise. “It will be all right.”
“That’s—Do you remember last time?” I asked incredulously.
Mac, one of Pritkin’s friends, had died defending me on the one and only time I’d ventured into the land of the Fey. Pritkin, myself and Francoise, a human woman who had been stuck there for years, had barely escaped with our lives—and only after I’d promised the Fey more than I could deliver.
“We made a deal,” I whispered furiously. “If you go back, they’re going to expect you to honor it. And you know we can’t—”
“I’m not going to court. I’m merely slipping in to speak with some old contacts.”
“And if they catch you?”
“They won’t.”
“But if they do?”
“Listen to me. The ability to possess someone is a rare talent, even among the spirit world, and few manage it so easily. This thing, whatever it is, must be very powerful.”
“Yes, but—”
“If I don’t know what it is, I cannot fight it. Neither can you.” He pressed something into my hand. “But this may help.”
I looked down at a small, gathered bag made out of linen. It had a red thread wrapped around the top, with enough length to allow it to be used as a necklace. Only nobody would bother, because the thing reeked like old Limburger.
“A protective charm,” Pritkin said unnecessarily, because I’d worn something like it once before. Only I didn’t recall it being much help the only time I’d run up against the Fey.
I didn’t recall anything being much help.
“If this creature is so powerful, you think this will stop it?” I demanded.
“No. But it will buy you time. Seconds only, but that is all you need to shift away. Keep your servant on watch when you sleep; when you’re awake, keep your shields up at all times. You’ll know if an attack comes. If it does, shift immediately—spatially, temporally, I don’t care. Just get out. It cannot hurt you—”
“If it can’t find me,” I finished dully.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can manage it. And then we’ll formulate a plan for killing this thing.”
I stared at the little sachet, talisman, whatever it was in my hand. It felt heavy, like there might be something made of iron in there. And faintly greasy, as if some of the contents were sweating through the material. Or maybe that was my palm.
“And if I order you to stay?” I asked, after a few moments.
Pritkin didn’t say anything. I looked up but I couldn’t see him very well. He’d leaned forward, out of the sign’s bloody light, and only a little filtered in from the lounge. But when he finally answered, his voice was calm.
“I would stay. And protect you as best I can.”
And possibly get killed in the process, because he didn’t know what he was fighting. It wasn’t said aloud, but it didn’t need to be. I’d felt that thing go after him. I might have been the chief target, but he’d been on the list somewhere, too.
And that wasn’t acceptable.
But neither was the alternative. I hugged my arms around myself and stared out at the night without seeing it. I was seeing another face instead, the cheerful, scruffy, laughing face of another war mage, one who hadn’t come back. One who would never come back.
I didn’t realize Pritkin had moved until he crouched in front of me. Green eyes, almost translucent in the darkness, met mine. “I wouldn’t be going if I didn’t think you would be all right,” he told me. “It is doubtful that this thing will try the same approach again, now that it knows—”
“I’m not worried about me,” I whispered viciously. And as soon as I said it, I knew it was the truth. Apparently, the surefire antidote for your own fear is concern for someone else.
Pritkin looked surprised, the way he always did at the idea that anyone might actually care about him. It made me want to hit him. Of course, right then I wanted to do that anyway.
“Nothing is going to happen,” he repeated. “But even if it did, you don’t need me. You don’t need—”
“That isn’t true!”
“Yes, it is.” He looked at me and his lips quirked. “You can’t fire a gun worth a damn. You hit like a girl. Your knowledge of magic is rudimentary at best. And you act like I’m torturing you if I make you run more than a mile.”
I blinked at him.
“But I’ve known war mages who aren’t as resilient, who aren’t as brave, who aren’t—” he looked away for a moment. And then he looked back at me, green eyes burning. “You’re the strongest person I know. And you will be fine.”
I nodded, because it sounded like an order. And because, all of a sudden, I believed it. And because right then I couldn’t have said anything anyway.
We stayed like that for a moment, until Pritkin stood up, as if something had been decided. And I guess it had.
I got up and walked him to the door.
“You never told me what you’re going to do,” he said, pausing on the threshold.
“About what?”
“The bloody heat.”
The question surprised me, because for a while, I’d forgotten all about it. Like the sweat trickling down my back, and the soap scale drying on my skin.
You’re the strongest person I know.
I looked up at him. “I thought maybe . . . I’d go take a bath.”
Chapter Six
“Ze Fey?” Francoise looked doubtful.
“That’s one theory,” I said, as yet another guy elbowed me in the ribs.
It was the next afternoon. Mircea was in New York, doing important stuff for the Senate. Pritkin was in Faerie, risking his life to find information. And where was I?
I was shopping.
But at least I wasn’t enjoying it.
I glared at the rude guy, but I don’t even think he noticed. I was in baggy jeans and a sweatshirt to cover the bruises, with my green curls in a ragged ponytail. I hadn’t bothered to put on makeup when I got up this morning, so the dark circles under my eyes and the bruise along my cheekbone were perfectly visible.
Of course, on my best day, I couldn’t compete with Francoise, who was tall, dark, lovely and very, very French. And at the moment, she was also almost naked, which explained why I was having a hard time getting close enough to ask her anything.
Francoise had recently taken a job as a sales clerk for the designer she occasionally modeled for. His posh shop was the crown jewel of the hotel’s main drag, mainly because he had refused to go along with the Wild West–meets-hell theme the rest of the place had going on. Augustine was better than that.
But he wasn’t too good to dress his models like strippers to lure in additional customers. Francoise and the three other sylphlike beauties currently on the clock were modeling his latest creation, which as far as I could tell wasn’t a dress at all. It was more like an eighteen-inch-wide satin ribbon—red, in her case—that wrapped aro
und the body and ended in a flourish behind the head.
It was obviously magicked to cover strategic areas, because no matter how much she turned and twisted, getting down items from the shelves behind her for the salivating horde of customers, she never flashed anyone. But the guys were clearly living in hope. And while they did, they bought things from the tacky tourist line Augustine made fun of, but never actually got around to deleting.
I browsed through the T-shirts and found one that showed a frazzled-looking ’toon with bulging eyes. The caption read “There’s too much blood in my caffeine system.” I bought it for Pritkin, knowing he’d probably never wear it, just to see his face.
Assuming I saw his face again. Assuming—
I snatched the shirt off the rack and told myself to stop being an idiot. If ever there was a guy who could take care of himself, he was Pritkin. And he knew Faerie better than most. He’d be fine.
He’d be fine, or I’d kill him.
“When you get a chance, I could use some help,” I told Francoise, as she handed back my credit card.
“Some ’elp?”
“I need to talk to you. And I need a dress.”
She shot me a look. “You ’ave a dress. Or you would, if you evair came for a fitting. Each day you do not, you make him more of a . . .” She waved a hand to indicate an English word that wouldn’t come to her. “Salaud.”
“Asshole?” I guessed.
“Zat, too.”
We were talking about Augustine, and the dress he was supposedly designing for my inauguration. I say “supposedly,” because I’d never seen it. Nor had I been given a sketch, a mock-up or even a description. The ceremony was a little over a week away, and all I’d seen of my outfit so far was a bunch of brown paper, the kind patterns are made of.
Considering my past history with Augustine, it was making me very nervous. I was going to have to stand up in front of the leaders of the magical world with no pedigree, little training and few skills. I couldn’t afford to look crappy, too.
“I’m boycotting until I get some details,” I told her.
“You ’aven’t seen eet?” Francoise looked puzzled.
