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“Don’t lecture me about the timeline!” she snapped.
“Who are you talking to?” Pritkin demanded.
I sighed. For a moment, I’d forgotten. Agnes was a spirit, so he couldn’t see or hear her any better than he could Billy. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.” He wiped away the blood pouring from a cut above his right eyebrow, I suppose to get it out of his eyes, but all it did was smear it. He suddenly looked like he was wearing war paint. I decided not to argue.
“Okay. Agnes is here in spirit form, and she’s planning to avenge her own murder. Do you understand anything better now?”
“Yes.” He immediately dropped to one knee. “Lady Phemonoe, it is an honor as always.” I scowled at him. Way to show me where I ranked.
Agnes barely glanced at him. She sent me a smile, but it wasn’t a very nice one. “Myra took away my life. The way I see it, she owes me one.”
Finally, something made sense. “Is that the deal you struck with Françoise? To get you to this point so you could take over Myra’s body instead?” I narrowed my eyes. “Or did you? Was she willing or not?”
“She would never have gotten away from the Light Fey without my help,” Agnes replied, avoiding the question. “She probably wouldn’t even have survived! My experience kept us both alive. I think she owed me a few years for that!”
“That wasn’t your call!”
“And speaking of debts, who do you think sent those wards to your rescue earlier? Your ghost didn’t know how they worked. I’m the one who saved you. Again.” She looked at me pointedly. “So let her out!”
I clutched the box to my side. I could feel a tiny pulse throbbing at the base of my throat. “What if you can’t control her? You were supposed to pass into a norm, not someone like her. Françoise even made things hard on you sometimes. What do you think a Seer of Myra’s power would do?”
"That’s my problem.”
“Not if she gets away from you!” I pulled out the box and shook it at her. “Do you have any idea what I went through to get this? Myra was trying to kill Mircea so he wouldn’t be around to protect me. And she almost disrupted the entire timeline to do it! She almost killed me! And you’re telling me it’s not my problem?” I was yelling, but I didn’t care.
“Let her go, Cassie,” Agnes warned.
“Or what? You’ll do to me what you did to Françoise?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I couldn’t hold you.”
“But you can control Myra?” I shook my head. “I don’t think so. She’s dangerous, Agnes. I got her in here because of luck, more than anything else. No way am I letting her go.”
Agnes sighed. “You don’t understand—” She broke off when Pritkin suddenly ripped the box out of my hand.
“Pritkin, no!” I made a grab for it, but before I got so much as a finger on it, there was a familiar flash and there stood Myra.
Agnes didn’t waste any time. As soon as her old apprentice appeared, she flowed past me in a rush and slammed straight into Myra’s shields. They spit and crackled as the two fought, Myra to keep her out, Agnes to find a way in.
“Do you know what you’ve done?” I asked Pritkin numbly. “She won’t hold her. Not forever.”
“She won’t need to,” he replied, watching the fight grimly.
Before I could ask what he meant, Myra screamed and Agnes disappeared, sinking through whatever chink she’d found in the girl’s armor. The slight body shivered once, hard, and then looked up calmly. I suddenly realized that, except for their hair color and minor facial differences, the two women might have been twins. They had the same slight build and delicate bone structure, the same little-girl quality about them. But the eyes that had looked cold and opaque with Myra’s mind behind them were now dancing with life.
“I did it!” Agnes announced, as if that was something to celebrate. She smiled at me. I didn’t smile back. All that work, all that sacrifice had been for nothing. Agnes might be powerful, but it wasn’t her body. Sooner or later, she would lose her grip, even if only for an instant. And that would be enough.
“You’re crazy,” I told her.
Pritkin started toward her, but Agnes held up a hand. “You don’t have the right,” she said simply.
His eyes cut to me and narrowed. “She won’t.”
“She must,” Agnes said calmly. “You swore an oath.”
Pritkin walked over and knelt by my side. I felt something cold touch my skin and looked down to find him pressing one of his knives into my hand. “Make it quick,” he said grimly. “One slice, clean across the jugular.”
