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“If you recall, Cassie, you were in the middle of a room full of hungry ghosts. They were bent on devouring every spirit in sight! I couldn’t risk it. Once time started up again, I had to get out of there fast. So I went into the only person I knew of in that time who was near death and might be willing to cut a deal.”
“And did she?” Françoise wasn’t just any old norm: she was a witch, and from one very memorable trick I’d seen her perform, a powerful one. And it looked to me like she was fighting.
Almost as if she’d heard my thoughts, Agnes made another grimace and clutched her stomach. “In a manner of speaking.”
“How did you end up here?” Tomas asked before I could demand something a little less nebulous.
“I’d planned to get back to Cassie before she left that century, once I was in possession of a body to keep the spirits away. But the damn dark mages showed up.”
“They kidnapped you for sale to the Fey,” he reasoned. “And you have been here ever since? But that was centuries ago!”
“Years, actually,” Agnes corrected.
“Time runs differently here,” I reminded him. Marlowe had said it, but I hadn’t realized just how big the difference could be. “You’re saying you’ve been here continually, ever since we left France?”
Agnes nodded, then held up a hand to stop me when I tried to say something else. “If you’ve seen us since, don’t tell me about it. Françoise can hear us, and she doesn’t need to be influenced by knowing what will happen in her future.”
Her future, I thought dizzily, but my past. She’d killed a dark mage at Dante’s a week ago, helping me escape. Or, rather, she was going to kill one. . . . My head was starting to hurt.
“Do you want to get out of here or not?” Agnes demanded.
“Yes, but we’re going to talk later,” I told her. Maybe by then I’d have sorted some of this out and be able to think straight.
“If there is a later,” she said ominously. “Don’t forget the wards—I went to enough trouble to get them for you.” She grabbed the lantern and, in a swirl of skirts, vanished down the hallway. Tomas and I looked at each other, then hurried to follow her, Tomas still pulling on the clothes she’d brought and me stuffing wards into every pocket I could find.
We turned at the end of the hall to ascend a long flight of stairs that was only occasionally lit by low-burning torches. At the end was another thick oak door, but it opened easily at the barest push from Françoise. Pritkin, Billy and Marlowe stood around a large round opening in a wall of rock, beyond which a mass of color shifted in a kaleidoscope of light.
“Is this all of them?” the pixie demanded, barely bothering to glance at us. “The cycle is almost complete.”
Billy looked nervous. “Cass, do you think I’ll keep this body once we go back?”
“We’re going back?”
“As soon as that thing cycles to blue. But we’ll only have about thirty seconds to get through at the right destination. We’re getting off at Dante’s, but the Senate is next on the rotation, so we have to jump quick before it turns red.”
I found it hard to keep up. “Why are we leaving?”
“Because you’re going to retrieve something for me.” A deep baritone echoed off the walls. I slowly realized that what I had taken to be a pillar draped in material was actually the biggest leg I’d ever seen. I looked up, and kept on doing so for a ridiculous length of time. A face as large as a searchlight beamed down at me from the shadowy vastness of the hall. The ceiling had to be thirty feet high, yet he was bent over slightly as if it cramped him. I did a double take, then just stared.
The huge head lowered itself to get a better look at me. Frizzy brown hair obscured much of it, leaving a bulbous nose and blue eyes the size of softballs visible. “So this is the new Pythia.”
“We had to deal with the king,” Billy explained in a low voice. “Our runes are used up until next month. Pritkin tried to caste Hagalaz and it didn’t work—it just got a little colder and we ended up with a puddle of slush. Null bombs are great, but only against magic, and we’re seriously outnumbered here. The Fey don’t need mumbo jumbo to hit us over the head. We need more weapons and some allies or the only thing we’re going to do here is die. Marlowe’s agreed to cough up the weapons from the Senate’s stash when we go back.”
“How generous of him. What’s the catch?”
Marlowe, for once, didn’t have a glib reply. Instead he simply stood there staring at me, looking flabbergasted. Then he slowly sank to one knee. “The Senate is always delighted to aid the Pythia,” he finally said, after several tries.
“She isn’t Pythia,” Pritkin remarked, turning at last to acknowledge my presence. Then he stopped dead, his mouth working but no sound coming out. One hand remained raised halfway through a movement, as if he had simply forgotten to lower it.
“My lady, what shall we call you?” Marlowe asked reverently.
“No!” Pritkin broke out of his trance and stared between me and the kneeling vamp. “This is a trick—it must be!”
I glanced at Tomas, baffled. “What’s going on?”
He smiled slightly. “Your aura has changed.”
I tried to see for myself, but I couldn’t concentrate well enough and just ended up cross-eyed. “What does it look like?”
